June 2022: Medical device manufacturer, MED-EL, which specialises in hearing technology, has teamed up with composable commerce specialist, Emporix, to develop and expand its online sales channels with a new e-commerce solution.
Launched in 1977 when a husband and wife team pioneered the modern cochlear implant for people with severe hearing impairment, MED-EL is now a global technology company that researches hearing loss and develops and manufactures implantable hearing systems.
The business sells its products not only to healthcare organisations and pharmacies, but also direct to consumer (D2C). It has chosen to work with Emporix to create a bespoke E-Commerce platform that will automate and futureproof its online sales channels across all markets.
The Emporix Digital Commerce Platform (DCP) has been designed to manage advanced commerce needs in B2B, B2C and D2C using a composable commerce architecture. This means that it can be highly customised to the needs of the business and will be free from the limitations of an all-in-one solution.
The new E-Commerce solution also gives MED-EL the ability to offer services in different regions of the world through a single platform rather than requiring licences for each, which reduces overheads and aids inventory and order management.
Eberhardt Weber, CEO of Emporix, said: “We are delighted that MED-EL has chosen Emporix as the platform for its digital commerce growth strategy. We are also working with our implementation partner Emakina and our technology partner Akeneo to develop a solution that will ensure not only agility to scale with the business, but also an excellent customer experience that will be a driver for growth.”
Having developed composable commerce solutions in grocery and retail previously, this marks Emporix’s first venture in the healthcare sector, and working with a medical device manufacturer.
Weber explained how advancements in composable commerce technology are now opening opportunities for large businesses such as MED-EL to develop better online channels that can match what has been seen in the consumer market in recent years. He said: “Gone are the days of needing to lock-in with a monolith website provider where updates and improvements are either expensive and time consuming, or not even possible within the confines of the platform.”
“Composable commerce instead uses a platform where everything is cloud-native and easily integrated with other APIs. This means that it’s possible to combine best-of-breed applications, depending on your business’s requirements, to build a bespoke and high end solution.”
“This approach is especially helpful for larger organisations with more complex operations and customer sales journeys, or those that operate in multiple channels or regions such as MED-EL.”
By leveraging crucial microservices in this way, MED-EL will be able to customise its partner infrastructure and use its portal as a business-enhancing, strategic foundation to scale in the future.
For more information, visit www.emporix.com.
MED-EL Medical Electronics, a leader in implantable hearing solutions, is driven by a mission to overcome hearing loss as a barrier to communication. The Austrian-based, privately owned business was co-founded by industry pioneers Ingeborg and Erwin Hochmair, whose ground-breaking research led to the development of the world’s first micro-electronic multi-channel cochlear implant (CI), which was successfully implanted in 1977 and was the basis for what is known as the modern CI today. This laid the foundation for the successful growth of the company in 1990, when they hired their first employees. To date, MED-EL has grown to more than 2,300 employees from around 80 nations and 30 locations worldwide.