What makes a successful CRO?

SARomics Biostructures is a contract research organization (CRO) that offers structural biology and drug discovery services to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. Recently, we discussed the key factors that contribute to a successful services company, particularly focusing on the client’s journey. This discussion involved valuable insights from Givi Kokaia (Kunskapspartner) and Kajsa Nordström (Digital Scorecard) regarding the company’s digital marketing strategy.

In addressing the question of what makes a successful services company, we highlighted the importance of analyzing the client’s journey through the “sales funnel.” The journey begins with the client becoming aware of the vendor’s presence, usually through a web search or social network exploration. Subsequently, the potential client engages with the vendor’s website by studying its content, reading blog articles, downloading resources, and watching videos. This information gathering helps the client evaluate and compare different vendors, ultimately leading to contacting some of them and becoming “leads” for the target company. Throughout this process, the target company’s goal is to differentiate itself from competitors, showcase its strengths, and present an attractive proposition to aid the client in making an informed decision.

We evaluated SARomics’ strengths and primary selling points in several ways. One of the most notable factors is our prompt responses to inquiries and our ability to complete projects within realistic timelines. Another crucial aspect is that our leads are matched with experienced professionals from the very beginning, rather than just salespeople. Our team possesses extensive professional expertise, with the majority holding Ph.D. degrees, and we have years of experience working on numerous structure-based drug discovery projects, contributing over 500 entries to the Protein Data Bank (PDB). This wealth of experience has allowed us to better understand our customers’ needs, tailor our business proposals accordingly, and ensure high-quality services. This level of expertise would be difficult to find at a single biotech or pharmaceutical company, which typically handles a limited number of projects.

Our commitment to service quality and our service-oriented staff have helped us establish credibility and trust, leading to long-term relationships with customers who repeatedly return with new projects. This reflects their satisfaction and is a key element of our success. Additionally, our satisfied customers often recommend our services to other companies, resulting in more business for us. All of these factors contribute to the development of a strong brand identity. The strength of our brand is also evident in the quality of the projects we undertake, with many of them being published in top scientific journals such as Cell, Nature, and PNAS.

Another essential selling point is the variety of experimental methods we offer on our technology platform. Thanks to this, we can handle all aspects of structural biology services at competitive prices. Our offering also includes the proprietary fragment screening technology based on Weak Affinity Chromatography (WAC), which we and our partner, Red Glead Discovery, own. This is an example of a “unique selling point”.

Location is also often mentioned as a selling point. Our labs are located at Medicon Village, a vibrant life science cluster just a couple of kilometers from the MAX IV synchrotron, one of the best synchrotrons in the world!
Summarizing the above, we can list our selling points:

When starting a business, we don’t know much about all the practical aspects required for success. Building a solid brand identity and generating a convincing list of selling points takes time. On our way up, we learn what is essential, what we need to focus on, what to improve, and what main principles and values are required for building a solid brand. An essential factor is always being open-minded – there are many successful examples from which we can learn a lot! If you read this post and have a service or a product on the market, it is always worth defining your selling points.
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