- The decision
- Would customer satisfaction with an acquisition target's research instruments translate into the repeat purchases and revenue growth the seller was forecasting?
- What made it hard
- Satisfaction looked excellent, but satisfaction is not repurchase intent. The user base was small and difficult to reach, and competitors were moving toward integrated, data-connected platforms that could reshape customer requirements.
- Our approach
- We sourced potential interviewees and led structured voice-of-customer interviews with scientists in academic, government and industry settings across several countries, testing product fit, purchasing decisions and unmet needs. We benchmarked the target's technology against competitors investing in integrated instruments and data platforms.
- What leadership gained
- The main risk in the seller's growth case, exposed before the acquisition decision: nearly every user would recommend the product, yet fewer than half expected to buy again, while the seller's forecast assumed nearly all of them would. Leadership also gained a validated estimate of $5 million to $7 million a year in recurring consumables revenue from the installed base, and an estimated $10 million to $17 million growth opportunity in an adjacent application.
Services
Partnership and Collaboration Decisions
Talon Group Consulting helps life science leaders make sound partnership and innovation choices. We help clients decide whether and how to partner, define the criteria for judging digital health, technology, data, and service partners, assess the candidates they are considering, and set out what must be true for each initiative to create value. The aim is a partnership decision that fits the strategy before commitments are made.
Common pressures
What leaders tell us they are facing
- Too many potential partners and no agreed way to compare them
- Uncertainty about whether to build, buy, or partner, and on what model
- No clear test of what a pilot must prove before further investment
- Integration, compliance, and risk costs that are hard to see before a partner is chosen
- Innovation initiatives that drift from the strategy they were meant to serve
- Adoption risk that weakens the case for a new partnership or platform
What you receive
Outputs built for the decision
Each output is an input to the decision in front of you, not a standalone report.
Build, buy or partner assessment
A clear comparison of the realistic routes to a capability, judged against the strategy it has to serve.
Partner evaluation criteria
The criteria for judging the candidates you are considering, agreed before the shortlist is debated.
Pilot success criteria
What a pilot must prove, and by when, before it earns further investment or scale.
Partnership recommendation
Whether and how to proceed, on what model, and the conditions that must hold for value to be created.
Client success
Stress-Testing a Growth Case Before an Acquisition
Global life science tools company, Corporate Development
Other services
01
Growth and Portfolio Decisions
For decisions about which markets, indications, and launches to fund. Talon Group Consulting tests the opportunity and its assumptions, and whether digital and AI belong in the plan.
02Operating Model and Investment Priorities
For decisions about how functions are organized and governed, and which investments the strategy depends on. Talon Group Consulting sets out what to fund, stop, or sequence, and in what order.
Facing a consequential strategy decision?
Bring the decision in front of you. We will help you frame it, test it and decide where technology belongs in the answer.