A B2B healthcare company discovers the benefits of e-commerce powered by product information management (PIM)
We implemented a product information management (PIM) solution that offered the sales team a single source of current product data.
Overview
A large medical device company was experiencing a decline in revenues, loss of business to competitors, and high turnover among their sales reps. They needed a more efficient solution for handling low-margin transactions, and that’s why they contacted Primitive Logic.
The Challenge
Our client had experienced a slump in sales partially due to customers switching to competitors. At the same time, they were seeing a high turnover rate among their sales representatives, who were frustrated with the amount of paperwork required to process orders — particularly orders for low-margin products.
Why They Chose Primitive Logic
A few months earlier, Primitive Logic had successfully completed a digital strategy and roadmap project for this client. Having seen our ability to deliver excellent work first-hand, they knew we were the best choice for this project.
The Results
Upon analyzing our client’s sales and product data, we discovered that simpler products with lower margins accounted for 80 percent of their sales. We also learned that their sales reps were spending most of their time on transactions involving the company’s least-profitable offerings.
Product information was scattered across the organization in the form of spreadsheets, documents, and a variety of systems, with no integration among them. As a result, sales reps were forced to search through multiple systems for the product data they needed … and even when they found the information, they had no guarantee that it was current or even accurate.
On the end-user side, we met with several of our client’s top customers. Our interviews with them allowed us to gain insights into what they wanted from the buying experience — how they wanted to search for and locate products, what information they needed to make a buying decision, and what information would be helpful to them after the sale.
We worked with our client to create a strategic solution that could generate ROI quickly while also benefiting sales reps and customers. We recommended creating an e-commerce platform and starting with the low-margin, high-volume products that were taking up most of the sales team’s time. In the past, our client had shied away from selling online because they felt their products were too complex, but we helped them understand how the simplicity of low-margin products made them ideal candidates for a web-based buying experience.
Our approach to the project involved two key deliverables:
- We implemented a product information management (PIM) solution that offered the sales team a single source of current product data, while also letting product managers easily add and update products as needed.
- We built an e-commerce platform featuring our client’s simplest products, which offered customers the convenience of online buying and allowed the sales team to focus their time and effort on higher-margin transitions.
When the project was complete, our client quickly realized the following benefits:
- Improved customer satisfaction arising from an easy, convenient online ordering process
- Improved morale among sales reps, who can now focus on more complex, higher-margin products
- Convenience of maintaining a single product record in one location
- Reduced volume of call center calls due to an increase in self-service
- A scalable, flexible e-commerce platform that can easily accommodate more complex products
We Can Help
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