Biotest doubles the orders for promotional materials and eliminates manual work using Neptune DXP
Biotest was looking for a mobile sales app that would help medical sales reps with on-the-go resource solutions in SAP. With Neptune DXP they were able to create a new mobile offline app that eliminated manual processes, made users happy, and doubled the orders for promotional materials.
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Healthcare & Pharma Customer Success Story with Neptune DXP
Challenges
-Marketing had to manually keep track of promotional items ordered by sales via spreadsheets
-Sales would often order incorrect items due to lack of data and descriptions of products
-Clunky SAP SD system was hard to keep updated in real-time
Solutions
-User-friendly mobile option sales could use on the go on or offline
-Application with accurate descriptions of promotional items and pictures
-Focus on simplifying existing processes and getting continuous feedback from end-users
Results
-Manual processes completely eliminated
-Real-time access for sales to order promotion items needed on the fly
-High user satisfaction
-Transactions have doubled in launch of applications
Challenge: Promo materials meet important needs…if they can be found
From its headquarters in Dreieich, Germany, the distribution team of its global sales department is responsible for supporting sales representatives as they visit doctors and hospitals at meetings and events. These reps need timely access to promotional materials as they work to educate clinicians on the valuable role that Biotest’s different products can provide for patients.
And their existing ordering process for finding and ordering these items using SAP SD was clunky and time-consuming. Sales reps used to send an email to the marketing department, who would keep track of orders and inventory manually in spreadsheets. Users had to make their selection based on a 40-character description of the item and no image, a process that left sales teams ordering incorrect items or hoarding stock to fulfill the need later themselves.
To meet the demands of its growing customer base, the sales team needed a mobile solution with an intuitive user experience.
“An ideal option for our users would provide an image and clear description of the promotional item – whether a brochure, toy, presentation or other giveaways – in an easily readable app that users could scroll through regardless of the screen size of their mobile device”, said Matthias König, SAP in-house consultant.
“It should also need to be easy to update and maintain, with stock levels and order fulfillment status automatically kept up to date.”
A summary of order history and offline capabilities was also necessary. And of course, Biotest needed a solution that was easy for developers to build and for IT to maintain.
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Solution: Support for the complete Application Lifecycle
Biotest first defined what it needed in a mobile solution for its sales reps, who -by nature of their job- collectively don’t have a lot of interaction using SAP solutions. Their apps needed to be intuitive, convenient, easy to use and manage, and secure. Plus, they needed to work on mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone, as well as on web-based desktop browsers, both on and offline.
With support for the complete application lifecycle, easy installation and a reasonable cost, Neptune Software proved to be an obvious choice for Biotest.
“What I like about Neptune Software is the clean structure on both the front- and back-end. All methods and attributes are bundled in a single ABAP class and are easy to find, making coding easy,” said König. “Plus, access to strong API documentation, as well as a large collection of samples and coding tips made creating new functions and processes for our users simple.”
“It was also easy to get started with Neptune. Within three days, I was able to create the initial pilot of our app,” König continued.
“With Neptune DXP we were able to develop capabilities in half the time initially estimated”
Once the pilot was perfected and approved by users, a small project team set out to identify the full set of required use patterns, while focusing on simplifying existing processes as a separate effort from the SAP business logic on the back end. And with no additional SAP infrastructure needed, development moved quickly, with the team using the Neptune Launchpad to create a unified UX for users.
From there, Biotest tested both the user interface and the SAP background processes using the waterfall method, working with colleagues to test the processes and making adjustments in quick, incremental loops to ensure that the app would meet users’ needs.
Results: Double the orders, half the development time
Today Biotest’s formerly complex business process for promotional goods and delivery are greatly simplified. The company has eliminated manual processes and users can order promotional goods from a catalogue in a convenient, easy, and self-explanatory way. They love how easy it is to use, appreciate the intuitive menu navigation, and happily use the app anywhere.
Now that transactions are handled with ease on both mobile and web-based desktop apps, orders for promotional goods have doubled since it launched.
At the same time, the IT team likes how easy it has been for developers to learn and implement, especially for ABAP developers who had previously had little mobile experience.
“With Neptune we were able to develop capabilities in half the time initially estimated, which was really great. And now that we’ve navigated the simple learning curve, we expect building additional apps will take even less time as we move forward.”
Company Snapshot
With an important mission to help patients across the globe who have serious blood disorders or immune diseases, Biotest supplies plasma protein products and biotherapeutic drugs across the globe. Products are primarily used in the therapeutic areas of clinical immunology, haematology and intensive care medicine. The value chain of the medium-sized company, which was founded in 1946 as a family business, ranges from pre-clinical and clinical development to worldwide marketing.
Customer Industry: Healthcare & Pharma
Number of Users: 50
SAP Version: SAP ERP 6.0, SAP Netweaver 7.4
Devices: Mobile, desktop, tablets, online and offline
Timeline: 3 days for initial pilot, 60 days for full implementation
“What I like about Neptune Software is the clean structure on both the front- and back-end. All methods and attributes are bundled in a single ABAP class and are easy to find, making coding easy.”
-Matthias König, SAP In-House Consultant at Biotest
About Neptune Software
Neptune Software is a rapid application development platform vendor with more than 600 enterprise customers and over 3 million licensed end users globally that empowers IT departments to deliver tangible business outcomes.
Neptune Software offers with its Neptune DXP, a leading low-code, SAP-centric, enterprise app development platform to digitize and optimize business processes and user interfaces – at scale and with ease. Neptune DXP provides a fast and cost-effective way to industrialize the development of custom applications – saving companies time and money on development, integration, and operations.
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