Trident Health

This case chronicles Trident Health, a British medical information company founded in April 1993 by Stan Shepherd and his partner Ray Jordan. The relationship between Stan and Ray began as an informal consulting partnership, as they attempted to capitalize upon opportunities to help shift the UK health care system from a paper-based system to electronic storage, retrieval, and exchange. Realizing that this was a much larger opportunity than the two of them could handle as partners, they decided to build a company to pursue these goals. Stan and Ray confronted a host of challenges during the early months of Trident Health. To counteract financial pressures, they decided to generate cash flow by accepting consulting-type contracts. On the personnel front, they began by hiring software engineers who could assist in the development of the planned flagship product, the Trident Beacon. They also began to forge relationships with companies which they felt were certain to play crucial roles in the transformation of the UK health care system. Notwithstanding these steps, Stan and Ray had much to accomplish in order to build a solid foundation which would enable Trident Health to capitalize on the huge potential market it faced. The company needed an executive team which could add a broad business perspective to Stan, who was the visionary, and Ray, who headed up development. The company also needed to be adequately capitalized. And it needed to develop a coherent strategy with respect to potential partners with which it could tackle these challenges. Teaching Note Available.