Dec 04

Conquest Imaging’s Success Builds
by Filling Quality ISO Void in Western States
Q & A by Julie E. Williamson

For more information about Conquest Imaging or the products and services they offer, please call 1.866.900.9404 or visit www.conquestimaging.com.

During Mark Conrad’s 15-year tenure in the Acuson service organization, where he provided field service to customers throughout California, it became clear that a void existed in the availability of quality third party independent service organizations in Northern California, Arizona and Nevada. His participation in a select team of Field Service Engineers, who traveled across the U.S. and Canada to upgrade networks for Y2K compliance, further solidified that assumption. As a result of that discovery, Conrad chose to establish a company of his own to better meet customer needs. In October 2000, Conquest Imaging was founded, and since then it has become one of the largest suppliers of ultrasound parts in the United States. Just four years since its inception, Conquest Imaging has a staff with more than 100 years combined experience in the ultrasound industry, ensuring a quality team dedicated to providing fast, knowledgeable, and efficient service. Conquest Imaging’s training, which now includes DICOM networking, can also be credited for the company’s successful growth, and a new state-of-the-art in-house repair facility (which spans more than 10,000 square feet) has been added to meet growing customer demands and accommodate Conquest Imaging’s many different product lines. Conquest Imaging is now the number one choice for ultrasound sales, service, repairs and training. Here Mark Conrad, President of Conquest Imaging, offers insight into the exciting future of ultrasound, what it takes to succeed in the ultrasound equipment business and his company’s current and long-range goals.

Q: Why do you believe there was a lack of quality third party service organizations in Northern California?

A: For one thing, it’s very expensive to live here, so to bring good people in—even when I
was with the manufacturer—was difficult. In terms of salary, the manufacturers never differentiated between living in California and living in, say, Ohio. That obviously made it difficult to entice people to move here. Even to this day, when we bring in field service engineers, they are usually homegrown.

Q: Nationwide, there is a lot of opportunity for third party service organizations involved in the ultrasound business. Why have you decided to concentrate on the West Coast market?

A: Aside from filling the void on the West Coast, I believe it’s also absolutely critical we are regionalized from a service standpoint. I find it gives you better control over your service personnel when you don’t have to deal with the geographic shifts and time changes. The needs on the East Coast and West Coast are basically the same, but there’s a whole different mindset between those on the West Coast and other regions of the country. Cost of living and type of environment both play into it.

Q: How is Conquest Imaging different from the competition?

A: The crux of our business is parts replacement. Of course, we provide quality service—we have seven employees in the service organization covering Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and California. From a service standpoint, we supply our field service engineers with all their replacement parts for all the different manufacturers’ product lines. A lot of people out there are just brokers; they don’t have test beds or actually repair anything. They are in the business of sourcing, so when a hospital or clinic calls one of these companies, the broker goes out and contacts companies like ours who have the test beds and the inventory. Our service engineers are getting what we believe is a quality tested replacement part. If we didn’t have a parts inventory, we would have to shop for those parts and count on someone else’s quality controls or quality assurance to make sure our field service engineer is getting something that has been tested and meets the manufacturer’s specifications. The same is true from a standpoint of selling parts or systems. We can back up our systems sales because we have service engineers in the field, and we have a revolving inventory of systems and parts we repair.

Q: How is evolving technology impacting the third party ultrasound business?

A: Every year, or at least every other year, manufacturers are putting out new products. It’s an ever-daunting task to make sure we are trained on that product, and understand how to repair it, so we can supply replacement parts. It’s a double-edged sword: when new equipment is introduced into the marketplace from the manufacturer, we have to somehow get the training so we can educate our field service engineers, and then get the basic understanding of how the equipment runs. On the other hand, when a manufacturer introduces a new piece of equipment into the marketplace, there are often a lot of software bugs and glitches that inhibit the performance of the equipment when it’s brand new. We generally don’t see a new piece of equipment—or have an interest in purchasing it—until it’s been in the market a couple of years. There are so many changes made in the introductory stages for the first 12 to 24 months. I believe this is another reason why it’s important to stick with what you know best. We know ultrasound. One area that has really worked well for us is training. We have actually been training manufacturers’ field service engineers on how to work on all the different manufacturers’ equipment. This is important because some of these manufacturers, like GE, do multi-vendor service, so they need to find a source that can help train their field service engineers to repair this equipment. We’re quite proud of the fact that a manufacturer—someone as big as General Electric or Philips—will come to us to train their field service engineers. We’ve been offering this for about three years, and it’s been a big coup for us.

Q: Where do you envision the ultrasound equipment sector in the next five years?

A: I think we’ll see a lot of growth in the 3-D and 4-D markets. The 2-D market has already compressed itself to the point where we don’t know if it’ll go any further. The 3-D and 4-D market is really where I see this business going. The future looks very exciting.

Q: What are your future goals and plans for Conquest Imaging?

A: From an independent standpoint, I see Conquest Imaging as the largest provider of replacement parts in the world. Our service is growing about 30% a year and our training is growing about 15% a year. We will keep dedicating our resources appropriately, so we can continue to have our people trained on the newer equipment as it comes into the marketplace, and so we can continue to train field service engineers and biomedical engineers at hospitals. There is a huge cost savings to hospitals by doing this. They don’t have to call on the manufacturer. They can do a lot of the low-level repairs themselves and buy replacement parts at 30-40% savings over the manufacturer. We will also continue to grow in terms of staff. We currently have 27 employees, and we are constantly interviewing technical support people, repair people, training folks and administrative personnel to help support our growth. We envision about 50 people on staff within the next 18 months. It’s a great feeling to be able to hire and promote job security within the community. It’s also a great feeling to be able to offer assistance in the way of equipment. We have donated a significant amount of used equipment to pregnancy crisis centers across the United States and overseas. There’s a tremendous amount of satisfaction in that.