Owens & Minor
Achieve Award-Winning Results Through IT Outsourcing
When Owens & Minor, the nation’s leading distributor of name-brand medical supplies, wanted to improve the information flow across its supply chain, Perot Systems delivered. Perot Systems was able to dramatically improve Owens & Minor’s IT systems with an intense focus on availability and reliability through the implementation of new technology, applications and a network infrastructure.
The Challenge
Owens & Minor’s long-standing reputation for quality, reliability and operational excellence is closely tied to the efficiency of the company’s supply chain. In 1998, Owens & Minor was looking for a service partner to help improve the flow of information in every direction—between its headquarters, distribution centers, sales force, customers and suppliers. For Owens & Minor, a more efficient distribution of information makes for a more efficient distribution of products.
Even though Owens & Minor’s technical accomplishments were receiving accolades, their IT environment was being managed by multiple organizations. IBM was the mainframe supplier, and Perot Systems was the distributed systems outsourcing arm and systems development team.
The Solution
In November of 1998, to build upon its technology leadership in healthcare, Owens & Minor outsourced most of its Information Technology (IT) to Perot Systems to help ensure that its systems’ reliability would support the delivery of the right products to the right place at the right time.
Working together, Owens & Minor and Perot Systems introduced proven business processes to improve communications within the company, and put e-commerce solutions in place to facilitate better communication between healthcare manufacturers, distributors, providers, and industry exchanges.
As a result of these technology and process improvements, Owens & Minor began receiving recognition from technology industry publications, such as InformationWeek, ComputerWorld and the Data Warehousing Institute. In fact, for the last three years, Owens & Minor was among the top 15 in InformationWeek’s Information Technology Innovation 500 listing and received the number one ranking in 2001.
In July 2002, Owens & Minor decided to streamline operations and gain maximum impact and made Perot Systems their sole source for IT support. The seven-year, $229 million IT hosting and services agreement allows Perot Systems to leverage its expertise and centralized computer processing and buying power to reduce Owens & Minor’s hardware and software costs and further improve its award-winning IT operations.
“Perot Systems emerged as a natural partner for us,” said G. Gilmer Minor III, chairman and chief executive officer of Owens & Minor. “They are an organization that is similar to ours in terms of culture and integrity, with a team of creative people that are second to none. We outsourced most of our IT to them in 1998, and we have never looked back. It's one of the best strategic decisions that Owens & Minor has ever made.”
This not only brings Owens & Minor more in-line with their business objective, but by moving to a sole source relationship with Perot Systems, they are also greatly enhancing their hard-earned dollars. Perot Systems hosts Owens & Minor’s mainframe environment in its innovative technology data center located in Plano, Texas. In addition, Owens & Minor’s distributed systems are being modernized and consolidated into the Plano data center.
“Our information systems play a critical role in the delivery of products and services to our customers and differentiate us from our competitors. Perot Systems has taken our technology capabilities to a higher level in terms of effectiveness, accuracy and availability. They have also been a superb and reliable partner in all respects,” said Minor.
Technology implemented and supported by Perot Systems has allowed Owens & Minor to closely monitor all aspects of its supply chain, avoiding potential bottlenecks and providing savings and insight that it can pass on to its customers. Perot Systems continues to work closely with Owens & Minor to refine its supply chain capabilities and develop a more strategic and flexible business-to-business e-commerce framework.
