By Lori Sichtermann

An Interview With Rob Bush, President and Co-Founder, and Curt Johnson, VP of Sales and Marketing

The word “software” typically does not bring to mind images of farmland and family togetherness. However, Orchard Software, which was founded in 1993, supplies laboratory information systems to clinical laboratories and hospitals from its headquarters in Carmel, Ind. Situated in the heart of the Hoosier State, the company’s Midwestern mentality lends itself to hard work and hospitality—two qualities that have enabled the company to grow faster than corn in July.

Rob Bush

Curt Johnson

Clinical Lab Products recently spoke with Orchard’s Rob Bush, president and cofounder and Curt Johnson, VP of sales and marketing about the continuing role the company plays in the daily activities of its customers and the importance of being patient when business is blooming.

CLP: What’s the story behind the company’s name and the farming connotations in its product names?

Curt Johnson: In the beginning, the name Orchard Software had nothing to do with farming. Orchard is the name of the elementary school where the president’s kids went. When we were trying to get the company incorporated, the names we chose had already been taken. That day, the company president was wearing an Orchard sweatshirt from his kids’ school, so he named the company Orchard Software.

We’re located in the farming state of Indiana and we didn’t want to be confused with those companies in the Silicon Valley or other software companies. Therefore we relate our company image more to the Midwest than a flashy company on the West coast.

CLP: What kinds of products or services does Orchard provide to the clinical lab market?

Johnson: We provide laboratory information systems for medium and large clinics and small- to medium-size hospitals that have less than 300 beds. Unlike most LIS companies out there, we are growing into the larger markets.

When we started out in the physician office lab market, we didn’t have all the modules and all the pieces you need to handle a 1,000-bed hospital. We didn’t have a blood-bank module or an AP module. We didn’t even have a microbiology module because you just didn’t need those items when working in smaller clinics. But, over time, we grew into the market of larger multi-specialty clinics in small hospitals.

The differences between a large hospital and a clinic are substantial, but the differences between a big clinic and a small rural hospital are less obvious. A 100-doctor clinic in Indianapolis has needs similar to a hospital in a small town such as Auburn, Ind. Our clinical experience made it easier for us to migrate into the small hospital, much like the one in Auburn. Once we were in the small hospitals, we started to develop and make changes in the hospital market that took us to bigger hospitals. Every year we get into bigger and bigger accounts.

CLP: Does Orchard have any new products soon to be released to the market?

Johnson: In our case, we don’t necessarily have new products, we add new enhancements and new modules to existing LIS. Every year we introduce new versions of our software. Orchard usually has one or two major upgrades a year. Next year we’re putting in additional modules designed to allow us to move into even larger hospitals. We’ll enhance our printing capabilities for different needs and adding modules to meet the needs of pathologists in hospitals.

CLP: How does Orchard market its products?

Johnson: Over the past several years, we have really used the farming connotation of the Orchard name to our advantage. Before 2002, we were being ranked as having the best, user-friendly, feature-rich LIS, but we were also finding that people hadn’t heard of Orchard. That year we hired a new marketing director and that’s when we made a more concentrated effort to get the Orchard name out there.

We do a lot of advertising and direct mail utilizing the Midwestern farm theme. We send businesses squeezy apples with our company logo printed on them, and when we go to trade shows, our booth looks like an apple orchard.

CLP: What makes Orchard stand out from its competitors?

Rob Bush: Product and service. It all starts with the relationship we’ve established with our customers. They drive the continuous development of our software, helping us keep it up to date and easy to use.

Johnson: We listen to our customers better than other companies in the industry. For example, our last upgrade included more than 600 additions to the product—90% of those upgrades came to us as suggestions from current users.

Orchard is known for being close to its customers, in terms of our service and support, which has given us the reputation of being a family company. Our image of being a wholesome company from Indiana is not just a marketing tool. The personalities of our employees, and the kinds of services we provide to our customers are representative of our Midwestern mentality. We take pride in what we do, and we take care of our customers. We were ranked as the number one vendor by 85% of the people who responded to the last KLAS survey. (KLAS is an organization that surveys the performance of health care companies.) Of our 450 customers, 100% ranked us number one or number two in the survey.

To us, communication is key. We’ve gone out of our way to facilitate communication between the company and our customers. We have an online users group where customers are able to communicate with the company and other users on a regular basis. We have more than 450 customers in the US and more than 200 of them take part in the users group.

Also, our Web site has a customer-only section, where customers can make requests for modifications. Visitors to the site are assigned a tracking number so that they can track exactly what the progress of their request is. Additionally, we have an in-house sales force that contacts our current customers to make sure there are no changes to their needs or to their systems. We also have a 24/7 service support center that’s ranked number one in the industry by KLAS.

We also offer advanced user training to our customers. Eight times a year we host a week-long training course in Indiana where customers are trained using all the upgrades in our latest system. We do this because a number of customers may buy the newest system without knowing about all its bells and whistles. Customers will have the newest version of the software, but they will use it the way they used the previous version because they are not aware of the new features.

If we’re going to put in the time to listen to customer suggestions and apply them to the new software, then we’re going to make sure customers know what they’re working with and how the newest versions will benefit them.

Customers who take part in the course also get the chance to talk to other customers in the class and bounce ideas off one another. This whole process helps keep the family atmosphere going.

CLP: What difficult issues does the company face, and what is being done to overcome these changes?

Bush: Maintaining the close relationship we have with our customers is an important aspect of managing Orchard’s growth. Our growth and the relationship with our customers go hand-in-hand. You can’t have one without the other.

Johnson: Our biggest fear is that as we grow we could lose the family atmosphere, not only within Orchard, but with our customers. We don’t want to grow so fast that we can’t continue to meet our customer’s needs.

There is a vacuum right now in the LIS industry in the mid-market (100- to 300-bed hospital market) that Orchard is filling. We get calls from large reference labs that want us to do their LIS, but we have to say “no, you’re too big for us.” Those types of facilities see more than 20,000 patients per day, and we’re simply not in the position to handle that yet. If we took on these larger facilities, it would tax our resources beyond what we are able to give.

Right now, we’re focusing on the midsize hospitals and the big clinics—we’ll grow when we’re ready to grow. Sometime next year we’ll be ready to take on the 400-bed hospitals. We stretch ourselves in little bits so that we can satisfy everybody.

CLP: Where does Orchard plan to be in 5 years?

Bush: In short, our goal is to serve our market by having the best lab information system available. It is an organic process as our software is always changing to meet the challenges of the clinical laboratory.

Johnson: We also want to continue our steady growth and maintain the high level of customer satisfaction that we have so that when a large facility asks us to do their LIS we can say yes.

CLP: Any final thoughts?

Bush: Orchard Software is focused on making life easier in the lab, and our commitment is to provide an information system with a full set of features and the quality people to support it.

Lori Sichtermann is associate editor of Clinical Lab Products.