A Case Study on American Hospital Supply Corporation

Given Information: The AHSC was founded in 1922 by Foster G McGaw the organization was in health care sector which was into manufacturing of all the health care products extending from surgical equipments ,Surgical drapes and gowns ,gloves, syringes and other items and instruments ,chemical reagents and other products and services for biomedical and other laboratories .AHSC had a sales of $3.5billion and net earnings of $238 million .Virtually all of the 7500 short term general hospital in US bought at least some of their supplies from AHSC online purchasing system.

AHSC had the market share of almost 30 % and was able to manage the sales growth of 13% almost every year from 1978 to 83.The two third sales of AHSC came from laborites and international business accounted for 10 % of the sales .They had the 150 distribution channels worldwide and the manufacturing items were made from 46% sales and 83 % of net profits. Earlier the products were sold through field sales people who worked from homes and called directly on hospitals and other organizations. In early 1960 the AHSC initiated the online system for its customer to place orders, earlier west coast offices began having difficulty servicing a large hospital customer .Orders were frequently delivered late and incomplete, creating problems for both the customer and AHSC .And finally the new order entry system,with mainframe computer support was called Analytic systems automatic purchasing ( ASAP) Was launched. And finally a series of launch for AHSC of ASAP1, 2,3,4,5 which has its own benefits to the customers and finally to the sales force. The sales force was able to concentrate more on product selling than processing the order.

Objectives: Following were the objectives of the company 1) To provide customer with the ease of order placement 2) To Carefully understand the customer needs 3) To Retain customers 4) To improve on delivery period

5) To improve upon delivery cycle and time 6) To gain control over inventory system 7) To understand the competitors well 8) Better touch points of the customers 3) Assumption 1) The organization after successful implementation of ASAP is in Profit 2) The customer are satisfied with the service of the organization

4) Analysis The analysis requires detailed write-up Lets discuss some questions

Q1) How much competitive advantage can IT give wrt this case Ans IT has lot of competitive in todays world because it helps in understating the customer in a better way ,it helps in making customer satisfied, it helps in customer retention in better way ,further it helps in managing and controlling inventory ,it reduces inventory cost and help organization to monitor the same. It helps in order management, delivery process and makes the operations smooth

Q2) How can competition find opportunities for such usages of IT Ans Competition can use this in a more effective way for example cost feed analysis, Data Analysis, Evaluating competition etc

Q3) what could be done IT related competition advantage sustainable IT has lot of competitive in todays world because it helps in understating the customer in a better way ,it helps in making customer satisfied, it helps in customer retention in better way ,further it helps in managing and controlling inventory ,it reduces inventory cost and help organization to monitor the same.

Q4) How is AHSC and customer impacted by ASAP?

Ans Lets talk about Customer benefits a) Ease of placing orders b) Better Delivery time c) Transparency in price d) Ease in order execution e) Delivery status f) Payments details

Lets talk about AHSC

a) More Business b) Better Inventory Management c) Customer Retention d) New Customer accusation e) Touch in with supplier f) Better order and delivery system

5) Observation-It has been observed that AHSC saw potentially large changes coming in the ordering and use of supplies .Hospital were banding tighter into chains and voluntary buying groups, increasing their leverage and sophistication .Alternate care sites such as physicians offices, surgical and emergency centers and nursing homes kept much smaller inventories than did hospitals and tended to stock relatively low cost items.

6) Conclusion: After going through the case study, we come to the conclusion that implementation ASAP will proof helpful not only for the customer but also for the American Hospital Supply Corporation as been discussed in the case earlier.

7) Recommendation: The implementing of ASAP is successful for the variety of customer but, they need to update the same through latest tools available on IT implementation so as to cope up with competition in long turn.