A*STAR Research Support Centre

A*STAR Research Support Centre (RSC) is an end-to-end life science products and services provider that meets the full spectrum of needs for research labs.

The company manages Singapore’s largest eCommerce portal for scientific services and laboratory consumables. RSC’s e-shopfront enables on-demand access to advanced equipment and scientific services from more than 30 public and private technology platforms managed by various expertise in genomics, immunology, bioimaging and more. There are over 60 qualified suppliers that provide more than 3,000 laboratory consumables and benchtop laboratory equipment at the web store.

Challenge

ASTAR’s growing world-class researchers are getting more sophisticated with expanding needs. They are also less patient with the manual processes required to obtain the products and services needed to conduct their research. At the same time, there is a research community in Singapore which also has their own expertise as well as facilities. There is a need to connect all these research assets into a single platform and make them available to the research community, befitting Singapore’s vision to be a research powerhouse. Finally, there is a need for audit and regulatory compliance in life sciences in order to uphold the quality of research and to ensure accountability for spending on public funds on research.

Solution

A nopCommerce Solution partner Zooloo offered:

• An e-shopfront built using nopCommerce’s solution that allowed on-demand orders to be placed by the researchers 24/7.
• The e-shopfront was integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 in the backend so that the orders can be automatically processed and fulfilled by a list of qualified suppliers.
• Microsoft’s Power BI provided the business analytics that allowed Management to get insights quickly from dashboards that are updated in real-time, which gives viewers the ability to solve problems and identify opportunities quickly.

The platform also allowed access to advanced equipment and scientific services from more than 30 public and private technology providers. The entire workflow of booking the facilities, paying for its use and utilization was automated.

Result

With the solution, ASTAR’s RSC was able to increase its product offering from 300 to 5,000 items. The organization was also able to offer services from 21 scientists which was not possible before. Researchers are now not only able to place orders 24/7, but they are also able to get same-day confirmation of their orders versus a minimum of five days previously due to the need for three quotes. And since everything is captured online, the platform is always audit-ready allowing RSC to simplify its compliance.

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