Feature Article

Clockwise: Stuart Herskovitz, President; Scott Herskovitz, Vice President Marketing; Hui Herskovitz, Vice President Business Development-Asia; and Janis Herskovitz, Treasurer.

In the past 30 years, medical component supplier Qosina (Edgewood, New York, USA) has grown from the proverbial garage startup to a global company with a 92,000-sq-ft facility. Its stock inventory has expanded from eight to 6000 parts and its catalogue from a four-page flyer to a 736-page tome. It has been recognised five times as one of the fastest growing privately held US companies by Inc. magazine. The secret to Qosina’s success can be found in the vision of a Columbia Business School graduate who applied a concept he learned at university to the medical device industry.

In 1980, Stuart Herskovitz, the founder and owner of Qosina, was the Senior Vice President of corporate development for a medical device manufacturer when he noticed that one of the company’s biggest expenses was new components. When the company needed a component, it would spend as much as US$100,000 to build prototype and production tooling. After the component was made, the tooling would sit idle for months.

“Business school taught me to see a need and fill it. My idea was to take the components for which we owned the tools and sell them to other companies, offering them speed to market and no tooling investment,” Herskovitz says. Herskovitz’s employer was not interested, so he started his own business with one employee, eight components and a home office in his bedroom.

“For the next few years, he struggled to get the name out there. Eventually, he established a track record and people trusted him,” says Scott Herskovitz, Vice President of Marketing at Qosina and the son of Stuart Herskovitz. “The secret to our success, in part, is that that we have earned people’s trust and that they want to continue to do business with us.”

A one-stop shop
Qosina established itself as an elite company by applying the principles of superior customer service, reliability and variety at every link in the customer relationship. For example, people phoning the company always are greeted by a receptionist rather than an automated system. Message: your call really is important to Qosina. That dedication to customer service carries through to custom modifications of components, the sourcing of custom parts, reliable just-in-time kanban deliveries and a huge inventory available for same-day shipments.

Qosina's 736-page catalogue is free and can be ordered on Qosina's website.

While other companies sell components, most of them sell excess components from their own mould or offer only a small selection, says Stuart Herskovitz.

“Designers can find everything they need in one place. We’ll ship a hundred different components. We make it easy for our customers to develop their products,” Stuart Herskovitz says.

Product samples and a complimentary catalogue can be requested on Qosina’s website. Qosina can offer competitive rates to Europe and other locations because of its large inventory. It is certified to ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and has a Class 100,000 (ISO Class 5) cleanroom on site.

With an annual growth rate of about 10% a year, Qosina continues to expand its catalogue.

“In the next few years, we plan to have more products, a bigger catalogue and more suppliers, so that customers can continue to consolidate multiple purchases from other vendors into one cost-effective Qosina purchase order,” says Stuart Herskovitz.

Qosina
Edgewood, New York, USA
www.qosina.com