Case studies at the Center
Continuing series...
Subject:
Bisco Dental: a tough, but smart integration
Mastering the building of B2B exchanges
August 10, 2001
Construction sites consume vast quantities of adhesives, cements, posts and surface sealants. So does aesthetic dentistry. And when it comes to making the materials to fix broken teeth, Bisco Dental of Schaumburg, Illinois is a master builder.
Founded in 1981, Bisco is a 140-strong company that manufactures dental products that generate yearly sales of $50 million. It boasts 16,000 active dental practice accounts among its database of 54,000 prospects, including military installations and universities. But with no external salesforce, the firm had to rely on the bite of its brand to shift its best-selling ALL-BOND 2 adhesive, an industry marvel that packs hydrophilic monomer and antimicrobial semi-gel etchant, which etches and disinfects simultaneously.
Judith Stone, Manager of Information Services at Bisco, says “To start with, our women take all the orders over the phone. They receive up to 700 calls a day and have to have been a dentist’s assistant to know what they're talking about. But we needed to free up these people. We did not want them to be data entry clerks.” More importantly, Bisco’s chief competitor, $16.7 billion 3M, had beaten it to launching a highly interactive B2B Web site - and Bisco wanted a piece of that action. “Our competitors are very large and we are a pittance to them. They have a big Web presence and we needed one too.”
In conjunction with Chicago-based e-business consultant Azavar, Bisco developed an online product catalog and integrated it with the company’s partly-formed Web presence and ERP, a long-standing Business Planner and Control Software (BPCS) system. Initial implementation took place in January 2001. Bisco scrutinized seven vendors before selecting Azavar. “The reason Bisco chose Azavar was because they came in and listened to what we wanted. They didn’t tell us what we needed - unlike the others!” According to Jason Perry, Azavar’s President, the consultant established an industry first by integrating a front-end Web application with BPCS ERP run on a UNIX HP9000 mainframe.
Developed in the early 1980s, BPCS ERP did not enjoy compatibility with a Web-based application. So Azavar created a multi-level Web-based application to allow the back-end system to be integrated with B2B and B2C interfaces. The significance of this, according to Azavar spokeswoman Rachel Banks, is that the Web site is not a static presence, but linked dynamically in real time to Bisco’s ERP. Banks explains “What this means in practice is that when a customer orders 50 dental drills, for example, that order is immediately conveyed in real time to Bisco’s inventory which sees if there are 50 in stock. If not, an order is instantly conveyed to the appropriate supplier. This saves having a worker manually enter that data at the end of each day.”
In addition to the ERP system already in situ, Azavar also implemented Microsoft NT Server, Internet Information Server (IIS), Lotus Notes, Microsoft Site Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Visual Basic (COM), Active Server Pages (ASP), SSL security, ODBC, Visual C++ (TCP/IP Communication API). Stone explains the results “We’ve seen several benefits, and a couple that we never anticipated. We are accessing a group of dentists that we’d not have seen at all. They’re younger, more technologically-minded. In fact, 50 percent of the customers that now register on our Web site have never bought from us before. And we’ve already registered 348 new customers as a direct result.” Average order value has risen by $60 due to the enhanced Web site, though Stone was not prepared to divulge what that sum had been. “We approached them [Azavar] knowing it would cost us a substantial sum of money. And we knew our return on investment was going to be low. But surprisingly enough, we’re doing three times the extra income we thought we’d be doing by now.”
Stone says Azavar’s contribution has increased total sales by six percent, which would equate to an annualized rise of $3 million. In addition, 22 percent of customers that shop online at Bisco.com now return to purchase goods. Perry claims Bisco’s overall RoI is close to the $1 million mark. As for Azavar itself, its self-asserted integration milestone broadened its appeal, says Perry. “Working with Bisco allowed us to build a base of UNIX clients by coming to them and saying, here’s an even deeper implementation.”
Story from Line56.
The General Center for Internet Services can carefully design and build flexible and powerful secure B2B portal applications and tools that will answer your most exacting and critical corporate needs in any industry. Upon contact, your GCIS technical representative will be more than happy to visit you and propose the best B2B solutions for your company or organization.
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