B2E Portal Helps Biomedical Devices Company Manage its Distribution
Network.
AmedZ goes the Managed Service Route with iGine and Sun.
"Biosensors chose iGINE and Sun to implement the solution
because they understand our business and have the solutions to meet
our requirements. Being Singapore-based, they can respond to our
needs whenever they arise" said Danny Tan, Managing
Director of Biosensors International.
Company
Industry/Market
Applications/Solutions (provided by iGine)
- iPlanet[tm] Web Server
- BEA[tm] WebLogic® Application Server
- Oracle® Database Server
- iGINE Enterprise Software (Phase 1 & 2)
- iGINE ERP-ERP BizBridge Software (Phase 3)
- Sun's Enterprise[tm] 220R and 420R
Key Business Challenges
- Difficulty in providing the latest product information and pricing
to the field.
- Impossible to track and monitor the performance of the direct
and indirect sales force in the field in all countries.
- Difficulty in managing and tracking sales leads.
- Impossible to profile end customers.
Key Business Solutions
- Enables salesmen to access real-time pricing and the latest
product information.
- Provides visibility for Biosensors' management to track the
direct and indirect sales people in the field.
- Savings of more than S$500,000 over 24 months
Key Alliances
AmedZ, a B2E (Business-to-Employee) portal was set up by Biosensors
International to serve its distributors and customers. It opted
to outsource its entire project to iGINE, a Sun iForce partner using
Sun as the hardware platform. The solution set was successfully
piloted in June 2001. It enables salesmen to access real-time pricing
and the latest product information, providing visibility for Biosensors'
management to track both its direct & indirect sales force in the
field, and channel partners.
About AmedZ
AmedZ is set up by Biosensors International as a business portal
to serve its distributors and customers. Biosensors International
is a Singapore private company set up in 1990. With an annual turnover
of US$15m, this brick and mortar company makes high precision biomedical
devices for use in hospital surgeries. In particular, Biosensors
manufactures special diagnostic and therapeutic cardiovascular catheters
and interventional cardiology products.
With a staff strength of more than 150 staff with offices in USA,
Singapore, Japan and Europe, Biosensors customers include hospitals
and their surgical units, as well as the wide network of distribution
channels in various countries. One of its key markets in the Asia
Pacific is Japan.
Information: key to making sales decision
One of the key factors that prompted Biosensors to set up a business
portal was the need to effectively manage its growing channel business.
This was important as the company did not have a sales force/channel
sales management tools. As such, it had difficulty in providing
the latest product information and pricing to its customers, which
in turn affected its competitiveness. Moreover, tracking and monitoring
the performance of its direct and indirect sales force in the field
was also an issue. In short, Biosensors needed an effective sales
and customer management system to manage and track sales leads and
to profile its customer base.
Outsourcing: an option considered by Biosensors International
To address these concerns and to equip the company to meet future
challenges, Biosensors decided to leverage the Internet as its sales
and communication medium by setting up a business portal called
AmedZ.
Instead of beefing up its IT department and heavily investing in
the necessary IT expertise, skills and devices, Biosensors decided
to outsource the entire project. Some of its key requirements were:
robustness, high availability and a complete sales and channel management
solution.
iGine proposed the use of its flagship Collaborative Commerce Suite,
a sell-side electronic commerce product that enables companies to
streamline transaction flows and manage channel information, namely
price discrimination, product catalog, and sales performance. The
solution aimed to solve the top 3 challenges facing Biosensors:
1. Difficulty in managing complex pricing structure in multi-layer
distribution channels;
2. Inadequate control and management of salesmen activities and
effectiveness;
3. Inadequate channel information: sales, inventory and forecast.
Biosensors chose iGine and the Sun platform to implement its portal
initiatives. The recommendation to Biosensors was that it set up
a Collaborative e-commerce portal based on iGine's sell-side e-commerce
solutions and iPlanet's offerings. iGine would offer its solution
in an outsourced managed service manner by riding on its S$1m infrastructure.
This saved Biosensors from hefty up-front investments. Leaving the
day-to-day IT operations to iGINE, from systems availability to
data backups, Biosensors is able to concentrate on its core business,
manufacturing and distribution of biomedical devices.
"iGINE's sell-side software meets most of our business requirements.
Also, iGINE has a professional team of engineers who manages a 7x24,
robust and reliable infrastructure, powered by Sun Microsystems's
industrial strength servers. Reliability and high uptime are key
to delivering mission critical systems for my customers and distributors
worldwide." said Danny Tan, Managing Director of Biosensors
International.
Changing Face of Portal Solutions
"Portals used to be for the purpose of B2B or B2C. In the aftermath
of the dot.com fiasco where contributing to the bottom-line is crucial,
we are seeing portals evolve to complement brick and mortar businesses."
Said Tan Chang Huong, CEO, iGINE. "AmedZ is a perfect example
of a B2E (Business to Employee) portal that leverages the Internet
as a two way medium of communication with its employees and partners.
The solution that was provided by iGine included:
- iplanet[tm] Web Server
- BEA[tm] WebLogic® Application Server
- Oracle® Database Server
- iGINE Enterprise Software (Phase 1 & 2)
- iGINE ERP-ERP BizBridge Software (Phase 3)
Sun's Enterprise[tm] 220R and 420R were chosen to power the applications
because of their scalability, performance and price-competitiveness.
AmedZ was implemented in the following phases:
- Phase 1 - Setting up of c-commerce portal
- Phase 2 - Localized to local languages
- Phase 3 - Integration with supplier and customer ERP system
Phases 1 & 2 took a total of 6 months from requirements to live
deployment.
The major challenges of the project include:
- Gathering and prioritizing the business needs of its complex
pricing structure in multi-layer distribution channel.
- Convincing the direct and indirect sales force to switch to
this new web-based system.
"IT outsourcing was a clear choice for us. While we solely
focus on growing our core business, we leave the IT issues in the
hands of the people in that field. This arrangement has worked out
well for us. We now have an effective B2E portal, complemented by
effective sales and customer management tools. Biosensors chose
iGINE and Sun to implement the solution because they understand
our business and have the solutions to meet our requirements. Being
Singapore-based, they can respond to our needs whenever they arise,"
said Danny Tan, Managing Director of Biosensors International.
The System was piloted in June 2001, meeting its project goals
such as enabling its salesmen to access real-time pricing and the
latest product information as well as providing visibility for Biosensors'
management to track both its direct & indirect sales force in the
field, and channel partners.
Major Savings from Outsourcing
By going the managed service route, Amedz will have saved more than
S$500,000 over 24 months. A similar in-house implementation would
have cost Amedz a one-time upfront investment of over $420,000.
In addition, monthly cost of up to $25,000 would have been incurred
for utility charges, manpower costs and other services.
AmedZ aims to be a portal to provide more than the products from
Biosensors International. Complementary surgical supplies such as
syringes, liners, drape, containers and cotton swabs can be packaged
together with the Biosensors products so that the end customer has
the complete pack of surgical items to perform the procedure. This
saves the hospital time and cost to package medical supplies for
surgical procedures.
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iForce/iLIUP
Application provider partner: iGINE Pte Ltd
iGINE is a leading sell-side B2B software provider. The software
enables an end-to-end collaboration between brand owners and
its distribution chain, providing channel visibility and order
flow. Based in Singapore, it's customers are international
brand owners whose business model is selling via channels/distribution
networks. iGINE Managed Services, a business unit of iGINE
that provides 7x24 managed services to world-wide customers
who license iGINE's suite of sell-side software.
www.igine.com
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