Why does a medical equipment sales and service company need an ERP? How to track medical equipment and implement cross-border and multi-currency operations and what to know before the ERP implementation.

We discussed these and many other questions with Mr.Oğuzhan Aydoğan, Commercial Operations Manager at Labmarker, a Turkish medical equipment sales and service company that operates since 1998, and has customers worldwide, including the US, Germany, Switzerland.

The first question is, why did you decide to implement an ERP? What your main challenges were?

We wanted to reach higher efficiency in medical equipment inventory management and implement a tracking system for medical equipment. The company's head office in Turkey and our branch in Germany had multiple business automation solutions, including CRM, that were not interconnected and integrated. Lots of data were just stored in Excel spreadsheets.

What problems did you face due to that fact?

This was not sustainable, and we faced lots of errors due to manual data management. It was hard to view the whole business, not just analyze the specific branch. When you do not have a specialized tool, it is hard to implement multi-company and multi-currency management.

Also, we hoped that the medical ERP system would allow us to manage complex orders, optimize deliveries, and reduce costs due to more efficient warehouse inventory management as we would be able to match requests to the warehouse stock balances on the go.

How can you track medical equipment now, as you've implemented 1C:Enterprise technology and 1C:Drive?

We were choosing among four different ERP systems provided by international vendors. 1Ci products became the most flexible, multi-company, and multi currency-friendly. Now we have all the needed information to get reports at a branch or the whole company level.

The system aggregates and stores data on warehouse stock balances, our procurement plans, match information about orders. So, we never run out of the equipment when we need them and always know what to order in advance.

What other tasks were you able to solve using the medical equipment tracking software?

We've got a 360-degree view of the business, can now generate multiple reports and keep track of every business process. The effectiveness of order management and goods dispatching has reached the maximum level. A better, controlled warehouse allows us to reduce costs. Sure, having information about two legal entities in Turkey and Germany in one place is very convenient for the management.

Why did you choose 1Ci products among competing solutions?

1С:Enterprise and 1C:Drive was used due to the flexibility and customization opportunities vital for the medical ERP system.

These solutions are also perfectly tailored to Turkish not-so-simple legislation, which is crucial for us as a business. Many global vendors lack such support, which makes using their products very hard, and it makes no sense assuming the cost of their solutions.

But local Turkish solutions were not a good fit either, as we have customers worldwide and Germany's legal entity. So, we needed to support both multi-currency operations and track everything at both entities and get reports on a whole company level. Only global vendors could offer this functionality. We've conducted thorough research and ended up going with the 1Ci products.

What did the implementation project look like? Was it long and complicated?

Actually, no, everything was pretty straightforward and took not that long. The whole process was divided into several steps. First, DND, the 1Ci partner in Turkey, analyzed our business processes, and developed a plan on how the software should be customized and what features to add. Then they implemented these changes.

Then, our German legal entity has entirely switched to the new software. We've tested everything for some time, and after that, our parent company in Turkey has switched all operations except finance and accounting as well.

What are your plans for future development and using the ERP and other automation tools?

After the successful test period, we plan to move our parent company's finance and accounting to the new ERP for the medical industry.

We like how the product develops, its new releases, and we're sure that the system will scale up along with our business' growth and cover our future needs.