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needs, requirements, requisites, essentials
to emerge: to appear, to become visible, to surface, to materialise, to come out
objective targets: aims, goals
     
Three paths to success
    By restructuring their sales department, Heraeus Kulzer, a
limited liability company, achieved a more customer-friendly approach
at less selling costs.
    Up to now, the sales department at Heraeus Kulzer was organised to be product-oriented.
Due to
acquisitions and
mergers
, each product group had its own sales organisations. These led their customers separated from one another into different data bases. For each product group, the goods were offered, shipped, and
invoiced
separately. There was no information exchange at all.
    Now, the company, producing chemical materials required for dentistry, has a new
rallying cry
, “One face to the customer.” Firstly, they
consolidated
the
distribution channels
, secondly, they stablished a customer service centre, and thirdly, they fed a central “data warehouse” with all the customer information, which
previously
had been collected locally.
    The results are intensified customer loyalty and improved customer service as well a reduction in processing costs, as reported by Enrico Senger andHubert Österle from the Institute for Information Systems at the University of St. Gallen, who also
oversee
the reorganisation project.
The background
    The industry’s ten largest companies, with Heraeus Kulzer being one of them,
share
half of the total market among themselves. Heraeus Kulzer’s goal was to expand their market shares. Because there is not much potential for differentiation in the product
range
, the company saw their chance to improve customer service.
    The most important step was to separate the sales department by customer groups and
to set up
only one channel of distribution each, which is one for the 8000 dental laboratories and one for the 40 000 dental practices in Germany.
    This step also became necessary because the customer groups’ shopping
behaviour
has changed. As a rule, dentists purchase their
extensive
materials
wholesale
, at so-called dental depots. Laboratories bundle their requirements via
buying syndicates
,
“Therefore, co-ordinated product systems and simplified procurement logistics are strong incentives for dental laboratories to order from only one manufacturer,”
say Enrico Senger and Hubert Österle.
“The goal, therefore, was a fully integrated solution for the purpose of comprehensive customer relationship management.”
    The most important tasks in the implementation of “One face to the customer”
consisted of
:
    Merging and newly
linking
customer data, which had been coming from
various sources
.
    Establishing the Internet as an additional channel of distribution.
    Synchronising it with the existing contact channels (multi-channel management).
    Thereby the following goals should be reached:
    Reduction of tasks which
are not adding value
.
    Elimination of
superfluous
transactions.
    Possibility for the creation of customer profiles and for customer segmentation.
    Implementation of segment-specific sales and marketing activities.
Two criteria for measuring success
    Whether the sales department’s restructuring is taking a successful course should be determined
mainly
by using two measuring criteria, which are:
    an increase in the percentage of sales,
    an increase in customer satisfaction.
    The measuring criteria “cost reduction,” however, was
abandoned
because in the opinion of the person in charge there is a risk that it may come into conflict with the main goals. To project manager Oliver Assmus, chief of Heraeus Kulzer’s customer service centre, the
inclusion
of the customers’ requirements was an essential factor for success. Therefore, customers of the different segments were asked about their needs.
    The implementation of the CRM solution was done step-by-step but simultaneously for all distribution channels. The critical point for success was the