Case Study: Mortara Instrument

“We’re now operating at a much different level, much better aligned, and executing against our strategic plans in a way that I would not have anticipated a short 9 months ago.”

Justin Mortara, CEO

The Problem:

However, while they were functioning well as a business, they weren’t measuring up to everything they were capable of. They were profitable, but Founder and CEO Justin Mortara wanted the company to move faster and achieve more. 

The complexity of running a global business, competing against Fortune 500 companies, and needing to quickly move from ideation to successful execution in a highly regulated medical device category were uniquely challenging. Mortara Instrument needed:

• To create a vision and crystal clear strategic plan with the right goals that everyone could align with.
• A plan that everyone could articulate in the same way as the CEO.
• To build a high-performance culture with hundreds of employees who could drive that vision. 
• To take the company to the next level, communicate better, and execute faster—all with less wasted effort.

Justin Mortara saw these obstacles and determined that he needed an outside perspective.

“The wise man knows he’s a fool, the fool thinks he’s a wise man. Don’t be too proud to learn,” said Mortara. “I knew to take our business to the next level, I’d need to keep learning.”

To better align their team and to take their business to the next level, Mortara brought in BLUECASE. Our team got involved quickly, aligning the executive team through CEO coaching and leadership development, and getting the entire company aligned through our strategic planning services. 

Overall, our goal was to help the Mortara team zoom out, rising above the finer details in order to achieve a broader vision for the company. “Working with BLUECASE, we had a framework to operate in, some structure by which to guide our activities in ways that I personally couldn’t have brought to the table, nor could my executive team,” said Mortara.

The Results:

Through our coaching, Mortara Instrument was able to soar to new heights. Their monitoring products ultimately surpassed GE for medical accuracy, achieving 99.95% accuracy for classifying normal heartbeats and 99.61% accuracy for classifying abnormal heartbeats.

This ultimately led to their acquisition by Hill-Rom Holdings for $330 million.

Throughout the coaching and strategic planning process, the BLUECASE team worked to build strong and genuine relationships with the Mortara team. We find this enables us to better understand our clients, reach their fundamental whys, and tap into their potential to elevate their business even further.

According to Mortara, “When we look at BLUECASE, we actually don’t think of BLUECASE, for better or worse, as a consultant. BLUECASE is a member of the team, and I think perhaps that is because of the amount of time the principals of BLUECASE have engaged individually with the leadership team. There is a personal connection here, not just with myself and BLUECASE, but with my leadership team and BLUECASE.”

That connection lasted even beyond Mortara Instrument’s acquisition, as when Justin Mortara moved on to a CEO role at AI company EnsoData, he immediately called on our team to work with him again.

Establishing, running, and growing a business is a long journey. And as any traveler knows, long journeys require careful planning to ensure you reach your goals.

At BLUECASE Strategic Partners, we regularly help businesses who are surviving—but not quite thriving—achieve shared values, shared goals, and shared practices to start elevating their business to heights.