IIS – breathing new life into TrulifeBackground

Trulife is a developer, manufacturer, and distributor of healthcare products spanning breastcare, orthopaedics, prostheti cs and pressurecare. A major supplier to the HSE in Ireland, the NHS in the UK and distributi ng through an internati onal network of 300 distributors in over 80 countries, Trulife is a thriving, innovati ve business that helps people live more fulfi lled lives.

Discover how Intelligent Informati on Systems (IIS), an SAP Gold Partner, is helping this inspirati onal company manage its complex and oft en bespoke products more eff ecti vely – enabling it to expand and opti mise its business while also delivering a bett er experience to the pati ents, healthcare professionals and channel partners it works with. Trulife’s commitment to innovati on, quality and excellent customer service means that it strives to conti nuously improve its systems and processes. Its success in doing so can be seen not just in its order books and balance sheets, but also on the faces of the pati ents whose lives it’s helping to transform.

Overview

Bett er fi nancial control

We must be one of the most advanced users of Business One – we really stretch it – but it supports us well.James Collier, • UK Financial Controller, Trulife

Key facts

• Trulife Group is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, and has wholly-owned manufacturing, R&D and marketi ng subsidiaries in Ireland, UK, USA and Canada.

• Trulife is committ ed to both organic growth and expansion through acquisiti on. It has acquired four businesses since 2004, which have widened its range substanti ally and taken it into new areas of healthcare provision.

• Trulife employs over 600 staff and has more than 300 specialist distributor partners in over 80 countries.

• Trulife were runners up in the Briti sh Healthcare Associati on Customer Service Excellence Awards 2008, and won the award outright in 2009 and again in 2010.

• IIS deployed the fi rst phase of SAP Business One for Trulife Ireland in three months, and in eight weeks for Trulife UK.

What diff erence can the right soluti on make? Aren’t they basically all the same? James Collier, Trulife’s UK Financial Controller thinks not. “I’ve used quite a few diff erent systems and Business One strikes the right balance for a company like ours,” he says. “It’s not the most complex system I’ve used, but quite simply it turns raw data into usable informati on that puts me fi rmly in control and enables me to be more proacti ve.” James notes that even though they’re a very customer-centric company they’re also fi ercely commercial, and the company doesn’t just provide monthly accounts but also daily summaries.

“In my previous company it could take me half an hour to drill down into some of this data,” he says “but with Business One I can get the same level of insight in fi ve clicks. The ease of use and speed are incredibly important to a business like Trulife.

With Business One we’ve reduced the ti me taken to produce the accounts from six days down to two and a half.”

Cormac Dowling, Financial Controller Ireland agrees: “We’re able to do far more in-depth analysis than before we started working with IIS,” he says. “Nothing stands sti ll, not our business and not what we’re doing with Business One. IIS is helping us to evolve how we use it and, in fact, one of the great strengths of the system is its fl exibility and how easy it is to build on it over ti me.”

He conti nues: “At the moment the UK has recently upgraded and we’re set to follow later this year. The good thing about it is I can learn from them, which should make it even easier for me.”

Established in 1958 in Detroit by Walter Kausch, the Trulife group has been in Irish ownership since 1980, and was acquired by its CEO Noel J Murphy in 1987. Trulife has established a worldwide presence, with thousands of product lines and brand names that are recognised across the globe, and a reputati on for both product and service excellence.

When Trulife bought CAMP Ireland and CAMP UK in 2004, rebranding them as Trulife Ireland and UK, it quickly perceived that it could substanti ally improve its commercial and operati onal performance by investi ng in a new IT soluti on. At that ti me, the newly-acquired companies were using siloed systems, with diff erent soluti ons for fi nance, manufacturing, ordering, inventory

and warehousing. This meant that there was sub-opti mal communicati on internally and with partners, and no end-to-end view of orders as they moved through the process.

The decision was therefore taken to move the new Trulife UK and Ireland subsidiaries onto SAP Business One, using SAP Gold Partner Intelligent Informati on Systems (IIS) for the implementati on. IIS subsequently rolled out “Intelligent Essenti als” at Trulife. This soluti on sits on top of Business One to add localisati on and industry-specifi c requirements for manufacturing companies. Newly-developed by IIS, Intelligent Essenti als is now in version 3.0, which adds e-commerce capabiliti es to the soluti on.

Our people are our greatest asset.Noel J Murphy, • CEO, Trulife

Better customer experience

Ultimately, what determines the success of a business like Trulife’s though is the customer experience. It’s not enough just to have innovative and good-quality products, Trulife also has to deliver great customer service.

In Trulife’s case the customer experience encompasses patients, clinicians and distributors – all of which have benefitted from the operational improvements that Business One has delivered. But the “proof is in the pudding” as they say. In Trulife’s case this takes the form of five solid years of year on year business growth.

Better operations

It is critical for an operations department to get accurate and timely information in order to plan production from supply chain to deliver and Olive Gunning, Group Operations Director at Trulife comments “both Ireland & UK operate different businesses with different production requirements but SAP Business One delivers.”

Olive explains that “in Ireland, SAP Business One has enabled us to combine business operations so that we can run a manufacturing operation, an export distributor business and a domestic customer base on one unified package. This gives us the ability to integrate our entire customer ordering and have clear visibility on inventory management with purchase planning”.

The nature of Trulife’s business in the UK, being partly bespoke, means that track-and-trace functionality is incredibly important, not only to Trulife but also to its customers. “Customers can now see exactly where in the process the order is, and this allows healthcare professionals to plan patient appointments more accurately. This not only helps them optimise their time, but also means patients aren’t being inconvenienced if the product isn’t ready,” comments Olive Gunning, Operations Director.

SAP Business One has delivered greater operational efficiency, and it’s also meant the time to delivery has been reduced, which enhances customer satisfaction and speeds the order-to-delivery cycle.

Better people

Trulife is a specialist manufacturer of niche medical devices, but its business is really all about people – whether that’s patients, customers, suppliers or employees. Its products help patients who are going through a tough time in their lives to regain their passion for life, and its employees are a highly dedicated team focused on providing the best possible service to customers and patients alike.

“Our employees are always mindful that to our customers this isn’t just another product, it’s something that’s life enhancing. We’re all fully committed to delivering the very best service to customers.” Martin Ryan, Sales Director Ireland

“IIS has helped us take this to the next level. Using Business One and Intelligent Essentials has empowered us to improve the level of service we can offer, and as a result we’re seeing new business due to our reputation for product and service excellence.” Olive Gunning

IIS is now part of that close-knit team and staff are on first-name terms. Cormac Dowling comments: “They’re hardworking, contactable, knowledgeable and responsive. IIS also has great staff retention so we know exactly who we’re dealing with, and we know they understand our business as well as our system.”

Intelligent Informati on Systems

Email: sales@beabett erbusiness.com

www.beabett erbusiness.com

IRL: 01-2860200 | UK 0845 602580

Key learning points

• “It’s really important to ensure the system is right for you. We explored all the strange nuances of our legacy system with IIS and that helped us understand which of these delivered business value. Where there was business value, IIS helped us adapt Business One to our needs.”– James Collier, Financial Controller UK, Trulife

• “It is crucial in a business like ours to be able to quickly provide staff with the informati on they need to help them make bett er business decisions. That’s the biggest benefi t we’ve received from implementi ng SAP Business One.” - Cormac Dowling, Financial Controller Ireland, Trulife

• “In IIS we’ve found a great partner and the IIS staff are dedicated and responsive to our needs.” - Olive Gunning, Operati ons Director