Transforming IT Demand Management: A Global Pharmaceutical Success Story

In the fast-paced world of pharmaceutical innovation, efficient IT processes can make or break a company’s ability to stay competitive. This case study explores how a leading global pharmaceutical firm partnered with Cprime to revolutionize its IT demand management system, resulting in streamlined operations and significant cost savings.

The Prescription for IT Chaos

Our client, a major player in the health sciences industry, faced a common yet critical challenge in its IT infrastructure. With multiple business units operating across the globe, each with its own IT department, the company’s demand management process had become a labyrinth of disparate systems and inconsistent practices.

The symptoms of this IT fragmentation were clear:

• Lack of standardization across business units
• Poor transparency in demand tracking
• Inefficient resource allocation
• Inconsistent portfolio management
• Challenges in capacity planning and cost estimation

These issues weren’t just administrative headaches; they were actively hindering the company’s ability to respond quickly to market demands and maintain its competitive edge in the fast-evolving pharmaceutical landscape.

Diagnosing the Root Cause

At the heart of the problem was the company’s “spoke-hub” IT model. While this structure allowed for some autonomy among business units, it also led to a proliferation of unique processes for handling IT demands. The result? A fragmented system where tracking projects, allocating resources, and managing budgets became increasingly complex and time-consuming.

The pharmaceutical giant recognized the need for a unified approach to its IT demand management. They needed a solution that could consolidate these disparate processes into a single, cohesive system without sacrificing the flexibility required by different business units.

Cprime’s Prescription: A Unified Demand-to-Delivery Process

Cprime’s solution was to implement a comprehensive “demand-to-delivery” process using Apptio Targetprocess, integrated with Atlassian’s Jira and other key systems. This approach aimed to create a single source of truth for all IT demands across the organization.

Key components of the solution included:

1. Centralized Intake: A single point of entry for all IT requests, regardless of origin or scale.
2. Standardized Service Catalog: A comprehensive list of IT services offered across the organization, ensuring consistency and clarity.
3. Automated Workflows: Streamlining communication, reporting, and approval processes to reduce manual work.
4. Enterprise-wide Visibility: Enabling holistic prioritization and resource allocation across all business units.
5. Integrated Reporting: Connecting Target Process with Power BI and the company’s data lake for comprehensive analytics.

A Rapid Treatment Plan

What sets this case apart is the speed of implementation. Despite the scale of the project — spanning 13 business units and involving over 200 stakeholders — Cprime and the pharmaceutical company’s team completed the initial rollout in just three months. This accelerated timeline, half the industry standard for similar projects, was crucial to meet the company’s fiscal year deadline.

The implementation team consisted of:

• 20 core team members working across 8 time zones
• 100 partners from 13 business units
• 100 additional stakeholders in various forums

This diverse, global team worked tirelessly to ensure the new system was ready for the start of the fiscal year on April 1st.

The Prognosis: Early Signs of Success

While it’s still early days, the new unified demand-to-delivery process is already showing promising results:

• Increased Adoption: A 43% increase in system usage, with 621 unique requests logged and over 2,000 users onboarded.
• Improved Resource Management: More efficient allocation of personnel to demands, enhancing productivity.
• Cost Savings: By deprecating Jira in favor of Targetprocess, the company is seeing significant licensing cost reductions.
• Enhanced Data Utilization: Automated reporting and integration with the company’s data lake support a data-first policy, enabling better decision-making.

Ongoing Care: Continuous Improvement

The story doesn’t end with the initial implementation. Cprime continues to work closely with the pharmaceutical company, providing guided services to further refine and evolve the system. As the team learns from real-world usage, they’re identifying new opportunities to extract value and advance the company’s IT maturity.

This ongoing partnership exemplifies a key principle in modern IT management: continuous improvement. By treating the implementation as a living system rather than a one-time fix, the company is ensuring that its IT processes will continue to evolve with its business needs.

“Working with Cprime was fantastic. The breadth of skills they brought to the engagement including meeting leadership to create organizational alignment, technical architecture and system development allowed us to achieve our goals in record time. It has helped us deliver value faster and more effectively than we would otherwise have been able to.” — Senior Director – Digital

The Long-Term Health of IT Operations

This case study illustrates how a strategic approach to IT demand management can transform operations for a global pharmaceutical leader. By consolidating disparate processes, enhancing visibility, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, the company has laid the groundwork for more agile, efficient, and cost-effective IT operations.

As the health sciences industry continues to evolve at a rapid pace, this unified approach to IT demand management will play a crucial role in enabling the company to respond quickly to market changes, allocate resources effectively, and maintain its position at the forefront of pharmaceutical innovation.

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