Firstkind Medical

The Firstkind Medical Story

Firstkind operates in the medical and sports industry sectors. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sky Medical Technology, a privately held UK company based in High Wycombe and Daresbury. Firstkind manufactures medical devices utilising OnPulse™, Sky Medical’s proprietary neuromuscular electro-stimulation technology, designed to enhance the body’s own system to increase lower limb blood circulation which can help in a range of conditions.

An all-round British success story, the firefly™ device has been developed, manufactured and brought to market by Firstkind, following a three year programme of applied research with St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and Queen Mary, University of London and various published clinical studies.

Business Requirement

Mark Whalley joined Firstkind in early 2013 tasked with supporting the launch of the firefly device into the sports recovery market with the provision of order to cash logistics. The timescales were challenging, with the launch planned for 1 July that year, so he needed to hit the ground running. Having had previous experience using Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Mark reviewed the market as part of their due diligence and the company selected Dynamics NAV. With the selection complete at the end of March, the plan was to go live with Finance in May, Stock in June and ready with the whole joined up system for the launch in July.

Firstkind needed a solution that would enable the business to grow rapidly, adding new trading companies as it expanded into new sectors and new geographic territories. An added complication was that Firstkind operates in the highly regulated medical sector and needed to maintain visibility of stock across the supply and fulfilment lifecycle until it reached its furthest point, i.e. the hospital or consumer.

Solution

Firstkind and parent company Sky Medical Technology uses Dynamics NAV as its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution to run the entire business. The set up of Dynamics NAV will enable Sky Medical Technology to add new trading companies quickly and easily.

Finance

All financial transactions are completed using Dynamics NAV. In addition, TNP have helped Firstkind to set up consolidated accounts for the two companies.

Purchasing

All purchases, whether orders placed with manufacturers, incidental expenses within the business or credit card payments, are covered by a Dynamics NAV purchase order. Having everything in one place, with pre-approval means the accounts department can see exactly what commitments the company has, and makes the reconciliation process much quicker.

"a solution that would enable the business to grow rapidly"

Stock

All stock is managed within Dynamics NAV. Firstkind outsources manufacturing to trusted partners. As each partner makes components, they are added to the Dynamics NAV system, so they become visible to Mark and his team. Mark can see at a glance what inventory they have, in what location. The system also covers stock held by its fulfilment partner, and stock held by their field based sales people, which is typically stored in their car boots and garages.

The system gives Mark and his team full traceability, which is critical in the medical industry. All devices are lot controlled, and most have an expiry of two years, a key factor that needs to be tracked and managed.

Route to Market - Managing Sales

Firstkind currently supplies the medical and sports recovery markets. Each market has their own unique sales process.

The sports recovery market has a strong business to consumer element. Most orders are placed via www.fireflyrecovery.com. The website is built using Magento. As well as managing the orders and taking payments for each transaction, Magento has a link to Dynamics NAV utilising the NAV Connect solution. NAV Connect translates and populates the central Dynamics NAV system with the customer and transaction details. The system includes intelligence so if a customer order contains a pre-configured bundle of goods, for example, multiple devices with a knee strap, the system knows to unbundle the order to show the individual items. This back-office automation between Magento and Dynamics NAV saves huge amounts of time, and ensures that there are no re-keying errors, so accurate stock levels are maintained.

Once the orders are taken, Dynamics NAV knows which supplier to use and sends details of the orders accordingly.

Orders are placed with the Firstkind customer service team. Agents working on the customer service desk have access to the Firstkind systems including Dynamics NAV, Magento and CRM. This enables them to place orders directly into the system, and should there be any queries they can instantly see order history, and any other relevant details held within the CRM system.

As well as the customer service team, Firstkind has a team of sales people that meet customers, carry out demonstrations and provide samples. They are able to take orders, and if they have sufficient stock, they can fulfil the order there and then, details are entered on the system and invoices are issued accordingly.

In addition, Firstkind has several export customers and distribution partners based overseas. Typically they order large quantities which are handled by head office. These orders are sent directly to a manufacturing partner, who fulfils them directly while invoicing Firstkind.

"In TNP we have experience and depth of knowledge"

Dynamics NAV and CRM aligned - The Holy Grail

Firstkind have deployed Dynamics NAV and CRM as an integrated, real time solution. The integration ensures that differences in the master customer records are identified, it then updates or synchronises the records accordingly. As Mark puts it; ‘For anything soft and relationship based CRM is the master record, for anything hard and financial it’s Dynamics NAV.’