Winner of the 2010 Most Promising New Business Award
Synergy Health (Suzhou) Co. Limited
“We operate two businesses–an industrial sterilisation business servicing medical device companies, and a hospital sterile services business,” explains David Townsend, general manager of Synergy Health. “The latter is the first such operation in China, where the Ministry of Health recently upgraded sterility standards for hospitals and surgical instruments.” That legislation opened the door for Synergy to assist Chinese hospitals in upgrading the quality of their surgical procedures, as well as improve space utilization and reduce the need to invest in expensive equipment. “Through our community clinics project we will be able to ensure that even smaller, more rural clinics can also benefit from our service, thus helping reduce infection rates in areas which historically were not able to afford to do so,” adds Townsend. In China, the task for the UK-listed company has actually been to create a market. “We’ve tried to seek solutions to problems that weren’t considered problems before,” says Townsend. Thus far, the factors are lining up in their favour.
“Winning the Most Promising Business Award at the BBA in 2010 was a great honour and was rewarding both for the company and for me personally. As a new company in China we had been through a difficult start up period and winning the award was a great endorsement of our China strategy and helped to boost the morale and motivation of our leadership team. We also got some nice media coverage and our customers are always impressed when I talk about the award and show them photos of the ceremony and Prince Andrew speaking. One of our US customers even asked me if they could be invited to the event next time! On a personal level, it was great to have the opportunity to share our business concept and plan with other experienced China business professionals and I felt a real sense of pride and accomplishment when I think back about the challenges we faced and the great endorsement we got by winning. All in all – we are very proud to have participated in the BBA and to have won an award!”
David Townsend, General Manager
