Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Medical Device Company Gains Cost-Effective Business Intelligence Solution
Overview
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Life sciences—Medical devices
Customer Profile
Conceptus, founded in 1992, develops and markets medical products for women’s health. Based in Mountain View, California, the company has 240 employees and sales of approximately U.S.$100 million.
Business Situation
Conceptus lacked visibility into its performance data, and salespeople found it difficult to check order status. Key measurements were hard to obtain, and reports took days to write.
Solution
Conceptus deployed Microsoft business intelligence (BI) software in a solution that integrates with Microsoft Dynamics® CRM and the company’s existing enterprise resource planning system.
Benefits
n Achieves an effective BI solution at half the cost of an alternative
n Provides increased visibility into key data and trends
n Cuts report-publishing time from four hours to four minutes for each report / “By choosing Microsoft, we gained an effective BI solution at half the cost of an alternative.”
Jeff Letasse, Vice President of Information Technology and Business Systems, Conceptus
Conceptus, a medical device manufacturer, needed more visibility into its sales data. Experiencing rapidly accelerating growth, the company struggled to track key data; reports took days to write; and sales staff could not view trends and plan efficiently, nor did they have ready access to order status. Conceptus then engaged Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Dell Global Infrastructure Consulting Services to deploy Microsoft business intelligence software. The software integrates with the company’s existing Microsoft products, including Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, and with its enterprise resource planning system. Today, Conceptus has gained easy access to key data, and the publishing time for each report has been cut from four hours to four minutes. Conceptus can also track and measure its marketing campaigns. The solution—which can be extended—was half the cost of a competitive offering.
Situation
Conceptus is a medical device manufacturer that specializes in women’s health. Its flagship product, Essure, provides a nonincisional method of permanent birth control that is marketed to physicians and clinics. The company has experienced strong growth since it was founded in 1992. Between 2006 and 2008, sales increased from U.S.$40 million to $100 million.
Early in the company’s history, Conceptus leadership committed to making substantial investments in information technology to support the ambitious goal of quickly reaching $500 million in sales. Ever since, Conceptus has continually upgraded its IT infrastructure. Currently, the company relies on a server infrastructure based on the Windows Server® 2003 operating system. The server infrastructure is integrated with Microsoft Dynamics® CRM for customer relationship management (CRM), a QAD enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 data management software.
Conceptus uses its CRM system to track detailed data on its potential and existing physician customers—more than 50,000 in the United States alone. Among the data is the status of each physician’s training on the Essure device, so Conceptus can proactively notify doctors who need to schedule more training and track the relationship between training and sales. The company’s order management application is part of its ERP software, and SQL Server 2005 provides the data warehouse for the 15 gigabytes of CRM and ERP data in the integrated system.
By 2007, the company’s explosive growth presented some IT-related issues. Perhaps most notably, Conceptus had limited visibility into its performance companywide. With increasing demand for a more detailed look at company information, reporting functions suffered. Each month, three people were required to compile data using Crystal Reports, to create some 250 iterations of 30 basic reports for the sales managers and executives, and then to present them in an easy-to-view graphical format. “Writing a basic report could take three to five days, and publication took four hours,” says Jeff Letasse, Vice President of Information Technology and Business Systems, Conceptus. According to John Musgrave, Senior Manager of Reporting Solutions at Conceptus, the situation was beginning to take a toll on efficiency. “We sometimes had a backlog of 30 to 50 reports,” he says.
Salespeople and managers also could not view trends or perform trending analysis in a timely way. The lack of real-time views and analysis hindered both the company’s ability to adjust quickly to current market conditions and to plan for the future.
In addition, salespeople lacked visibility into orders. They had to call the customer service group to check order status, because that information was not available through the company’s integrated CRM and ERP systems. With 100 salespeople, these inquiries consumed a lot of time.
To deal with these issues, in late 2006, Conceptus began to look for an advanced business intelligence (BI) solution.
Solution
Conceptus investigated several BI solutions before narrowing its choice to two vendors—Hyperion, now owned by Oracle, and Microsoft. While considering a solution, Letasse and others from his team attended aseminar presented by Dell Global Infrastructure Consulting Services (formerly Allin Consulting), a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. The seminar focused on Microsoft Office PerformancePoint® Server 2007 business intelligence software, whose functionality will be incorporated into the nextrelease of Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server as PerformancePoint Services for SharePoint. The software provides companywide performance management through scorecards, dashboards, and reporting solutions. It also includes tools for analytics and planning, budgeting, and forecasting. In early 2007, Conceptus chose the Microsoft solution proposed by Dell.
Conceptus chose the BI solution for its easy integration with the company’s existing Microsoft software—in particular, Microsoft Dynamics CRM—and for its cost, which was half that of the Hyperion offering. In addition, Conceptus liked the idea of working with the Dell consultants because of their expertise and dedication to customers.
In May 2007, working closely with the Conceptus team, Dell began a phased implementation of the solution, starting with executives and sales managers, and later deploying it to the entire U.S. sales force. The solution was quickly integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0—upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 later in the deployment—as well as with the ERP system and the rest of the Microsoft-based infrastructure. Content is saved to SQL Server, and the solution uses hybrid online analytical processing (HOLAP) cubes so data can be viewed in both relational and multidimensional perspectives. Conceptus developed the HOLAP cubes with the same star schema database hierarchy that it had used with Crystal Reports.
The solution can be used with Microsoft Office productivity programs, such as Microsoft Office Excel® spreadsheet software and Office Word, because data can be easily imported into or out of those programs. What’s more, users can access CRM data from within the Microsoft Office Outlook® messaging and collaboration client, and performance reports can be distributed over the company intranet, which is based on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Conceptus also created a sales-ticker gadget —which functions similarly to popular stock-ticker dashboards—as a PerformancePoint Web Part that resides on every user’s My Site area within the Office SharePoint 2007–based portal. The sales ticker displays up-to-date information on the order-process cycle. Data refreshes every 30 minutes and can be referenced at any time.
Dell finished setting up the monitoring and analytics functions of the solution for the Conceptus sales organization by May 2007. The Microsoft Gold Certified Partner also trained the Conceptus staff on the solution, and Conceptus gradually took on more of its management. “Knowledge transfer is an important function of all of our engagements,” says Bob Silverthorne, Dell Services Account Manager. “The goal is to provide a smooth transition of the administrative and maintenance duties to the customer.”
The phased deployment continued through January 2008, when the sales-results and sales-forecasting capabilities of the new solution were fully deployed throughout the organization. The solution now has 150 users, including field sales staff and sales managers.
Benefits
Conceptus has achieved an integrated business intelligence solution that delivers exceptional value at half the cost of a competitive solution. The company has also gained more visibility into its sales performance, reduced reporting time, and found a way to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. It can also view trends as they are occurring to analyze and plan more effectively. Adoption has been quick, and Conceptus expects the solution to help it contain costs in the future.
Achieves Effective, Integrated Solution at Half the Cost
Letasse is very pleased with the results of thedeployment and how the solution has extended the company’s existing infrastructure. “The way the solution works together with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and our other Microsoft software delivers far more value than using any one product on its own.” says Letasse. “By choosing Microsoft, we gained an effective BI solution at half the costof an alternative. We were able to use our existing CRM and ERP systems and our existing data warehouse for building the OLAP cubes.”
In addition, because the solution is based on familiar Microsoft software, little training was required to get the IT staff prepared to take over its management or to train users on thesolution’s features. Adoption was fast, because users liked the increased access to information. “They were ecstatic about this solution,” says Letasse. “It helps them make the most of their time. When they are in the field, they can find out which physicians are in the locale and what stage of Essure training each has. They can use that information to efficiently plan their sales calls.”
Increases Visibility into Key Data and Sales Performance
Today, Conceptus can easily monitor sales performance, and sales staff can get current order information without calling the customer service group. “Now, everyone knows ifhe or she is on track,” says Letasse. “We encourage salespeople to log in and check their data at least once a day, and many people check it more often.”
Salespeople can view their performance through the dashboard on their computers, which updates every 30 minutes. The dashboard shows the actual and scheduled revenue received for the day, month, and year by customer, as well as other details, such as amounts past due and unconfirmed, and orders on hold—all in a highly secure environment. Active Directory® service provides role-based security and identity and access management. Queries to the system have reached as many as 500 per day.
Reduces Report Preparation and Publishing Time
Conceptus has dramatically shortened the time required to prepare reports and present them in a graphical format. Now, authorized users can easily create custom reports without assistance. “We write it once, and everyone can use it,” says Letasse. “Report publishing has been shrunk from four hours to four minutes per report.”
The reporting manager also notes the improvement. “Our reporting analyst alone has saved about 20 to 30 hours per month,” Musgrave says.
Letasse cites an interaction he had with a new senior manager who came from a muchlarger enterprise. The new manager requested a report, expecting to get it in about a month. “That afternoon he had his report,” Letasse says. “He was astounded that a company of our size could provide such support.”
Creates Efficiencies that Help ContainCosts
Conceptus expects the solution to help it contain costs. The timesavings in reporting, for example, means that the company can continue to grow without having to immediately hire additional people to manage its data and reports.
What’s more, by giving 100 salespeople an easy way to check order status, hours are saved that can be devoted to sales. In addition, Conceptus will be able to handle increased demand with the same number of support staff as the sales force grows. When new employees are hired, they can easily be given access to data and reports without incurring significant costs.
Now that salespeople and managers can viewkey standards of measurement from their dashboards, trends are readily apparent. And with the analytical capabilities of its new solution, Conceptus can plan more effectively for the future.
Provides a Means to Track MarketingCampaigns
With its integrated solution, Conceptus was able to set up tracking mechanisms for a recent direct-to-consumer advertising campaign that encouraged interested women to contact a physician about the Essure product. Conceptus used the Microsoft BI software to track each communications channel—radio, TV, and print—to see which generated the most responses and physician referrals. Customer requests were tracked through specialized Web pages and through the Conceptus Call Center.
“We set up the system in less than two months, and we were able to see which media buys were the most successful and adjust accordingly,” says Letasse.
Supports Future Expansion
As it moves ahead, Conceptus expects to gain more value from its new BI solution through the recently deployed sales forecasting capability and with further implementation ofthe planning function. The company is also considering deploying Microsoft Office Communications Server in the near future to take advantage of its presence feature. With presence technology, employees at Conceptus will be able to see at a glance if coworkers are available for contact. “The more integrations that we make, the more we can do with our solution,” says Letasse.
Microsoft Business Intelligence
Microsoft provides a comprehensive set of business intelligence technologies that make it possible for enterprises to maximize the value of their business data through timely analysis, reporting, and sharing of knowledge. These technologies extend from Microsoft Office system personal productivity tools to comprehensive Microsoft SQL Server data integration, reporting, and analysis tools. The entire portfolio is extensible with the Microsoft Visual Studio® development system to seamlessly integrate line-of-business applications and workflows into enterprise BI workflows.