How We Helped a Medical Company Reclaim Its Time (and Budget)

 By Steve Hatajlo

Sometimes the work finds you.

We got a call from a major U.S. medical company with products in hospitals all over the world. Their team was buried in labor-intensive manual processes.

Each year, over 70,000 purchase orders arrived via fax and email, all requiring manual entry. A team of more than 25 front-line support staff spent their time rekeying line items and tracking order follow-ups, leaving little room to focus on providing value-added support to customers.

Our U.S. client knew something had to change. But they didn’t want to make it difficult for their customers nor did they didn’t want to abandon the systems they had in place. They just wanted a way to make the chaos manageable.

That’s where FSI came in.

The Problem

Faxes, emails, and PDF orders were unstructured, leading to the need for manual review and entry. This caused delays and slow confirmation times.

The team struggled to scale, with staff dedicating time and resources to a process reliant on manual tasks instead of focusing on supporting customers directly.

The Fix

The solution we designed centered around adapting the process to fit their needs, rather than forcing them to change everything.

Orders continued to arrive via email, fax, and PDF, but instead of requiring manual entry, these documents were automatically captured and converted into structured data that the business systems could easily process. Clean, accurate orders were then fed directly into the medical company’s ERP system.

If something didn’t match—like a missing PO or an incorrect price—the system flagged it. One of their team members could simply log into a secure portal, make the necessary correction, and release the order. No need to restart the entire process.

Once the order was approved, it was immediately confirmed. Downstream documents, like invoices and shipping notices, were triggered automatically. There was no disruption for the

customer, no more chasing spreadsheets—just smooth, reliable progress every step of the way.

The Outcome

The change was immediate.

• No need to communicate with or train customers on a new way to submit orders
• Less than 14% of orders needed human review
• Staff were redirected to more strategic, customer-focused tasks.
• The average order processing time dropped to less than 60 minutes
• Reduced processing costs by more than $175,000 annually
• Our solution is now being scaled to Europe, Asia, and Australia

Our client didn’t have to change their approach to working with customers. They simply stopped wasting energy on the parts of the process that didn’t require it.

The Outcome

Not every transformation needs a new platform or a major overhaul. Sometimes, the best approach is to quietly remove the friction from what’s already working.

That’s how real change happens: by showing up, listening carefully, and making the system feel easier for everyone involved.