Making it easy to do business

This client sells specialty pharmaceuticals to distributors, wholesalers, specialty pharma providers, and national health services around the world. Although as a stopgap measure it was utilizing its previous parent company’s online ordering system under a transfer services agreement, it needed a built-for-purpose digital commerce system that would suit the needs of and streamline the purchasing process for its customers.

This biopharmaceuticals manufacturer now offers its customers a cohesive, streamlined purchasing process. The need for phone-based short orders and real-time availability inquiries has been reduced.

KPMG designed and developed the system via three work streams:

• User research/experience design: We interviewed a wide variety of distributors, wholesalers, specialty pharma providers, and government representatives in numerous countries in order to map the ideal digital commerce experience.

• Platform and technology assessment/planning: We examined everything currently in place to evaluate what was required to underpin and support the new buying experience.

• Skills, organization, and CoE design: We conducted IT and operational impact analyses, and built a two-year roadmap for design and implementation of a new, centralized center of excellence to support sales and order management for each operating country.

Do not lead with technology

In a B2B digital commerce environment in which orders often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the purchasing experience must drive all the solution design. The platform and technological underpinnings must supprt the carefullly purpose-built buying experience.

Be prepared to make trade-offs

Although the solution should be built around the ideal buying experience, you'll likley have to pay some "technical" debt by modifying some of your experience desires in order for it to operate correctly within the existing IT systems environment. Untimately, the solution must be balanced among what's viable, feasible, and desirable.

There's a symbiotic relationship among the core solution elements

Success requires that technology and architecture, customer experience, and people and change all be addressed during the design and development phases.