About

Biotechnology is an exact science. Sigma-Genosys has found the formula necessary to meet the growing needs of their customers.

A top international Biotech company, Sigma-Genosys is responsible for the development, manufacturing and distribution of high quality research products for the life science community. Their customers discover genetic sequences and send them to Sigma-Genosys to be synthesised and returned for continued research.

Challenge

Fundamental challenges in the biotechnology industry are based on two key factors: driving down costs and reducing product turnaround time.

• Driving down costs: Each year product output is doubled, but retail costs slide on average, 30%. In order to reduce order management costs and handle this volume increase, it is imperative to use web technology to manage the manufacturing/ordering process.
• Reducing product turnaround time: Customers develop genetic sequences and wait for Sigma-Genosys to synthesise and deliver them before the research process can continue. Timely product delivery is vital.A guarantee of quality products and quick delivery is the promise that sets Sigma-Genosys apart from their competitors. On average, they fulfill over 5,000,000 unique orders a year (approximately 15,000 orders a day) and about 90% of this business is conducted over the Internet.

Sigma-Genosys is the first Biotech company to have a sophisticated, online order fulfillment system. Recently they decided it was necessary to strengthen their Web site in order to meet the demands of the high volume Internet orders and critical turnaround times. They identified the following challenges as being instrumental to the success of this improved web site:

• Reduce long content creation cycles
• Provide up-to-date customer and product information
• Minimise Information Systems (IS) involvement, focusing their efforts on producing a powerful web infrastructure capable of accurately managing
• high volume/mass customisation orders
• Control rising web management costs

Solution

Sigma-Genosys responded by choosing RedDot Content Management Server to reduce costs, improve product delivery and meet their web content management (WCM) needs. Sigma-Genosys's web order management goal is to position themselves with the online capability to receive orders, synthesise and ship product within 24 hours.

• No HTML knowledge required: Marketing staff has the ability to create, update and implement content quickly and with ease.
• Editing workflow: with minimal training, assigned content editors (a hierarchy of editors can be created with RedDot) quickly update site content, resulting in more centralised content control for the Marketing group.
• IS participation limited: IS is no longer required to code content and can focus on building the robust applications and infrastructure necessary to handle Sigma-Genosys's high volume Internet business. Limited web cost: no additional resources required to manage the web.

Results

Sigma-Genosys has been able to realise powerful benefits using the RedDot solution:

• Content Creation Cycles Cut in Half. Past: There used to be a two-week cycle for content creation. Marketing developed the content and passed it through a series of editing stops. Content was then handed off to IS for HTML coding and production, and returned to Marketing for a last editing pass. Finally, the content was posted. Present: Content creation moves fast. Marketing creates, edits and posts content. No more work, but more control. Process is immediate and flexible; removes IS middlemen.
• Responsive Web Content: New content can be created and posted quickly and easily to the web with RedDot's user-friendly technology. RedDot facilitates the ability to supply the community with real-time scientific and any pressing product information Sigma-Genosys may want to release to their customers. In addition, customer orders are processed with speed.
• Separate Marketing and IS Responsibilities: Marketing focuses on product and web content while IS directs its skills toward web applications and managing the infrastructure. IS no longer splits time between technologically advancing the business to handle its order fulfillment goals and creating web content.
• Deploy/Maintain Web at a Fraction of the Cost: The ease of web content creation and management with RedDot minimises IS web involvement at no additional cost to the Marketing group. Marketing members post content directly to the web site, while IS directs their existing manpower to the company's dynamic technology needs. Costs historically associated with HTML content coding are eliminated.

RedDot Content Management Server clearly meets the strategic web needs of Sigma-Genosys.