Integration, Post-merger Transitions: A Major International Pharmaceutical Organization.
The Client
In 1999, two large pharmaceutical companies merged to form an international biosciences company. This company researches, develops, manufactures, and markets ethical pharmaceuticals, agricultural and specialty chemicals products, and supplies for health care services. They currently employ more than 50,000 people around the world and spend more than $8 million a day on research and development.
The Challenge
As a result of its merger, the company inherited
multiple operating models that were supported by incompatible processes
and legacy systems. During its post-merger consolidation, the company
lost administrative staffing, experienced a malfunction of its contract
management system, and had accounting and financial problems.
Wability was engaged to help the company meet its challenges in the
financial arena by creating a finance infrastructure that was capable of
supporting its increased business needs with accuracy and efficiency.
The Solution
First, we designed reporting enhancements using the
existing technologies to allow the company to develop and report
consolidated budget projections across multiple dimensions (product,
project, cost center, and account). Once the time-sensitive reporting
needs were addressed, we led the company through requirement definition
system selection and implementation of a new management reporting and
budgeting system using the Hyperion suite of products.
Because of our knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry, the company
also engaged us to perform a transaction analysis in its cash
application department to resolve the company’s backlog of unprocessed
adjustments. We investigated and resolved the department’s transactional
discrepancies and facilitated their posting to the company’s contract
management system.
In addition to providing these administrative services, we were asked to
initiate a project to enable the department to optimize its process
efficiencies.
Aspects of this initiative included:
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Development and documentation of functional policies and procedures.
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Delivery of training materials for new hires
After analyzing information gathered through these
methods, we developed a viable ERP business case and global
implementation strategy.
The Benefits
As a result of Wability’s efforts, this company has
taken an important step toward creating the infrastructure needed to
provide critical financial information to support the needs of the
business. The organization’s finance function now has a management
reporting and budgeting tool capable of providing multiple users the
data and functionality necessary to help them build business plans, and
to monitor and manage costs across the multiple dimensions. The tools
also provide users with simplified reporting and easy access to
information.
Today, the backlog of transactions has been substantially reduced,
allowing the organization to normalize its post-merger environment and
to maintain its strong wholesaler relationships.