Owens & Minor's Web site offers hidden nuggets of information; graphics get in the way

Health Industry Today, Nov, 1999 by Donald E.L. Johnson

Owens & Minor, the "largest distributor of brand name medical and surgical supplies," is using its Web site, www.owens-minor.com, to:

* Describe its business.

* Demonstrate its WISDOM data warehouse.

* Provide virtual tours of its warehouses.

* Supply district phone numbers.

* Report to shareholders and prospective investors. The site opens with a massive dark navy blue background, white type and red rules. Three pictures & a warehouse employee, an operating room and an OM truck & run horizontally across the middle of the home page. Under the pictures are four navigational options, reading, as we all do, from left to right: "Press Releases, Job Openings, Stock Quotes" and "Contact Us." Based on their prominent display, those links are the top priorities of the site. On the right side of the page, in bigger, bolder type, are five more navigational choices, reading, as we all do, from top to bottom: "Take a virtual warehouse tour, Teammates, Our Business, Investor Relations, OM Online." More than a pretty brochure site The first impression an experienced Web Surfer gets of OM from its home page is that this is meant to be a pretty brochure site, and it probably doesn't have much to offer. Too bad. Because there are some nuggets hidden away in this site for curious customers. And I mean hidden. The graphics in this site take so long to load every time you move to a new page that any materials manager using a home computer and slow modem is likely to give up before getting to some pretty interesting stuff. And many materials managers still are accessing the net from their homes. Assuming you have your computer nearby and that it's connected to the Internet by a fast T-1 line, you can follow along. Like a typical materials manager, I was most interested in an overview report on Owens & Minor. So I clicked on "Our Business." What you get, after a wait, is the OM logo and the navigational links that conveniently appear in the first column on almost every page: "Teammates, Our Business, Investor Relations, OM Online" and "Contact Us." The rest of the "Our Business" page is filled with nine more navigational links: "Virtual Tours, Ad Campaign, Customer Case Studies, Company Overview, Our Mission, Delivering Value, Y2K, News Releases" and "Privacy Statement." You have to scroll down half a page to see all of these links, which should be positioned for quick review upon opening the page. Again, a lot of nice looking but clunky graphics eat up customers' valuable time. Make navigation familiar and intuitive This page would work better if the nine links were listed in 12 or 14 point type at the top of the page and linked to summary or descriptive paragraphs that tell readers what's offered by each link. The linking headlines should be in Internet standard blue and the summaries should be printed in black type on a white background. This is what Internet users expect, and we all grew up reading black type on white backgrounds, not white type on blue backgrounds. It always is a challenge to make a Web site look original and at the same time make it look like other Web sites. A site should use the navigation devices of most other sites so that it is intuitive to experienced surfers. WISDOM and warehouse tours do the job OM obviously puts top priority, here on its "Virtual Warehouse Tours." Starting on the "Main Page," click on "Our Business." Then click on "Virtual Tours." You are offered a chice of three "Virtual Warehouse Tours:"

* WISDOM: A data warehouse tour.

* Physical warehouse tour.

* Client/Server warehouse tour. Above the list of links, it is explained that, "In each tour, we'll walk you through the basics of that value-driven warehouse. At the end of each tour, you'll have the chance to comment and to take another tour." On my first run through the tours, I didn't notice a place to comment. Indeed, I didn't even read this explanation before taking the tours. The best laid plansE In any case, a detailed comment form is offered at the end of each tour if you hit "Return to Tour Home," which I didn't do on the first time through. The comment page appears to be an attempt to get users to reveal their identities so that they can be contacted by sales people. WISDOM is a neat database product that materials managers can use to track their institutions' use of products and services. This assumes, of course, that all products are purchased from OM. Click on the WISDOM tour, and you're offered a look at some of the kinds of tables and charts that can be called up from the WISDOM data warehouse. Impressive. With some wisdom, readers are alerted to the fact that the numbers in the charts are not valid and are for illustrative purposes only. This, to me, is the site's most interesting use of the capabilities of the Internet, which can't be duplicated easily in print or on film, although the same thing can be done with a CD-ROM disc. The "Physical Warehouse Tour" is a pretty standard photo-spread, showing various views of OM warehouses. The site does a nice job of emphasizing OM's use of the latest warehouse technology to efficiently store, pick and ship products. The "Client/Server Warehouse Tour" illustrates the workflow for various stages of the distribution business and gives the impression of a high-tech, systematic operation, which is what customers and prospects want to see. OM Web site promotes company in several ways On balance, if you take the time to navigate most of the site, you'll see OM does a pretty decent job of promoting itself. It does this very openly under its "Ad Campaigns" (one ad), "Customer Case Studies" (three nice case studies), and "Investor Relations." Under "Investor Relations" you'll find an upbeat chairman's letter in the Annual Report (but you can only get financials if you download a cumbersome PDF Acrobat file) and "News Releases" going back about 12 months. Hopefully, the news releases will be allowed to pile up for years so customers and investors can trace the company's growth. Similarly, it would be useful to license the rights to reprint articles and analysts' reports about the company. Read all this stuff, and you'll have seen more about OM than you'll find in any printed media kit, annual report or company brochure. And you're able to do your shopping and browsing in the comfort of your office or home without bothering a sales representative. The benefit to OM is that it doesn't have to waste a lot of money printing materials for people who won't read it, but the company can make such information available to those who will take the time to read it. A sales rep, however, can give you a password that will take you deeper into the OM site, where you can find much more useful information, according to the site. This is where a well-trained sales rep will turn the Web site to his or her advantage and use it as a powerful sales tool. The rep can sit down with a customer and take her or him through the site on the customer's computer or on the rep's laptop. This provides an opportunity to point out services not used by the customer and features important to the customers. More important than anything, the rep can use a tour of the Web site to probe for the customer's pain and answer questions and objections. If OM's site helps win a contract with a hospital or integrated health care delivery system, it will have paid for itself. Donald E. L. Johnson reviews Web sites for Health Industry Today and other publications and consults on Web site design and content and marketing communications. He is chairman and CEO of The Business Word Inc., publisher of Health Industry Today, Hospital Materials Management, Health Care Strategic Management, Healthcare Advertising Review, Profiles in Healthcare Marketing and four Web sites.