OPED Transforms Business Reporting and Customer Satisfaction with Business Central Insights

Company Background

OPED was founded in 1992 and specializes in the development, production, and distribution of innovative medical products designed to aid in the rehabilitation of patients. Their offerings include a range of orthopaedic solutions, focusing on post-surgical care, injury recovery, and long-term patient care. When the founders created VACOped, their first and most successful product, they blended technology from ski boots to replace the uncomfortable plaster cast with a light, functional vacuum splint.  30 years later, OPED operates in 6 countries across the globe and continues to benefit patients and practitioners alike with their state-of-the-art, modern orthoses.  Today, OPED is focused on using data and analytics to enhance operational efficiency and data visibility across its businesses to meet the growing demands of its industry and support healthcare providers in ensuring timely delivery of medical equipment, enhancing patient mobility and recovery outcomes.

Business and Technical Challenges

Before adopting BCI, OPED faced significant challenges in managing data across multiple entities, which was time consuming and made it difficult to get a complete view of the business. In addition, one of the other most pressing issues was the lack of real-time reporting, which was not possible as OPED relied on Excel for many of its financial and operational reports.  This reliance also introduced manual errors and consumed substantial time each month.

Jacob Liang, ERP System Transformation Analyst at OPED, explained, "With Business Central standard reporting we were dealing with duplicate data, inconsistencies, and inefficiencies in our reporting process. Combining data from multiple companies was a time consuming challenge, and the manual reporting methods were prone to errors. This made it difficult for management to get accurate and timely insights into financial and operational performance."

"We needed a reporting app that could integrate our operations and provide real-time insights." said Danny Wang, ERP Project Manager at OPED Australia, “For example, our sales team needed up-to-the-minute sales figures, and our warehouse team needed visibility into stock and order fulfillment so they can chase vendors promptly if there is a problem.  Failure to do so means our customers will not get products on time and made it very difficult to commit to a specific delivery day, ultimately leading to a poor customer experience .” added Danny.

Additionally, OPED’s previous reporting process required multiple days of manual effort to prepare financial statements, causing delays and limiting the company’s ability to make quick decisions. The need for an integrated system that could consolidate data from across different companies, provide real-time insights, and automate processes became evident.

Why They Chose Business Central Insights

OPED decided to implement Business Central Insights due to its seamless integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central and Power BI. BCI’s ability to provide real-time, customizable reports without the need for additional data staging or warehousing was a key factor. The system’s ease of use also enabled non-technical staff to generate insights without relying on IT or data specialists.

"We needed a solution that could provide accurate, real-time data directly from Business Central without the need for additional specialist resources or complex infrastructure. BCI allowed us to consolidate our data and provide real-time reports to our sales and warehouse teams, as well as senior management." said Danny .

Benefits

Since implementing BCI, OPED has realized several important benefits that have transformed its business operations:

• Time & Resource savings:
  OPED’s finance team has significantly reduced the manual effort and time required for consolidating reportings and doing periodic reporting, saving two weeks of manual reporting time per month across the finance team.  "Two people used to spend the first week of each month preparing financial reports, but now with BCI, we have real-time financial reports for P&L and balance available at our fingertips," said Wang.

• Multi-Company Consolidated Reporting:
  OPED’s finance team now has a single consolidated view across multiple companies, improving management’s ability to make timely data driven decisions.

• Improved accuracy:
  By reducing the need for manual work in preparing reports, especially Excel-driven ones, OPED has seen a reduction in errors and greater consistency in its financial reporting. "In the past, Excel reports were prone to formula errors and manual input mistakes. With BCI, everything is automated and validated, reducing the chance of mistakes," said Liang.

• Timely decision-making:
  OPED’s sales, warehouse, and management teams now have access to real-time reporting, enabling faster decision-making and improving day-to-day operations. Sales teams can monitor performance metrics and make adjustments quickly, while warehouse teams can manage inventory and track shipments more efficiently. "With BCI, our warehouse team now has real-time insights into stock levels and shipments, which helps us fulfill orders on time, reduce overbuying and improve customer satisfaction.  We have also saved a fortune by using the most up-to-date  freight data, helping us to choose the best provider at the right time" exclaimed Liang.

• Increased transparency:
  With BCI, OPED’s management team has full visibility into financial and operational performance. This level of transparency has helped align management strategies and ensure smoother business operations. "BCI has given our management team real-time visibility into our financials, which has improved their confidence in our operations.  Thanks to BCI they now feel more in control of their business." said Wang.

• Wide spread reporting user adoption:
  With BCI, people in the business have realized how easy it is to use, create adhoc reports, share insights and that they can rely on the data. This has increased user adoption and helped promote more people to make data driven decisions internally.

• Improved Customer Satisfaction:
  Most importantly with BCI OPED can now commit to a specific delivery day for their customers, decrease delivery times and increase the reliability of delivery, which are critical factors in helping customers heal/recover faster.   “Improved visibility and team coordination have led to faster delivery times, supporting better customer satisfaction and more reliable order fulfilment.” said Jacob.

Future Use:
Looking ahead, OPED plans to leverage BCI’s advanced features, including forecasting capabilities and KPI tracking for its sales and finance teams. The company also aims to expand BCI’s use to additional business units as it continues to grow and consolidate more companies.

"We’re excited to continue working with Business Central Insights and grateful for the extremely professional and responsive service and partnership. As our business grows, we expect BCI to play an even greater role in helping us manage our operations more effectively," said Wang.