Chemistry iconography on a blue background.

Modernizing Complex B2B Sales for a Biochemical Manufacturer

Worthington Biochemical sells ISO9001-certified enzymes, proteins, acids, and other products used in biomedical research, pharmaceuticals, biotech, and OEM applications. They also maintain a comprehensive library of reference manuals and peer-reviewed journals, all of which are available to researchers and students.

Worthington’s complex distribution and sales processes required a custom content management system (CMS) integrated with a custom enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Innovation proved to be challenging, time-consuming, and costly. The purchase experience also fell short of what customers expected in an internet-first sales environment.

Centarro helped Worthington modernize their B2B commerce experience with Drupal Commerce. We simplified the ordering process, integrated with the in-house ERP, and accommodated current fulfillment processes, all while maintaining the relationships between their sales team and customers.

Simplified order workflows

Processes and automations that conform to long-established business logic.

Lower total cost of ownership

Shorter development cycles for new features and no fighting against a rigid platform.

A modern check-out experience

Customers can order complex products with a user-friendly, unified interface.

Worthington Biochemical home page and Tools page screenshots

A commerce platform that conforms to established business processes

Worthington has established business processes that have served them well for over 75 years. Orders have several states, each with specific conditions that must be met before transitioning to the next state. Additionally, only certain individuals have the authority to advance an order to the next state.

We modeled Drupal Commerce to conform to these processes. Only the right people at the right time can process an order, reducing miss-shipments and incorrectly fulfilled orders.

Worthington Biochemical product page with different variations and buy options

Flexibility for the future

Worthington’s previous solution was closed, rigid, and required custom development to add new features. Their new Drupal Commerce platform is made to be extensible. They can quickly spin up new marketing and sales channels. New integrations can be built, often with help from the community. Changes to sales and fulfillment processes can be supported without a long development cycle.

A modern B2B self-service experience

Worthington’s customers now enjoy the ease of a modern checkout experience. They can research and make specific lot requests during checkout, as well as request quotes, all from a unified interface.

Sales staff can create, edit, and fulfill all orders. Whether placed online by the customer or over the phone, the unified ecommerce backend streamlines the sales and support processes.

Worhtington Biochemical order and check out page.

A seamless transition

The new commerce platform models complex institution and distributor relationships. Backend processes were maintained to make it as easy as possible for the sales team to switch to the new platform.

We worked with Worthington’s internal development team to develop the new customer-facing ecommerce website and prepared all data to facilitate migrations and synchronizations to the custom ERP.

Unified content management

Because Drupal Commerce is built on Drupal, Worthington no longer needs to maintain its custom CMS. They can manage their vast library of content, create relationships between products and research materials, and surface related content for browsing customers. This consolidation eliminates technical debt and saves Worthington development hours every year.

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Services

Business analysis
Data migration
ERP integration
Order workflow design
Drupal Commerce theme design
Drupal Commerce best practices
Search implementation
Performance optimization
Solution architecture design
Project management