Case Studies

AFTCO turned to Northridge seeking to improve its existing intranet application with a more robust deal management solution to be used by AFTCO analysts and employees to manage all aspects of its dental transition consulting and deal management process. The existing AFTCO intranet solution provided for basic lead management and other tools for its analyst users, however following substantial company growth, AFTCO needed an extensible deal management solution with increased functionality, driving deal velocity and efficiency while providing valuable insight for business decision making. With the accelerated company growth, the details and activities surrounding each dental practice transition deal had become more complex, compounding the need for a more comprehensive set of tools to complement the roles of analyst and management teams. These tools would provide AFTCO teams with more transparency into each dental practice transition deal, streamlining processes, eliminating errors, encouraging collaboration, and boosting efficiency within the transition deal management lifecycle.

Leveraging the True North Methodology™, Northridge engaged in an extensive Analyze & Define process, working with AFTCO staff including marketing, finance, analysts, and executive leadership to identify detailed functional requirements for the AFTCO Deal Management Intranet solution. At the end of the Analyze & Define process, it was clear that a custom solution would be required to effectively meet AFTCO’s business requirements. In the Build & Deploy phase, Northridge developed the Deal Management Intranet solution utilizing the robust Microsoft .NET Framework to accomplish the required business objectives. For AFTCO analysts, the new Deal Management Intranet solution was constructed to manage the entire dental transition “deal” portfolio, from inquiry to qualified lead to active deal transaction management. This deal portfolio management functionality features document management of all deal communications, proposals, contracts, and negotiations. For added communication management, Northridge developed a custom Microsoft Outlook plug-in enabling automatic record creation in the Outlook journal and for any email communications sent via the Deal Management Intranet solution to be saved in the user’s Outlook “Sent Items” folder. AFTCO analysts can also access the Deal Management Intranet’s business intelligence (BI) dashboards for process management information and activity queues. The Deal Management Intranet functionality also includes dental practice buyer/seller matching and practice transition legal forms processing. Beyond managing the active transition deals and aiding in ongoing process improvement, the Deal Management Intranet’s survey management tool auto-generates a survey to transaction participants 30 days post-deal closure for ongoing client satisfaction analysis.

In addition to the robust Deal Management functionality, the new AFTCO Intranet features custom marketing, communications, and human resources program management capabilities. The company also relies on the new Intranet for content management of its public website, providing non-technical AFTCO personnel with the ability to update many areas of the public website including events, client testimonials, and career opportunities. The new Intranet also features complete customer relationship management (CRM) functionality including database management of more than 210,000 dentist contacts, marketing campaign management, and third party marketing tool integrations. AFTCO Human Resources also leverages the company’s Intranet for on-demand audio/video training. Serving as an internal collaboration hub for AFTCO, the new Intranet features opportunities to post announcements, share thought leadership, and join discussion forums.

Immediately following the launch of the Deal Management Intranet, AFTCO began to realize the return on its investment. The Intranet is now considered the single source of the truth for analysts, who rely on it for access to timely information and client data yielding analyst efficiency and corresponding increased deal volume, velocity, and client satisfaction. The extensible Microsoft .NET Framework, upon which the AFTCO Deal Management Intranet was built, replaced the out-dated, unsupported technology to provide a stable platform for growth and enhancements and mitigate business risk. The Intranet’s usability has also yielded human resources benefits in recruiting and
retaining top AFTCO analysts.