Stories

Feb. 25, 2025

Series｜Service & Support vol.1

The Backbone of Our Global Leadership: How Sysmex Brings Value to Medical Institutions with Service and Support

In vitro diagnostics supports the entire medical decision-making process, from diagnosis to treatment planning. The clinical laboratories that conduct these tests in hospitals play a key role in the healthcare infrastructure. They are expected to deliver timely and accurate results, while also striving to improve operational efficiency. In this context, service and support play a critical role in maintaining testing quality and ensuring the efficient, stable operation of clinical laboratories.

In volume 1 of this series, we explore the value Sysmex brings to the medical field and uncover why it is trusted by medical institutions worldwide through an interview with the Global Heads of service and support.

What If There Were No Service and Support?

Service and support include technical services, which ensure the stable operation of testing instruments through maintenance or repair service, and application support, which offers expertise for accurately interpreting test results and maximizing their use in diagnosis and medical treatment. These two activities play a vital role in fostering trust in diagnostics within healthcare settings.

Without a sufficient service and support system, a malfunctioning testing instrument could delay test results, which in turn would delay diagnosis and treatment, potentially worsening the patient's condition. Furthermore, without sufficient decision-making tools, including accurate test results and up-to-date medical insights, patients may be at risk of not receiving proper diagnoses or treatments. It is no exaggeration to say that high-quality, comprehensive service and support are the foundation of today’s healthcare and essential for supporting people’s health.

Why Sysmex’s Service and Support Are Trusted by Medical Institutions Worldwide

Left: Tomoo Yamada, Vice President of Technical Service, Global Management Division
Right: Michiko Yoshimoto, Vice President of Application Support, Global Management Division

What Are the Essential Service and Support We Provide in Medical Settings?

Yamada: Downtime caused by instrument failure directly leads to delays in diagnosis and treatment. As such, it is of the utmost importance that testing never stops. However, providing high-performance testing instruments and a stable supply of reagents is not enough to fulfill this mission. Our technical service activities, which include maintenance and repairs, play a crucial role in ensuring the stable operation and quality of our testing instruments, which are used in over 190 countries and regions worldwide.

Yoshimoto: The clinical environment is constantly evolving. In addition to managing their busy daily tasks, laboratory technicians must also stay up to date with the latest information and diagnostic guidelines to accurately interpret test results. Our application support activities help create an environment where technicians can focus on interpreting results and reporting them to doctors by offering academic information backed by our extensive knowledge and expertise.

Achieving Customer Satisfaction with Both Direct and Remote Support

Yamada: Since our founding, we have prioritized maintaining direct connections with customers at medical institutions while expanding our global network for direct sales and services. To ensure rapid recovery of testing instruments in the event of a malfunction, we have over 2,000 service and support personnel stationed across 62 locations worldwide.¹ With one of the most robust systems in the industry, we deliver fast, high-quality service.
In addition to direct services, we are also focusing on remote services powered by digital technology. We have implemented a proactive service model that detects and resolves potential problems in advance, rather than reacting to issues after they arise. For example, we pioneered the implementation of network solutions in the industry that connect testing instruments to the internet, enabling remote monitoring and preventive maintenance. This approach also allows us to quickly assess instrument status and maintain stable operation, even during emergencies such as natural disasters.

As a result, our key service quality metrics, such as the stable operating period of testing instruments (the period between failures) and average downtime, are consistently maintained at high levels, leading to high trust and customer satisfaction. (In the U.S., we have been ranked No.1 in Overall Service Performance for 18 consecutive years in the hematology system manufacturer category,² and in China, we received the highest excellence award in the 2024 China Medical Device Industry Data Survey.)

1 The number of sales and service sites and personnel as of the end of March 2024
2 As of February 2025, based on the IMV ServiceTrak™ survey

Our Commitment to Providing a Greater Sense of “anshin”

Yoshimoto: We have been committed to instilling “anshin”, a greater sense of security, to all stakeholders, with a focus on the accuracy of test results and their clinical value, from the outset of our establishment. We were among the first to introduce quality assessment³ in the domestic hematology field, developing standard materials to ensure the proper functioning of testing instruments and reagents. Additionally, we were pioneers in launching services that collect quality control measurement results via network systems to provide data support to our customers.

Hematology, in which we hold the world’s top market share, plays a fundamental role in disease screening. Despite daily quality assessment, unexpected test results may arise due to patient-specific factors. In such cases, we ensure the reliability of test results by providing prompt support and working closely with the customer to identify the cause and interpret the data.

3 A quality management method using dedicated samples (standard materials, etc.) for daily checks in the laboratory and regular evaluations by external organizations to ensure the proper functioning of instruments and reagents.

Turning Information from Medical Institutions into New Value for Our Customers

Yamada: As we expand our business in the growing healthcare market, securing and developing talent to manage services has become an emerging challenge.
To maintain the quality and speed of our services, we have built a global platform to share digital information assets, such as service data from around the world and logs from testing instruments. This has helped us establish a system that is independent of specific individuals, regions, or experiences. Going forward, we aim to further enhance our proactive service model by integrating the digital assets on this platform with cutting-edge technologies like AI.

Shaping the Future of Healthcare with Partners Around the World

Yoshimoto: For diseases like sepsis, which have high mortality rates and where early diagnosis and intervention are crucial, there is still significant potential for improvement in testing and diagnostic processes. We are conducting joint research to integrate measurement data from a wide range of testing fields related to these diseases and explore their diagnostic applications. These efforts are possible due to Sysmex’s over 50 years of expertise in in vitro diagnostics and our extensive network of external partners, including academia and medical institutions. Moving forward, we will expand opportunities for collaboration with various partners and contribute to addressing global medical issues by creating new, unprecedented value in testing and diagnostics.

In this volume, we introduced the value that Sysmex’s global service and support activities bring to healthcare and the reasons behind our worldwide trust and support.

Next time, we will look at initiatives in the U.S. market, where we have developed an efficient, high-quality service and support model that covers a vast area while maintaining exceptional customer satisfaction levels as our business grows.