Global medical services company

IBM WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud integration enables complex project to be completed in just 17 days

This global medical services company in the United States provides medical imaging products that its customers can use in clinical trials. The company employs approximately 500 people.

Challenge
When business-critical applications exist in silos, users often must manually enter data to update information across systems. This reduces staff productivity and can introduce errors and delay executing important business processes.

Application integration automatically synchronizes related systems. Such integrations can be complex, as with this global medical services company, where five systems involved in ERP were unintegrated. Manual data entry between Deltek Costpoint project-oriented ERP software and Salesforce.com for CRM technology was time-consuming, error-prone and inhibited real-time visibility into invoices. This led to delayed accounts receivable (AR) collections. To create accurate revenue forecasts, the organization needed integration between Costpoint software and foreign currency rates from fxtop.com along with project and clinical information from Salesforce.com technology with forecasting applications. The company also needed integration among various databases and flat files related to research sites and patient information.

Solution
The company chose IBM WebSphere® Cast Iron® Cloud integration, which includes preconfigured integrations for hundreds of leading enterprise and cloud applications, including the Salesforce.com solution. Integration projects are easier with the “configuration, not coding” approach of the WebSphere platform, with easy-to-use templates and prebuilt connectors. It offers mashups to present one unified view of data from different applications, process integration to orchestrate business processes across cloud and on-premise applications, and data cleansing and migration from existing systems to cloud-based applications almost instantaneously.

In Phase 1 of its integration initiative, the client integrated the Costpoint solution with Salesforce.com technology to eliminate double data entry, improve the visibility of invoices and automate the AR process. Phase 1 also delivered integration of real-time foreign exchange rates from fxtop.com to Costpoint software. The client completed the project in just 17 days.

Benefits
· Improved productivity and saved USD200,000 annually by eliminating manual data entry
· Automated the AR process, which reduced expenses by USD120,000 annually
· Reduced AR “days sales outstanding” by 17 percent, from 58 to 48 days

For more information
To learn more about WebSphere Cast Iron Cloud integration, please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business, or visit: ibm.com/castiron