When things change right under your nose, it can easily go unnoticed. But in hindsight, it’s hard not to see how much Rods&Cones has grown as an organization throughout 2021. This year has certainly been a tipping point – we’ve gone from startup to scaleup and are now recognized as a leading supplier of remote surgical assistance technology.
Here’s a snapshot view into how that growth has come to life.
Transatlantic Expansion
2021 saw us finally make the leap across the pond. After building our foundations out of our original HQ in the Netherlands, we opened an office in Naples, Florida, US helping to position Rods&Cones as a global provider and opening the door to the North American market. This office expansion marked a major milestone – that indicates how we expect our expansion to trend in the years ahead.
New Markets & Languages
Our geographical expansion didn’t end with our increasing office footprint. This year also saw us grow our customer experience centers (CECs) to Barcelona and Manila. Having a global presence now allows us to offer 24-hour customer support, five days a week; and ensures we can be by our customers’ side when they need us most.
Our CECs are a fundamental piece to our service offering – and a key differentiator too – further emphasizing our global ambitions and enabling us to provide language support in eight languages – including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English.
To date, Rods&Cones is active in more than 600 hospitals across 30+ countries – with no signs of slowing down.
6x Team Growth
Perhaps the strongest trailing indicator of our growth throughout 2021 has been the evolution of our Rods&Cones team. Over the past 12 months, we’ve grown from a core team of seven to more than 50 supporting our development across R&D, business development, marketing, and more across our European and American locations.
Major Product Maturity
Last, but certainly not least, is the evolution of the product itself. It’s hard to believe that at the beginning of the calendar year, we were smart glasses only-focused.
Fast forward one year, and Rods&Cones now offers the full package – a solution that allows you to be virtually present in the OR:
The visOR, our signature smart glasses give remote experts the same view as the surgeon, while our mirrOR solution connects and broadcasts different video feeds to remote experts – such as x-rays, ultrasounds, and endoscopes.
The panOR device enables a 360-degree view of the operating theatre, while the chargOR is a convenient carry case that charges your Rods&Cones devices and keeps them safe.
In addition to hardware improvements, our software has undergone a major evolution too; acting on active feedback from our partners that use our service in their day-to-day business.
Firstly, we’ve improved the user interface for the remote expert for an even easier and better experience, added numerous new features and adopted others to perfectly fit the needs of users in the medical environment.
We’ve also launched our own webinOR system; which enables users to broadcast a remote view to a large audience worldwide – without needing to add a third-party application. The integrated system allows up to 50 people to watch the same view as the expert remotely: in full HD at low latency, without any broadcasting delay during transmission and converting it into a truly live session, something unmatched in the industry
Combined, our complementary hardware and software provide a complete remote view of the operating room; a perspective that, we believe, is even better than being there in-person.
Next On The Roadmap
Looking back on 2021, it’s encouraging to see how far we’ve come. But we prefer to look ahead. Next on deck is increased global growth, so expect some major expansion soon.
We anticipate that 2022 will be the year when companies and medical providers start changing their models to prioritize remote technology at the heart of their operations.
To keep delivering that, we continue to improve our offering to make the experience as good as it can possibly be. This will keep evolving, to give remote professionals a more immersive virtual presence in the OR.
We’re ready.