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Microsoft Biz Apps for healthcare equipment consumables businesses

1 Executive Summary

The healthcare equipment business involves the supply of medical equipment and supplies to healthcare facilities such as hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and other healthcare organizations. These products can range from basic supplies such as gloves and gowns to high-tech medical equipment such as MRI machines and surgical robots. Distributors in this industry must be knowledgeable about the products they sell and the needs of their customers in order to provide quality service.

This document will be describing the use cases of Microsoft Business Applications-based solutions and the benefits of using such solutions. This document is prepared based on the use cases that come across and the usefulness is articulated based on the experience that comes across.

2 Industry Key Challenges

The healthcare equipment business faces several challenges, including:

  1. Cost: Healthcare equipment can be expensive to produce, purchase, and maintain. Distributors must balance the need to offer affordable prices with the need to make a profit.
  2. Technological advancements: As medical technology advances, distributors must keep up with the latest products and trends. This requires ongoing education and training to stay knowledgeable about new products and innovations.
  3. Regulatory compliance: Medical equipment must meet strict regulatory requirements to ensure safety and efficacy. Distributors must ensure that their products comply with these regulations and standards.
  4. Supply chain disruptions: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of supply chains, with shortages of medical equipment and supplies causing significant challenges for healthcare providers. Distributors must be prepared to deal with disruptions and find alternative sources of supply.
  5. Competition: The healthcare equipment market is highly competitive, with many distributors vying for a share of the market. Distributors must differentiate themselves by offering exceptional customer service, competitive pricing, and a wide range of products.
  6. Changing healthcare landscape: The healthcare industry is constantly evolving, with changes in regulations, reimbursement models, and technology. Distributors must be flexible and adaptable to stay ahead of these changes and continue to meet the needs of their customers.

3 Digital transformation is A must

This section talks about the transformation component related to the Business Applications perspective.

To Keep up the market growth pace and to ensure business performance resilience as the key factor, the below factors are vital for the Healthcare Equipment-Consumables business.

  1. Visibility of the Business
  2. Connected Processes/Applications
  3. Intelligent Automation
  4. Seamless Business interactions with Upstream (Vendors) and downstream (Customers) functions
  5. Security and Compliances

The below diagram depicts the key focuses of Digital Transformation in the Healthcare Equipment-Consumables Business

The below diagram depicts the key functions impacted with Digital Transformation in the Healthcare Equipment-Consumables Business

4  Microsoft Business Applications

Microsoft Business Applications are unique and it helps the customer to prioritize and deploy apply applications as per their plan The below applications are available on the cloud and it allows the customers to pay for what they use. The application carries open APIs and is ready to integrate with any type of API based existing Application

5  Use Case

The Use cases talks about the Process, Challenges and Key benefits for Healthcare Equipment-Consumables Business

5.1 Process

The below Process flow diagram is an example of a use case covering the processes like

  1. Lead to Order
  2. Order to Delivery
  3. Invoice to Cash
  4. Procure to Pay
  5. Service case to Fulfill
  6. Record to Report (Financials)

This use case elaborates on how Microsoft Business Applications can cater the businesses like healthcare equipment-Consumables.

The below example describes the capabilities of extending Order processing functionalities to different categories customers like

  1. Medium and Large Hospitals
  2. Healthcare distributors
  3. Resellers

The below complexity of business is handled

  1. Specific channel-based pricing
  2. Discount Application
  3. Delivery commitments (Honoring it every time) as the industry demands just in time every time
  4. Availability of products to the business channels
  5. Credit Limit
  6. Over-due approval process
  7. Order Planning
  8. Delivery to Customer’s customer (Drop shipment)
  9. Connected financials and controlled AR
  10. Vendor Payment queues and Processes (Suggest Vendor Payments)
  11. Single order with sizable number of order lines

5.2 Challenges-Benefits Sheet

Challenges Benefits
 

Functions/Departments/Branches were not connected disparate) and Silos.

Loss of Information/Miscommunication/Work duplication were the results which in turn caused Productivity Loss

 The Centralized cloud-based system like Microsoft Dynamics 365 has helped this enterprise to connect seamlessly with one system for all their Functions/departments
The existing CRM system was not providing adequate visibility on a Revenue plan, Target vs Achievement, Stages of the sales, multi-channel revenue visibility, and Mobility Dynamics 365 CRM has benefited to provide the necessary visibility to the Sales management and the top management
The existing Supply chain system was not having approval processes, Centralized Inventory availability, and was not available outside the office premises. There were product duplications and disconnected processes from Finance Function/department A browser-based connected and centralized system for all business units and branches has helped and the business process/Workflow enablement within and between departments has helped to control the business better
The Warranty and Maintenance services process was handled through a semi-manual system, not connected with the inventory/stores & Finance departments. Hence this led to considerable Leakages of spare revenue/cost and Customer dis-satisfaction due to SLA violations & inadequate coordination between the department A centralized and connected Business Application like Dynamics 365 ensured Customer Satisfaction and the stoppage of Revenue loss and complied with the ownership of departmental role processes
The Multi-channel ordering was cumbersome, and it was semi-automated which delayed the order processing and availability of price structure to various channels An Automated multi-mode order logging system has enabled the order execution team to honor the delivery commitments, improving the Customer/Distribution channel Loyalty through Downstream Ecommerce App.
A disparate Finance System was filled with co-ordination tasks & Reconciliation, and it was tough to get the financial values synchronized with other departments which made delay in decisions Single source of truth from one Dynamics 365 which enabled the management to take Speedy decisions
KPIs across functions/departments were unavailable for immediate consumption hence the decisions were taken on gut feel and corrections were carried out on the go. These events created chaos and process changes were quite often which affected the Employee morale The Visibility and automated processes helped the employees to complete their role-related tasks more efficiently and minimized the process changes which in turn improved the Employee Satisfaction

6  Conclusion

The Microsoft Business Applications work seamlessly with other Microsoft Productivity solutions like M365 mailing, M365 Teams, Microsoft Office, M365 SharePoint, and Azure Services which make them unique, and the enterprises can reap the ROI (Return on Investment) in a shorter time with comparatively lesser TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).

The deployment time is comparatively shorter, and the adaptability is higher as the users are most accustomed to Microsoft-based Office applications.

The ready-to-deploy solutions from Microsoft Business Applications are more fit for Healthcare Equipment-Consumable businesses.

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