Oticon
Finding an Internal Sales person for Oticon's Hamilton facility — a candidate with healthcare sector affinity and a proactive commercial approach to managing audiologist accounts across the UK.
Client Overview
Oticon is a Danish hearing aid manufacturer and one of the world's leading brands in audiological technology. In the UK, Oticon operates a manufacturing and distribution facility in Hamilton, Scotland, from which it supplies hearing aids and related products to audiologists, dispensing practices, NHS hearing services and private healthcare providers across the country. The internal sales function at Hamilton manages ongoing account relationships with audiologists and dispensing professionals, supporting them with product selection, ordering and clinical queries while proactively identifying opportunities to develop the range of Oticon products used within each practice.
The Brief
Oticon needed an Internal Sales person based at the Hamilton facility to manage existing audiologist and dispensing practice accounts across the UK, handling inbound enquiries, supporting product selection and proactively contacting the account base to develop usage of a wider range of Oticon products. The role required someone comfortable working within a healthcare environment and capable of building genuine professional relationships with audiologists — who are clinically trained professionals with specific expectations of the suppliers who serve them.
The Challenge
The role required a candidate with both sales capability and a genuine affinity and understanding of how the audiology and hearing healthcare market works. Audiologists are clinical professionals and they respond to suppliers who engage with them on a professional, informed basis rather than with a generic sales approach. Candidates with strong internal sales skills but no healthcare or audiology background would lack the credibility to build the right quality of relationships. Equally, candidates with healthcare backgrounds but a passive rather than proactive commercial approach would not deliver the business development the role required. Finding the intersection of healthcare sector affinity and genuine commercial drive required looking carefully at the right candidate profile.
What Sales Recruit UK Did
Sales Recruit UK targeted candidates from the wider healthcare sales and account management market — medical devices, pharmaceutical support, healthcare equipment and hearing industry adjacents — who combined commercial competence with a demonstrable affinity for working in clinical or healthcare environments. The SRUK Fit Score process assessed candidates across healthcare sector understanding, internal account management capability, proactive business development approach and the personal profile needed to build credibility with clinical professionals.
The Outcome
Oticon appointed an Internal Sales person who brought the right combination of healthcare sector affinity and commercial drive. The role was filled successfully, providing the Hamilton operation with a commercially focused account management resource capable of both maintaining existing audiologist relationships and developing additional product usage across the account base.