18 Aug Welcoming Andrew Sangster to the Ortho Consulting Group Team
Andrew Sangster joined the Ortho Consulting Group (OCG) team, as a Product Specialist in March 2020, and within three months he was promoted to Product Manager.
Joining the company at a difficult time where the only interaction was virtually for the first eight weeks, Andrew still managed to slot perfectly into the team and got stuck in with his new role. Now Andrew has been working with us for nearly six months; we thought this would be the perfect time to introduce Andrew and ask him how he has found the role so far.
“My time at Ortho Consulting Group has been excellent so far. The role has provided lots of varied responsibilities and continues to evolve as the overall success of OCG continues to progress. I have thoroughly enjoyed everything I have taken on and look forward to all that is to come.”
University experience…
When I left school, I studied Sports Engineering at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. The Sports Engineering course is a variant of Product Design Engineering that combines a wide range of disciplines from traditional design and engineering classes to other subjects like biomechanics and innovation management. I really enjoyed the diversity of subjects that I covered at university as they shaped my expertise in taking an idea from a discussion or a sketch through the various processes to become successful products in their market. I graduated with a Master’s Degree in Engineering in June 2018.
Favourite aspects of the course…
I especially enjoy coming up with a variety of concepts and then validating them. As a lot of my designs were based around improving or measuring sporting performance, it was particularly exciting to test a prototype with athletes to observe if the design truly worked. As you can imagine, more often than not, the prototype would fail. However, the feeling of finally arriving at a successful design after numerous failed attempts is what makes working in design so worthwhile. I realised during my time at university that I had a strength in delivering product presentations, as I love sharing my enthusiasm for good designs. This has particularly suited me to my new role in Ortho Consulting Group.
Work Experience…
Throughout my time at university worked part-time at a local bike shop in Glasgow, the bike shop was a small family run business, which meant that I got involved in many different aspects of the business. I started there making tea and quickly started fixing bikes, running stock takes, web designing, as well as being a sales advisor.
In January 2019, I landed what I thought would be my dream job, at a market-leading company working with sports performance tracking technologies. The role included extensive travel which provided me with great opportunities at the start of my career. To take this job, I moved down south from Glasgow to Hampshire.
I then moved on to a role as Business Manager at an aesthetics clinic on Harley Street, London. I knew the medical director personally before joining, and therefore, it was enjoyable taking on the responsibility of running her business so that she could focus on client cases and research. Since the clinic was another small business, I gained lots of experience in running the clinic, organising training events, negotiating research contracts, managing employees and recruiting staff. Even though it was a great privilege to be working on one of the most famous medical streets in the world, I realised that I wanted to get back to a product-related role which would utilise more of my expertise gained at university.
Andrews time at Ortho Consulting Group so far…
What projects have you been involved in?
Since joining OCG, I have been working with our spine clients, this has allowed me to focus my time on learning and reading about the spine market.
I work closely with the CEO’s and surgeons of our clients to help them with the continued success of their products. The support I have been providing for our clients has been varied, so far, I have coordinated many marketing materials for our client to share with distributors and surgeons. I have created a surgical technique PDF’s, which I have had translated into various languages. I also produced a demonstration video. This was particularly interesting as I ended up as the demonstrator being filmed showing how the products works, this required me to be dressed in scrubs to keep the clinical feel. Finally, I worked on an App which houses all key product information, updates on our client’s product with surgeon feedback pathways so that they can share experiences after surgeries. I have also taken over webinar training sessions to potential distribution partners for our client.
The most recent task I have completed was helping source demo kits, I managed to source some new kits which were more cost-effective without sacrificing on the quality.
Currently, I am working on getting IFU materials translated into Greek.
What have you been enjoying the most?
I have enjoyed being part of the Ortho Consulting Group team. All of my colleagues have made me feel very welcome and have provided me with excellent support in my role so that I could progress with my work quickly since I joined. It’s been extremely valuable getting to work with people who have lots of experience within the industry as they have been a great tool to use as I learn more about medical devices, orthopaedics and spine.
For the role itself, I love getting hands-on with client’s products and information so that I can build as much knowledge of the product and product market as possible. Working with the marketing team to produce materials for distributors has also been very satisfying as I like seeing high-quality physical results of our efforts.
What’s coming up?
I am due to travel to Switzerland in August, which will be my first visit to one of our distribution partners. I am looking forward to having my first face-to-face training with their salesforce and selected KOL’s.
As a side project during my usual work, I have been investigating the opportunity to provide a design service through Ortho Consulting Group. With my knowledge of product design, partnered with my increasing understanding of current orthopaedic products and surgeon interactions, there is potential to work with surgeons to develop and bring new products to market.
I have also been investigating and researching new products which have been presented to Ortho Consulting Group. It is an interesting process understanding what is possible with the excellent products which are shown to us. The design service offering will only compliment the work that we currently do in evaluating products to understand which we can take on.