Drawing a blueprint of a successful pharmaceutical B2B eCommerce
In this post we’d like to express our warmest congratulations to Henry Schein and their Chinese B2B eCommerce project. TMO Group was happy to participate in the inaugural event in the First Hemao Mall in Guangzhou, where the successful launch of the new platform hshemao.com has taken place.
About Henry Schein
Henry Schein (NASDAQ: HSIC) was founded in 1932 in New York. Now it is one of the largest dental and animal care providers in the United States and the world’s largest distributor of dental equipment and supplies. After almost 90 years of rapid development, Henry Schein, a Fortune 500 company, operates in 34 countries and regions of the World, and is ranked first in the Forbes "World's Most Respectful Companies in 2019 and 2020" list.
Digital challenges of B2B enterprises
In the post-pandemic era, more and more companies move their operations online, following the accelerated trend of digital transformation.
How can a B2B company stay ahead of the ever increasing competition? There are possible strategies a company may adopt to keep being a strong player on the market, but all of them include digital transformation and upgrade of the enterprise: be it procurement, manufacturing and design, marketing, financing or anything else in between.
Digital Transformation and Adobe Commerce (Magento)
Henry Schein planned that the development of a B2B eCommerce platform would not only be a huge update to the existing business model, but also bring operations and services to a completely new level.
In the beginning of 2020, Rolf Steffen, Henry Schein’s Global VP and President for Asia, formulated the strategic goal for the company as "Business, fully driven by digital operations”.
Based on this objective, TMO Group together with Adobe designed and developed a new B2B eCommerce platform for Henry Schien’s Asia branch. The platform was successfully launched in January 2022.
Henry Schein has chosen Adobe Commerce (Magento) as the eCommerce framework to build its eCommerce platform in Asia on. Adobe Commerce is a multi-country, multi-language architecture system, rich with B2B-specific features. New platform is a system that, on one hand, allows centralized development and management. At the same time it is capable of adjusting operation details for each region it is used in.
Here are the main features of the solution:
Digital Product Catalog
We were focusing on excellent user experience in such areas as navigation, filtering, and searching. Users are provided with the full spectrum of product-relayed and brand-related information.
Standardized B2C/B2b eCommerce features
We provided new sales channels, implemented marketing automation features and set up a convenient online purchasing workflow, similar to that of Taobao.
Personalized B2B eCommerce operations
We implemented localized workflows and added B2B-focused features: digital bargaining interface, personalized product price, hierarchical account structure and many others.
Project implementation and execution
Looking back on the history of the entire project, Mr. Richard Mou, project manager from TMO Group, reflects: “The development for this project was running very smoothly, from the very beginning to the launch day, through all three phases of development. First, together with Henry Schein we built the digital catalog; then, we integrated online payment gateways and the company's ERP system, fully automating order workflow; finally, we implemented price and catalog customization for each major customer. Our processes were transparent, the data was stored online, and the teams worked together well. Every project participant contributed to the final success.”
The resulting platform will make a huge difference, advancing Henry Schein in their digital transformation journey. As Mr. Gary He, the general manager of the project from Henry Schein's side, puts it: “By completing this endeavor, we have not only digitized catalog, sales, supply chain and logistics, but we also used the synergy of these parts to create an entire digitized sales process. In the future we are going to introduce new features, such as enterprise planning, product design, different channels and more data integration. This will bring Henry Schein digital transformation to the new level and create a digital ecosystem around the company.”
Right before the beginning of the kick-off event, where the platform was to be unveiled, Mr. Tony Zhang, managing director of Henry Schein China shared his thoughts: “I look forward to working with such a robust and modern project. I really hope that Henry Schein will become a cutting-edge company, one that fully operates in accordance with a digital business philosophy. ”
Going forward, we can say that Henry Schein underwent “digital transformation”, implemented all its aspects in a firm and a strategic way. Aided by this eCommerce project, Henry Schein reorganized its business processes, instilled a digital mindset on the entire team, turned data and information into assets and generated more value.
Mr. Sterling Chen, General Manager of Henry Schein Hemao Branch believes that “the biggest result of this project is catalysed the change in the corporate management. That includes optimization of work execution, higher efficiency, coordination between departments, and improvement of the talent training procedures.”
While talking about the cooperation with TMO Group, several members of Henry Schein’s senior management praised the responsibility and efficiency of TMO’s team.
View from the TMO’s side
"B2B e-commerce is only a starting point, it is definitely not the end", says Jing Zhou, Business Director of TMO Group. "We are honored to be able to lay a foundation for Henry Schein’s digital transformation that will serve as the basis for the company's future expansion. We will continue to optimize and perfect this foundation, hoping that our today’s success can inspire future advances in Henry Schein’s digitalization.”
