Innovativer B2B-Webshop für qualitativ hochstehende Dentalimplantate

Manufactures implants for dental implantology since 1975
Independent family business
Worldwide distribution network
Over 900 articles for different treatment concepts
Compatibility among articles is platform dependent among other things

BENEFITS FOR THOMMEN AND CUSTOMERS

Most customer-friendly & intuitive store in the dental world

Benefits for Thommen

Securing of sales channels, new sales models (hubs)
"Sales Agent" allows activities to be carried out directly in the store for the customer (troubleshooting or taking orders), efficiency gain
Campaigns and promotions can be tailored to the market and specific customers
Global expansion possible (short time-to-market in untapped countries)
No redundant data; product data from existing ERP and CMS systems is integrated
Massive reduction in incorrect deliveries
Improved customer loyalty through simple, fast ordering processes

Matching products are not assigned manually, they are created from the logic of the features and the product assortment. As soon as Thommen adds new products to the range, they are automatically assigned based on the classifying characteristics.

"Sales Agent ": A highlight in the new B2B webshop is the so-called sales assistant. Employees who previously had to take and process orders via other systems such as ERP now benefit from the same intuitive user guidance as customers. The "sales agent" allows customer histories to be tracked directly in the web application and orders to be placed on behalf of the customer on request. In this way, Thommen's field service staff can also place an order within 30 seconds for the dentist with whom he/she just spoke on the phone. This implementation would not be possible with a standard store.

Targeted campaigns and promotions: Campaigns and promotions can be run individually for specific markets (e.g., only Switzerland or only the US). Customer-specific promotions—such as a 10% introductory discount in the first year—are also easily possible. All campaigns and promotions are defined and configured in SAP and are therefore valid for all sales channels.

Benefits for the customer

Easy-to-navigate shop solution that allows dental practices to order products themselves with just a few clicks, without having to rely on the sales force.
Thanks to multiple ordering methods (QR code, direct search, graphical selection), the shop is optimally tailored to the way customers work.
Complete integration and management of dental practices' consignment products/warehouses, management of the customer's consignment warehouse in the web app.
Simple overview of compatible products
The solution supports dentists in selecting the most suitable dental implants and the “neighboring sizes,” i. e., the smaller and larger dental implants.
Dental practices no longer have to maintain their own order history

Configurator: Specialists such as dentists and dental technicians Thommen offers the indication-based configurator, through which they select products they need.

Individual consignment stock: With consignment stock held directly at the respective dentist's practice, Thommen Medical increases supply security and enables dentists to select the right implant at short notice. The functions for consignment stock include:

The customer and the sales agent at Thommen Medical can view the stock at any time.
Purchases from the consignment warehouse can be reported directly via the web app (1. scan box, 2. check out, 3. done) and Thommen Medical replenishes the warehouse promptly.
The annual inventory is greatly simplified, as it is immediately apparent which products are used first and which must be returned to Thommen Medical because the expiration date is approaching.

Overview of annual quotas (coming soon): Customers who purchase an annual quota at favorable terms can obtain the products they have already purchased free of charge via the shop. There is no need to contact Thommen Medical for clarification, as current contracts, including outstanding quantities, can be viewed in the shop at any time.

From the search results, the product can be added directly to the shopping cart

"Simple variant overview ": Customers who are used to selecting their products via the "simple variant overview" because they know it from the print catalog can now also find it online and select their product very quickly. The overview shows the various features and product characteristics in a matrix across two dimensions. A conventional online store would not have been able to map this print catalog structure.

The integration of techy features allows tech-savvy customers to use their smartphones to scan a QR code on the product via “scan-to-cart” or “scan-to-shopping cart,” which is then automatically added to the shopping cart.

Reordering products directly via smartphone is even faster—from opening the app to checking out in 30 seconds.

Video: “Scan-to-Cart” allows direct access to specific products:

THE SPECIAL

Intuitive user experience with scalable system architecture

An innovative B2B-Webshop for high-quality dental implants has been created. Thommen Medical's print catalog has been digitized - with a unique solution that combines an intuitive user experience with a scalable system architecture. We are proud of what we have achieved together with Eyekon AG.

Collaborations between Eyekon and Intelliact are known for independent and sustainable custom e-commerce solutions and have been awarded several times with Best of Swiss Web Awards (see Case Studies EAO or Compona). At Thommen Medical, optimal data consistency is also ensured thanks to a unique headless approach: This is built on specialized components or microservices that come together in an intelligent front-end application (Progressive Web App). Technologically, however, a new, radical aspect has been added to this project: the strict separation between purchase and content information to achieve maximum flexibility in product combinatorics.

CHALLENGES IN THE PROJECT

Over 900 items for different treatment concepts

The goal of the family-owned company is to produce the best possible dental implant system. To achieve this, they consistently rely on rigorous quality testing and collaboration with the best experts in dental medicine worldwide.

But until now, customers had to go to great lengths to select their products from the range of over 900 items for various treatment concepts, the compatibility of which among the items depends on the platform, from a PDF or print catalog. To minimize this effort, the catalog was to be digitized. The plan was to create a stand-alone solution that could be used globally. In the future, Thommen wanted to pick up its potential customers individually at their needs, accompany them according to their requirements and develop them into satisfied customers in this way.

IMPLEMENTED BY INTELLIACT

From print catalog to digital globally deployed solution

Intelliact did not arrive at the result via a standard store. Because: "A standard store solves 80% of the use cases with normal effort. The individual 20% and all future, new features cost a multiple in each case". , says Marco Egli, Senior Consultant, Intelliact AG.
Intelliact has created an application based on user needs.

Many paths lead to the product - a central aspect of usability.
The needs of the store visitors were recorded during the analysis phase. Questions such as "What do dentists and dental technicians need? Which paths lead the different user groups to the product?" were worked out. The user journey showed which paths are possible via the navigation to the product in order to get to the right product, fill the shopping cart and check out. Today, the digital ordering process allows customers to reach the product via a wide variety of paths, depending on their needs. The ordering process has been significantly simplified and store performance has been further enhanced by digital features.

Shop performance increased, means:
"We implemented the project within 6 months: from concept idea to feature complete. We made sure customers could navigate very quickly through the store to check-out. The special feature: A product is in the shopping cart within a tenth of a second - even from New York, although the way to the ERP and the servers is much further than from Zurich. How did we do it? We relied on globally distributed services and built new features on standard components in the backend. In this way, we ensure that Thommen is robust on the road right from the start and can achieve 100% reliability," says Marco Egli, Senior Consultant at Intelliact AG.

Intelliact worked according to the principle: Composable Commerce.
A CMS to manage product data. A Distributed Order Management System to manage order data, such as global inventory, orders, shopping cart and to optimize price and delivery times for customers. An image management system to deliver and convert images faster. Other components could be enumerated.

The transaction layer of the application is composed only of those components that are relevant for the purchase transaction (Composable Commerce with Commerce Layer. In the content layer, only structured, networked content information is stored - here, Hygraph allows the intuitive, one-time capture of granular building blocks that can be played out as often as desired. These are two highly specialized headless systems that are hosted decentrally. This provides outstanding performance globally with average response times of 100 milliseconds (0.1s).

MACH Impact Award 2023

Intelliact wins the MACH Impact Award

Together with Thommen Medical and Eyekon AG, we win the MACH Impact Industry Award for our innovative B2B web shop for dental implants. This means that the project makes a real difference in solving complex technical problems and creating measurable business value.

The MACH Impact Awards are the only awards for the world's most innovative and impactful technology projects that use a MACH strategy (microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native SaaS, headless).

Digital Commerce Award 2023

Nominated for the Digital Commerce Award

The Thommen Medical B2B Webshop project has been nominated for the Digital Commerce Award 2023. We are proud of what we have achieved and would like to express our sincere thanks to everyone involved. The Digital Commerce Award is a prestigious award for outstanding Swiss online shops.

Best of Swiss Web 2022

Intelliact receives 5 awards at BOSW 2022

For the project "Thommen Medical B2B-Webshop" we win together with Thommen Medical and Eyekon AG Gold of the category Technology at the Best of Swiss Web #bosw ! We are very happy that we as implementers could convince the jury of experts with the project. Many thanks and bravo to all involved!

The Thommen Medical B2B-Webshop also stood out from the 351 submitted projects and became Master candidate at the Best of Swiss Web Award! Thus we can count ourselves to the circle of the best digital projects in Switzerland. We are proud of it.

Awards

Best of Swiss Web 2022

We receive Gold in Technology + 4 other awards: The innovative B2B web shop for high-quality dental implants received five awards at Best of Swiss Web #BOSW 2022.