Case Study

Business and Technology Planning – Technology Solutions Aligned to Corporate Strategy

Business Challenges

Economic factors, increasing numbers of global competitors, and expiring patents have all combined to create intense competition within the Pharmaceutical industry, making cost reduction a priority in maintaining profitability. The client's executive management defined a cost reduction business strategy in which obtaining maximum value and enhancing the cost effectiveness of IT solutions is key. Their goal – look for new ways to conduct business at a lower cost and with higher quality.

Our client, the manufacturing division of a global Fortune 100 Pharmaceutical company, was charged with identifying ways in which to meet this goal through the upgrade initiative for a global controlled document management system. The organization had implemented a decentralized document management system in 29 manufacturing sites worldwide, with an additional 20 targeted for implementation within 18 months. They recognized that significant savings could be realized by transitioning the document management solution to a shared service model and upgrading the technology to provide a more flexible and configurable services framework.

The ArborSys Solution

ArborSys worked jointly with this client to conduct a feasibility assessment and formulate an effective results-oriented program strategy and business case focused on:

• Implementation of a shared service model – to consolidate and streamline the architecture by transitioning from a distributed architecture to a centralized architecture, resulting in a global reduction of infrastructure and operational costs;
• Upgrading of the existing document management solution to EMC Documentum Compliance Manager (DCM) 5.3 – to take advantage of technological and functional enhancements to the base application;
• Migration of the existing functional requirements – to provide the functionality necessary to continue effective operations;
• Development of a support and governance model – to provide a more harmonized and standardized business process and support structure across the Division.

Value Delivered

The ArborSys team provided strategic consulting services to assist in developing:

• The business case and justification;
• Cost effective architecture definition;
• A system requirements specification;
• Project plans for development and implementation.

The solution and strategy helped the company reduce costs, allocate its IT dollars more effectively, and establish a vision and roadmap to enable the realization of significant business efficiencies and improvements.