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Process Optimization

A Comprehensive Approach to Digital Transformation in the Chemical Industry
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A Comprehensive Approach to Digital Transformation in the Chemical Industry
A Comprehensive Approach to Digital Transformation in the Chemical Industry 700 500 Xcelpros Team

At a Glance

  • Chemical companies can unleash their business potential with end-to-end integration of digital technologies for manufacturing and distribution. Software for chemical industry has been met with enthusiasm as well as apprehension, given the multi-faceted and conventional nature of this sector.
  • Digitization of systems, processes, and functions comes with challenges and chemical companies need to implement solutions to navigate them through them. Newer innovations and implementation strategies are the need of the hour to ensure chemical companies thrive in the market.
  • End-to-end digitization for chemical companies will be a process filled with opportunities and hurdles. With a pre-planned blueprint, an organization can maximize the overall value from investment in digital technologies.

If one thing the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has taught the world, it is the importance of being agile. The need for a digital transformation to cloud systems has gone up during the pandemic. Fast-growing companies rapidly transform into newer technologies that can help them grow. Your workforce may not be ready and may even resist the change. Leaders of rapidly growing companies set the right message that end-to-end digitization is the right step to set a company for success. Digital transformation will only help with day-to-day tactical work and despite the change management issues that need to be handled, changes in technology that drive progress are always best for an enterprise.

42%

of chemical company CEOs will prioritize digital operations and related technologies in the coming year.

Source: PWC, 23rd Annual Global CEO Survey

There is no denying that Chemistry 4.0 will undergo a digital evolution on the shop floor and other departments. End-to-end functions at a chemical company will improve by leveraging technology for collaboration, operation, and customer experience, all on a single platform. Here are some of the ways that digitization in chemical industry could help manufactures, researchers, distributors, and consumers:

  • An R&D lab will be more efficient with integration tools that facilitate automation, machine learning and data analytics. Researchers can synthesize molecules in a controlled environment and replicate the results with exact precision.
  • Manufacturers can scale up their production and optimize processes for enhanced efficiency and reduced operational costs.
  • With the help of the right Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms and Supply Chain Management (SCM), manufactures can automate various processes, get real-time updates about inventories and can effectively manage coordination between multiple stakeholders.
  • Digital innovations in the chemical industry can also help with better waste management and track environment health and safety data integrated into their ERP.

With the list of incentives being so persuasive, why are new technologies in the chemical industry met with apprehension? The answer lies in the conservative way of functioning within a chemical company coupled with varying safety regulations and guidelines worldwide. Let us have a look at some of the challenges in digital transformation within the chemical industry.

End-to-end Digitization: Challenges in the Chemical Industry

1.Where to begin?Many chemical companies struggle to strategize their digitization journey. Defining the companies’ goals and aligning them with the right technologies requires expert consulting and a clear vision from the C-suite executives. Often diving the digital transformation without a plan or the expertise leads to bottlenecks and unforeseen issues.

2.Upskilling of the Employees Newer technologies require training, practicing for error-free implementation and seamless operation. Upskilling employees from different functions to harness agility benefits from digital technologies can be a massive task for chemical companies. There are also issues related to training costs and addressing the behavioral resistance when it comes to change management.

3.Digitization in Silos Digitization in chemicals often happens in silos, given the multi-faceted, vast nature of a chemical manufacturing and distribution setup. However, when different functions or departments implement digital technologies without a centrally guided plan, the results will be different than what was expected from the technology. Multiple issues related to data discrepancies, systems incompatibility and process inefficiencies have been reported when the system is implemented without the right methodology.

So how should chemical industries look at end-to-end digitization? First of all, it’s important to remember that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for every organization. Every chemical company needs to chalk out its roadmap when it comes to the adoption of digital technologies. However, certain industry best practices can help chemical companies make the journey towards digital transformation a smooth one.

Best Practices for Digitization:

1.Aligning Transformation Goals with Digital Technologies: Is your goal to improve your chemical manufacturing processes? Are you looking to digitize the entire supply chain? Is your focus more on customer relationship management? Answering these questions is an important step towards defining your goals to align them with the technologies. Organizations should also prioritize the goals to devise a phase-wise transformation plan for your chemical company.

2.Be Flexible and Dynamic: Any transformation comes with challenges that can potentially turn into dead-ends or cost-intensive pitfalls. During such scenarios, the digital transformation strategy needs to be flexible enough to pivot if required. This will leave room for accumulating changes without affecting the overall plan of digital transformation, the timeline and eventual outcome.

Figure: 1End-to-end Digital Transformation in Chemical Industry: Bird’s Eye View

End-to-end Digital Transformation in Chemical Industry

3.Get Experts Onboard: Any company wide change requires experts who are qualified to drive change. The same holds for end-to-end digital transformation in chemical manufacturing. Getting expert consultants onboard will make the transformation process smooth and open doors to newer possibilities.

4.Be prepared for issues: Many digitally mature companies understand the issues that need to be reviewed and fixed when a new system is implemented. It is essential to keep track of issues as they occur due to data and process inefficiencies. Anticipating the risks through a risk analysis and a mitigation plan will help companies reduce the pain of post-go-live issues.

5.Go for a Phased Implementation Plan: Even though the eventual goal is end-to-end digital transformation, chemical companies should opt for a phased implementation plan. This helps in detailed planning for every phase and also prevents the process from becoming too overwhelming.

Business Scenario

Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings has expanded efforts to use measured data to operate its plants. The company has developed and is now using Real-time DB, a remote monitoring system across its chemical plants. “By using this system, Mitsubishi Chemical can analyze operating conditions when there are technical problems and also improve day-to-day plant operations,” says Masanori Karatsu, senior managing corporate executive officer at Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings. The company is evaluating digital technologies and IIOT in other areas, including working with customers on product and new businesses development.

Such a centrally planned and phased approach has been adopted across many chemical companies.

To sum it up, end-to-end digital transformation in a chemical company would require planning and an execution strategy. Despite short-term disruptions, this change would bolster the manufacturing processes and enhance profitability in the long run.

Key Takeaways

  • Chemical companies have fierce market competition and digital technology for chemical companies can eliminate process and data inefficiencies that ultimately lead to better customer retention and stay ahead of competitors.
  • A planned, phase-wise approach would help chemical companies get the most for their buck when going agile. Users need to be change agents instead of being change averse.

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chemical warehouse management
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Warehouse Management in a Chemical company: Challenges & Solutions
Warehouse Management in a Chemical company: Challenges & Solutions 700 500 Xcelpros Team

Introduction

  1. 1.Storage requirements in a chemical company are complicated. As far as hazardous chemicals are concerned, the need for caution and adherence to safety guidelines is a must. Manufacturers need to optimize their warehouse operations to maintain plant profitability while providing competitive pricing in the face of outpouring competition.
  2. 2.A sound chemical warehouse management system ensures that everything in the industry runs in the most optimal way possible. The usual warehouse activities may include arranging the inventory, managing new material stock, running and maintaining appropriate equipment, shipping orders, tracking and improving overall warehouse performance, etc.
  3. 3.Optimizing Warehouse Management processes is higher on the list of priorities within a chemical company involving planning, organizing, directing, and controlling resources.

Below are a few challenges distinct to the chemical industry and reasons manufacturers must address them proactively.

Labeling Hazardous Products for Inventory and Shipments:

The Hazard Communication Standard (HCS 2012), per OSHA), requires chemical manufacturers to classify produced or procured chemicals hazardous data. They must also inform employees about the chemicals their exposure through a hazard manual, product labels with chemical hazard information, safety data sheets, and workforce training. Maintaining chemical information and printing Product Labels ensures compliance with HCS 2012. The regulations give importance to the consistency and content of chemical labels. Product Labels are standardized and must include these six elements:

Figure: 1Chemical Label in Microsoft Dynamics Finance and Operations with Key Elements

Chemical Label in Microsoft Dynamics Finance and Operations with Key Elements

  1. 1.Signal Word – Indicates a hazard, such as “Warning”/”Danger.”
  2. 2.Pictograms – To identify hazardous products, grouped by health risk, chemical risk, and environmental risk. Given below is an example.
  3. 3.Manufacturer’s details: Identifies the manufacturer’s company name, address, and telephone number.
  4. 4.First aid and precautionary statements: Describes preventive, response, storage, and disposal precautions.
  5. 5.Hazard statements: Describes the nature of hazardous products and the degree of hazard.
  6. 6.Product name: Identifies the chemical name.

Warehouse Inventory Accuracy

Inventory has to be labeled correctly and stored appropriately in the right locations according to directives. Inventory inaccuracies can occur due to several reasons. Not having real-time inventory counts, inability to track inventory in the different locations, moving inventory without recording the transfer. Most of these issues are attributed to time, breakdown in process or non-compliance to process and insufficient training on the chemical inventory management system. When workers face these types of problems, they usually bypass it in favor of the interest of time. More than often, these flaws can accumulate, leaving behind inaccurate data in the chemical inventory tracking system.

Figure: 2Inventory Tracking in a Warehouse

Inventory Tracking in a Warehouse

Revisit your warehouse management strategy

There are various solutions to mitigate the above problems. Let us discuss a few:

  • Every warehouse personnel starting from manager to workers must adequately train to resolve different types of errors.
  • Build a healthy work-knowledge environment about the entire system to assist each other with information, accordingly, whenever any issues turn up.
  • Reliable technologies like cloud management software and machine learning applications can produce higher accuracy and transparency to the entire warehouse operation.
  • Chemical warehouse optimization is possible by human resource management solutions, material management solutions, and monitoring key performance metrics to track the warehouse’s overall efficiency. Order picking accuracy, warehouse capacity, on-time shipment to customers, etc. are a few such measures that will improve overall warehouse productivity.
  • The use of technologies such as mobile devices embedded into the ERP to streamline operations. Mobility in Supply Chain Management is imperative since it leads to cost reduction, escalates productivity, and better improves operational efficiency.

The Role of Picking Optimization within the Chemical Warehouse

Picking is a critical process within a warehouse, and if not optimized, can turn chaotic – particularly with a large volume of warehouse transactions. A majority of chemical warehouse management issues occur while picking an item. The problem is often a result of ‘receiving’ or ‘put-away’ tasks. Despite radiofrequency and voice-directed systems becoming widespread, some operations continue to rely on manual-driven systems. A critical piece of the overall management is to ensure full compliance with you ERP system, even when situations arise that make compliance seem unreasonable. Exceptions such as offering an approved substitute item or finding an incorrect product in a location must have a record to allow a complete and precise account of the inventory.

Numerous errors can manifest during picking. These include viewing the physically available on-hand quantity of an item and reserving inventory on previously confirmed backorders—the delta then shows an available amount after allocating material to existing orders. Additionally, picking operations can easily deceive a planner who is viewing inventory. A well-functioning warehouse management system should detect – allocated, picked, and shipped stock to avoid overbooking for quantity to multiple orders. If an inventory count leads to inaccuracies, sufficient inventory adjustments through mobile devices can dissipate inventory errors. Chemical corporations prefer proactive planning to avoid mistakes in reporting on-hand inventory; however, they’re more often trying to rush operations to fulfill demand and ship goods out the door ‘on time and in full’. The tasks planned daily sometimes compromise the GMP (Good Manufacturing practices) to meet the customer’s dynamic demands. Diligent scrutiny of inventory record tracking can support more reliability and inventory accuracy.

Recall Management

In case of a product recall, a chemical company needs to trace back every shipped batch and be able to quickly retrieve all customer details who received the specific product batch. To unfold the product’s traceability, a chemical plant must function on a system that keeps track of all the process operations, raw material order batches, product-related data, and supplier-customer related data. Transaction details at a granular level effectively handle tracking inventory history from purchase/production to specific shipments. A well designed Supply Chain Management (SCM) will keep track of inventory aging with the ability to drill into details. All the essential data enables the system to trace products during different processes: manufacturing, in staging, on-hand, products in transit, products in shipping locations, and under quarantine. The traceability must also act as a tool to identify suppliers of defective materials so that the entire supply chain runs safe and sound. If needed, making decisions to switch suppliers is recommended by the system when inventory defects from a specific supplier are consistently surfacing throughout the product life cycle.

Role of Technology

An ideal information system for running a warehouse in a chemical plant must manage the inventory and address supply chain visibility to respond quickly to an emergency. The system includes handling counteractions, compliance issues, audits by date, reviews by the person responsible, associated yields, and documents required by specific regulatory bodies such as OSHA.

Ultimately, an ethical business practice is necessary for sustainable and constructive growth. An efficient warehouse management system (WMS), an intelligent set of operational strategies, and a system to drive user behavior can hugely profit a chemical company.

Figure: 3Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations with embedded chemical information system

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations with embedded chemical information system

Key Takeaways

  • Warehouse management needs a process that is consistent, quick to learn and easy to follow. The process will aid towards overall performance improvement.
  • In a short span, major industries have been through several technological transformations such as barcoding, Radio Frequency Identification (RDFI), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), etc. Applying all these technologies contributes to a real-time surge in authenticity, acceleration of general warehouse operations, and faster conveyance with other supply chain partners.
  • All growth-oriented chemical companies in the market leverage a common platform to manage their end-to-end operations. Comprehensive planning and an excellent supplier-retailer relationship can help avoid unpredictability and other inventory risks involved. The objective is to create opportunities for supply chain surplus and gross value addition for end customers that ultimately contribute to its success.

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top 5 reasons why ERP transformation drives business success banner
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Top 5 reasons why ERP Transformation drives business success
Top 5 reasons why ERP Transformation drives business success 700 500 Xcelpros Team

Introduction

Have you seen a dip in your ERP system performance? Is your system breaking down every now and then? Is your current ERP able to support your rapidly growing business? As business transactions increase with time, you may notice spikes in system inefficiencies. You cannot expect to improve the company’s overall productivity with a legacy system that is barely functioning and outdated. You cannot report actionable insights while dealing with bad data and inefficient processes. By now, you have enough indications that your business is outgrowing the current ERP system. However, like most companies, you probably hesitate to transform your ERP, as there is an inherent fear about the cost of transformation and the company’s inability to accept change.

Three-fourths of ERP transformation projects fail to stay on schedule or within budget, and two-thirds have a negative return on investment.Source: Mckinsey

Interestingly enough, the above stat also forces companies that desperately need an ERP change to be better planned and prepared for the transformation. Companies that cannot transform quickly soon become irrelevant.

The only thing harder than transformation is, failing to transform.

ERP transformation SWOT

Many industry insights have proved that the rate of failure is significantly higher when organizations are unable to embrace change. There are various reasons to move on from your existing legacy systems. Read on to know more about the five reasons you need an ERP transformation.

1.Your current ERP system does not have systemic collaboration capabilities Most old-age ERP systems run in silos and process transactions independently for each department. Some don’t even have cross-functional capabilities. This can pose an issue when you are trying to eliminate inefficient business processes. Archaic ERP systems rely on manual/paper-based methods for inter or intra-departmental collaboration. You rely on your team’s verbal communication and expect them to be on top of their tasks, especially while handing them off to other departments. Most of the process inefficiencies arise due to poor communication. For example, your manufacturing and finance departments interact manually or through paper. As the volume of work orders goes up, the teams quickly lose track of operations that need to be verified and closed out. These delays can cause inventory inaccuracies and bad data.

Figure: 1A real life manual production process prior to transformation

Production Process before ERP Transformation

Notice the number of failure points in the above figure. Now imagine many of these failure points across different production scenarios. While some organizations are very good at tracking manual communication, the onus is always on the team to communicate effectively and move work orders forward. Secure, streamlined, efficient collaboration is the focus of most modern-day companies. Businesses that want to succeed will empower their team to collaborate from anywhere effectively.

2.Your ERP system does not have embedded advanced analytics and BI dashboards Most Agile companies prefer Analytics and BI dashboards within their operational ERP systems. Organizations with profitability as their primary objective always favor tracking efficiencies and inefficiencies. Success or failure depends on the ability to respond to aberrations instantly. BI applications are separate from an operational ERP system by design. A powerful BI application collates data and provides analytical insights. Integrating an obsolescent ERP to a standalone analytics application is cumbersome and does not offer real-time analytical reports. You may lose the capability of embedding a quick and easy BI dashboard onto your ERP that provides real-time progress reporting.

Ultimately, the more visibility you have of operations, the better equipped you are to make accurate business decisions. Once you notice an inability to report actionable insights, it is time to move on to a new ERP with better systemic capabilities and real-time reporting.

3.Your ERP system cannot leverage the power of AI and process automation It is a known fact that various industries have embraced AI to enhance their ability to predict user behavior. The prediction criteria include historical data, continuously improving processes, day-in-the-life activities, and adaptability to process improvements. On a similar token, many modern companies have adopted process automation to increase overall operational efficiency. AI and process automation are not just fancy technologies for larger companies. They are active enhancers that also help small and midsize companies to grow their businesses. Without your ERP integrated into AI, the system will not have the capability of continuous learning-to-enhance productivity. If you are still on an out-of-date ERP system, the chances are that you cannot leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence and process automation. When combined with advanced analytics, AI improves your supply chain’s end-to-end visibility and predicts possible disruptions before they occur. It now calls for a business decision if you are willing to decommission a legacy system that cannot utilize AI’s potential and plan your move to a modern platform.

4.Your current ERP system is less secure and more susceptible to data breaches Companies that are functioning on legacy systems tend to be more vulnerable to security threats and data breaches. You may not have the ability to protect your data and audit ‘who did what’ in the system. Most businesses store sensitive information like customer pricing, credit card numbers, employee records, company’s intellectual property, formulations, etc. If you are on an aged ERP, it may be challenging to ensure data privacy and security. Losing Information can be daunting, especially if you have no secure backups of data. How do you ensure that unauthorized access has not occurred and your information is not compromised?

Responsible companies do not risk customer information. They agree that short term pain and cost of an ERP transformation will any day benefit them, eventually leading them to long-term business gains.

5.Your current ERP system is not Agile and cannot accommodate incremental business needs An interesting question to ask yourself is if your technology can adapt to business process changes without customizing the system and violating industry best practices? Antiquated ERP systems are equivalent to following age-old processes. Enough research is done on this subject to help companies move away from outdated business practices and procedures. Companies are now choosing to be more nimble with changing times and stay afloat in a highly competitive market. Many companies within your sector may have already made the shift to newer, agile technologies – giving them the potential to outrun you in competition. Agile companies have the flexibility to function with higher efficiency, better ways to interact with customers/business partners, manage tasks smartly, and optimize resource utilization.

Research shows that agile organizations have a 70 percent chance of being in the top quartile of organizational health, the best indicator of long-term performance.Source: Mckinsey

As market dynamics change, the way you run your business should adjust accordingly. If you want to move out of working exhaustively, it is high time your company transforms towards being agile.

Why do companies move slowly to initiate the ERP implementation?

Below are a few hindrances that stop companies from moving forward with a technology transformation that will drive organizational change –

  1. 1.Cost of the changeover.
  2. 2.Businesses have difficulty following an implementation methodology that may challenge their current way of functioning.
  3. 3.Companies don’t have an internal change agent who can set end-user expectations, make tough decisions that may impact job descriptions and trigger a reorganization.

How do you overcome these challenges to move forward?

  1. 1.Have a set budget. Take a crawl, walk and run approach to the transformation.
    1. a. Crawl – Lift and Shift. Map your current business processes and convert them to the new system.
    2. b. Walk – Stabilize in the new environment, including handling issues, fixing them and maximize business operations.
    3. c. Run – Leverage all the additional optimization features on the application to boost the business.
  2. 2.Agree to a methodology that works for your company and doesn’t create too much resistance to convert.
  3. 3.Look for the right internal champion who understands the business and can manage user expectations effectively, especially when it comes to business changes that make users uncomfortable.

Final Thoughts

  • If you cannot move out of an old ERP system, your business challenges will continue to persist – further increasing sunk costs and lost time in the battle of quality vs. efficiency vs. cost of transformation.
  • Chalk out your organizational goals for the next five years to clarify why you should transform your business into a modern – agile ERP system and list your transformational goals.
  • Prioritize your ERP transformation into different phases by starting with lift and shift – to move your core business functions into the new system, and eventually implementing process optimization to utilize the real power of your new ERP.

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Importance of Data in Pharma Product Development
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Importance of Data & Analytics in Pharmaceutical Product Development
Importance of Data & Analytics in Pharmaceutical Product Development 700 500 Xcelpros Team

Introduction

Research and development (R&D) has always been the backbone of the pharmaceutical industry. In 2001, there were 1,198 pharmaceutical companies with active R&D pipelines. And in 2020, this figure spiked to 4,800. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, companies have doubled their efforts in creating new products. In fact, more than 17,700 drugs were recorded in the global R&D pipeline in 2020—and a lot of them made headlines.

The world got a glimpse of how complex and costly it is to create new drugs. Moreover, that also sparked an unprecedented wave of data sharing and access not just in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. But in the IT sector as well. In fact, 96% of all companies will have hired a data specialist by 2022, according to “The Future of Jobs Report” by the World Economic Forum. This is why there has already been a huge uptick in the number of professionals pursuing data analytics careers, with worldwide big data revenue already predicted to have passed $203 billion.

In the pharmaceutical industry, multiple organizations came together to share and exchange data: Google Cloud provided researchers free access to critical information through its COVID-19 Public Dataset Program, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute offered government entities. And researchers access to innovative AI tools and experts in data and public health.

Figure: 1Role of Data in Pharmaceutical Product Development

Never before has data been so readily accessible and this has helped speed up the R&D efforts of many companies. In addition, data also helps the pharmaceutical products development in many other ways:

Improves research efficiency

Several companies were able to develop a COVID-19 vaccine in under a year—a record time—currently making it the fastest vaccine to ever be developed. It helped that pertinent data and information were exchanged freely between pharmaceutical companies, government agencies, and data analytics organizations.

Free-flowing data sharing, as seen during the pandemic response, makes the development of drugs easier as it cuts down several steps in the R&D process. And with the available information, researchers have a better understanding of the recipients of the product. This makes it possible for trials to acquire smaller sample sizes with higher accuracy, lower expenses, and in less time.

Creates precision medicine

Precision medicine is an approach to patient care that allows doctors to create diagnoses and treatments based on data on genetic make-up, environmental factors, and behavioral patterns. This approach allows companies to create personalized medicine for individuals’ genes and lifestyles. This data-driven approach also helps drug makers identify patients’ susceptibility to certain disorders, enhancing disorder detection. Since precision medicine has a higher probability of success compared to more conventional approaches, it also reduces trial costs.

One such example is Pfizer’s Xalkori (crizotinib), which they produced after combing through data from electronic medical records, clinical trials, and genomic data. They found that a small subset of lung cancer patients had a mutation in their ALK gene. And using this insight, they developed a personalized drug. “Had this compound been tested against a broad spectrum of lung cancer patients, it likely would not have been found to be effective. With this analytics-based approach, it was found to be very effective,” says Pfizer CIO Jeff Keisling.

Provides real-time analysis

It’s now possible to access real-time information—a feature that greatly benefits trials. With this, it’s easier to respond to issues in a timely manner, and create more accurate safety measures for trial participants, all leading to higher success rates from the R&D standpoint. Additionally, data can now be collected from real-world information such as health records, insurance claims, and even social media. This provides drug makers with evidence on how medicines work in an uncontrolled setting and across a wider demographic. This lets them make adjustments and improvements to the drugs.

Major pharmaceutical companies now have dedicated teams collecting data from studies and trials across different diseases. Their analysis of this information helps them formulate their drugs to be more potent and effective while combating the rising costs of traditional clinical trials and parallel development programs.

30%

of life science organizations will have achieved data excellence, or the concept of effectively using the right data at the right time, by 2022.

Source: IDC Health Insights prediction

Simplify production plans

After developing a product, it needs to be mass-produced and distributed. You need to know the appropriate targets for the best ROI. With the right data, companies are able to create a more solid production plan, reduce labor costs, eliminate waste, decrease the need for excessive inventories, and optimize equipment usage. This ease of production will only increase in the future both within the healthcare industry and companies connected to it. And with the pharmaceutical industry predicted to grow to $1.57 trillion in value, the role of data in streaming lining production processes will only increase.

Smoother supply chains

50%

of pharmaceutical and biotech companies will be using prescriptive data analytics with IoT data to optimize their supply chain.

Source: Worldwide Health Industry 2020 Predictions report

Today’s pharma companies are breaking away from traditional practices and are embracing digital transformation and pharmaceutical data analysis on a much bigger scale. This move allows them to understand and cater to the needs of both their customers and stakeholders. As we mentioned in our previous write-up on the ways to enhance customer experience. Using data analytics, you can improve your supply chain efficiency by easily validating data, detecting anomalies, benchmarking operations, and accessing mobile and logistic reports.

Moreover, data analytics for pharma development offers real-time route optimization and improved inventory management, freeing up man-hours which otherwise would’ve been spent tracking and monitoring business operations.

The use of data in developing pharmaceutical products is very beneficial. It helps prevent health issues and strengthen the patient care sector.

Article specially written for xcelpros.com By Nina Ross

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Rapid ERP Implementation
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Rapid Implementation of ERP Systems- Benefits & Challenges
Rapid Implementation of ERP Systems- Benefits & Challenges 700 500 Xcelpros Team

At a Glance

  • ERP implementations are transitioning from being just a business choice to a necessity. Companies are now seeking ways for faster, smoother, and more economical implementation strategies.
  • An expedited ERP implementation strategy involves rapid methods that bring must-have features from legacy systems into a newer, agile and modern system.
  • Enterprises face many issues with rapid implementation, such as stringent scope, change management, limited customization options, etc.
  • Latest technologies and methodologies can make rapid ERP implementation a possibility for companies that want a higher ROI on their technology investments.

95%

of respondents improved some or all of their business processes after implementing a new ERP.

Source: Panorama Consulting

If enterprises were asked about their ERP implementation strategies a decade ago, the responses would vary widely. Many were skeptical, some were eager yet unsure and almost all who were positive, opted for steady onboarding into the new ERP. The continuing implementation model meant that employees were trained at a slow pace in the ERP, customizations were done as per requirements, and the budget was spread out. However, in the current day changeover to a new ERP is quicker making enterprises be agile and dynamic. Companies are lot more informed about the various technologies in the market and all they need is to plan the right time for the implementation and choose the right partner.

According to the report published by Allied Market Research, the global ERP software market accounted for $35.81 billion in 2018 and is anticipated to reach $78.41 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 10.2% during the study period.

Many organizations are now opting for a cloud-based, rapid ERP implementation method, as they understand the benefits of the approach. The new decade demands companies to be more adaptable with a workforce that can quickly adjust to changes. In the past decade, companies that tried to get their employees be more nimble faced many challenges. Workforce could not promptly understand the market’s changing needs and adjust accordingly. They were usually overwhelmed, confused and unmotivated to move quickly. However, the new-age has limited choice to stay stuck in the same method of functioning, as many companies have already transformed to agile ERPs. The initial changeover may be painful but is necessary. Companies have to provide the right technology platform and help employees adjust to the new system. Once employee training and onboarding to the new system is done, they become accustomed to a continuous improvement procedure that drives growth.

The benefits of an expedited reorganization through quick ERP changeover makes enterprises go with a rapid transformation methodology.

Figure: 1Benefits of Rapid ERP Implementation

Benefits of Rapid ERP Implementation

Why do companies move slowly when it comes to deciding on a new ERP? CIOs look for some general points such as ERP system with proven business benefits, technology roadmap for the future, company’s ability to move into a new ERP rapidly, etc.

Challenges in Rapid ERP Implementation:

1.Reduced Scope of Customization: Any ERP system that is suitable for a rapid implementation has templates for users to easily fill data, and tools that can easily help users move to the new system. This eliminates the need for customized codes and also simplifies the use of the tool. Some companies may find this method constricting, especially when they intend to customize the application to fit their current business processes. Predefined templates allow companies to go with out-of-the-box functionality. The newer system may follow all industry best practices out-of-the-box and may restrict you from overly customizing the system to fit your historical business practices. To remove the discomfort of user adoption to the new system, companies customize the system and make it look like the old system. Rapid implementations restrict customizations, creating some change management issues. 

65%

of new implementation budgets go above plan due to customizing the ERP system during the project.

2.Challenges in Faster Change Management: Rapid ERP implementation process requires setting up a system that can manage end-to-end processes. The system however should be designed to scale and accommodate updates or future releases without too much effort. An expedited change management timeline can be tough on users especially if they are unable to adapt quickly. Aligning all the stakeholders, making them privy to the to-be changes, avoiding communication gaps, managing resistance, and sticking to the budget are some of the challenges organizations face when moving to an agile cloud-based ERP.

3.Data Migration Challenges: Moving from legacy to ERP requires collation, classification, and systematic migration of legacy data. In the case of rapid ERP, moving to the cloud requires thorough data scrubbing within a limited time to ensure that data is accurate. To avoid a drain on budget, companies engage an internal resources to clean up legacy data. The data migration process goes smoothly when data is cleaner and in the right format.

4.Managing expectations: Lastly, companies often look at an ERP as their be-all-end-all solution. Rapid ERP tools are made with reduced implementation time as a primary objective. There can be certain discrepancies in managing expectations with stakeholders. A proper internal champion or change agent who can spearhead the transformation can make the transformation easy on the company. Furthermore, managing employees’ psychological resistance and expectations can also be a hurdle for companies in the initial period of implementation, especially if the company has been on the legacy system for many years. An implementation needs an internal change agent who knows how to set user expectations and take a tough stance on situations, especially the ones that can spiral the implementation out of control. Without an internal champion, no matter how good your implementation partner is, you will see a drain on budget, time and a continuous blame that will make your project a failure.

With these challenges ahead, how are the systems integrators ensuring that companies can still benefit from rapid ERP implementations? The answer lies in setting the right expectations with the customer and leveraging the native tool kits of the ERP. For example, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations comes loaded with features that can give companies worth their money. The reliability, industry-standard templates, relevant functionality, and more such hallmarks make Dynamics 365 the go-to solution for faster cloud-based ERP implementations.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations also enables step-by-step e-learning for its applications like the Task Recorder Resources that can run as a guide for users to learn the functions. With this app, users can record business processes for various scenarios and replay them as a guide. The feature speeds up change management and removes the user’s discomfort of not knowing the system.

The bottom line is that rapid ERP implementations are highly successful when companies go with native functionality and leverage the strength of the base system, rather than customizing the system. At least for the initial lift and shift, it is always recommended to stick with out-of-the-box functionality. Today, the digital era requires enterprises to become agile while leveraging newer technologies like cloud, process automation, etc. Rapid ERP implementations are a start to help a company become more nimble and adjust to market conditions quickly. So it is not always about ‘this is what I am used to doing’, it is about ‘what do I need to do differently to be successful’. We cannot avoid change and resisting the change will only push your company’s progress further. Companies will need to help their employees understand the benefits of going rapid so that the implementation and execution can be done on time and within the allocated budget.

Key Takeaways

  • Organizations need to be aware of challenges about rapid ERP implementation and be prepared with strategies to overcome these challenges.
  • It is crucial to remember that rapid ERP is highly beneficial to contain project costs and onboard users quicker into the new system. However, the chosen ERP should be able to handle most if not all organization’s needs.
  • Choosing the right tool for rapid ERP implementation is ‘half battle won’ for companies in their journey towards becoming agile.

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Role of electronic signatures in pharmaceutical quality control banner
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The Role of Electronic Signatures in Pharmaceutical Quality Control
The Role of Electronic Signatures in Pharmaceutical Quality Control 700 500 Xcelpros Team

Introduction

Many life-sciences companies struggle to ensure stakeholders’ revenue growth due to low performing, paper based systems. Furthermore, they deal with challenges related to operational efficiency, productivity, product quality, return on investments, and compliance-related issues. Another key challenge is managing humongous data in paper systems or disintegrated systems that are hard to access, analyze, and report. If any of these challenges ring a bell, your primary focus should be on redefining your current business proesses and standard operating procedures. Rapidly growing companies are quickly revisiting their business process and procedures as the industry is evolving. They are moving towards simple, agile and powerful electronic business management systems to stay ahead of competition. Your ability to grow the business is directly related to your openness to change.

A cross-functional pharmaceutical organization has departments such as Procurement, Receiving, Quality, Inventory, and Shipping that may be disjointed. Business processes tend to be more reactive when visibility of operations is low. Rapidly growing companies embrace a paperless environment to improve operational efficiency, cut down costs, meet regulatory standards, and, most importantly, maintain complete visibility. Switching to a system with electronic signatures can help cope up with evolving quality conditions, and make your company more relevant in the current market conditions.

Life sciences companies need digital systems to support their core business procedures and follow the right implementation practices to pass all computer systems validation requirements. Having electronic signatures embedded in their ERP system will be a major benefit to pharmaceutical companies. It provides the additional validation and visibility of authorized personnel who approve the movement or release of inventory after passing quality control.

Most modern pharmaceutical companies are moving towards electronic signatures to track their business activities. This eliminates manual circumvention of any activities or violation of procedures.

The global e-signature market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 34.7% during the forecast period, to reach $9,073.1 million by 2023.

The following are a few processes considered for computer systems validation:

  1. 1.Purchasing – Raw materials and packaging materials purchased from approved suppliers.
  2. 2.Receiving – Incoming inventory received with the right paperwork requires validation by a supervisor of the receiving department or a Quality manager.
  3. 3.Batch Production – While verification of raw materials consumption, operations, and yields.
  4. 4.Quality – This is an absolute requirement for inventory on hold, waiting for batch quality testing before releasing material for consumption or shipments.

Figure: 1 Electronic signature in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations – Production order release function

Electronic signature in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations

One of the primary FDA regulations called ‘Title 21 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 11’ states that “Persons may use electronic records instead of paper records or electronic signatures in place of traditional signatures, in whole or in part, provided that the requirements of this part met, and that a docket stating a company’s intent submitted to the FDA.

The transition from a paper-based quality management documentation to a comprehensive digital record system is not simple; it involves an array of challenges. Below are a few:

1.Poor Data Management: Data is a key component of a CFR 21 part 11 compliant system. Poorly managed and stored data can cause havoc when an auditor comes to your doorstep. How intuitive you want the Digital systems ultimately depends on how well the data is stored in the system. Information that is all over the place without a proper structure will only increase more audit and compliance issues. It is a good practice to conduct a periodic data review to ensure that all of the necessary steps are executed within different departments or when interacting with 3rd party systems.

2.Managing Digital Signatures With companies’ transitioning to digital systems, regulatory agencies have formulated several policies to safeguard electronic signatures. Poor document control is a significant reason for companies’ failure of regulatory audits. A ‘hard to audit’ digital system opens it up to more manual documentation changes by end-users. Companies need to have robust security control with hierarchical approval procedures to preserve electronic information and avoid regulatory penalties. It is hence imperative that your ERP system has the necessary infrastructure to manage electronic signatures at different steps. These acceptable electronic signatures can then easily be audited and reported.

3.Mitigating Quality Management Issues The purpose of implementing an electronic signature software is to grow collaboration across departments in your company, and not just in quality control. How your end users adapt to quality management processes plays a crucial role in realizing a software’s true potential. The digital system helps generate faster resolutions to pending requests by auto-reminding end users. Adopting good documentation practices in the pharmaceutical industry is essential to drive away quality management issues to make your company more stable, reliable and growth-oriented.

4.Changing Complacent Corporate Culture electing an intuitive, easy-to-use system and overall organizational change management are two critical parameters to ensure a swift transition to a digital system. It is essential to make end-users understand the workflow benefits of digital document management systems. If issues get ignored before the transition to a more compliant system, the legacy system’s inefficiencies will transfer over to the new system. Even though there could be initial resistance to switch to such a controlled system, the long-term benefits will outweigh the short-term user adaption issue. Being prepared and setting an expectation of what the change will be like and the type of issues to expect will be the first step to help users understand that the changeover may feel difficult at first but ultimately will help them be more successful.

Companies, therefore, require a digital system that demonstrates both regulatory and functional electronic signature compliance. A system that

  • helps in customizing levels of authentication
  • provides scalability and flexibility to customize workflows
  • supports bulk approval of all artifacts which are duly reviewed and signed off from a regulatory perspective
  • supports test management processes such as test plan, test lab, etc.
  • provides detailed audit trails for stakeholders and regulatory organizations.

Figure: 2Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations – Quality control transaction with digital signatures

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations

Below are some common requirements for electronic signature within a Pharmaceutical ERP system:

  1. 1.The employee should have the appropriate security role in the system to create an electronic signature.
  2. 2.The employee has to be individually recognized by the system with their signature.
  3. 3.The employee should have a certificate on the system that is used to generate the electronic signature.
  4. 4.The signature should be able to detect if there were any susceptible violations.
  5. 5.If a signature violation occurs, it should be easily audited.

Electronic signatures can be possible with different levels of security, which allows you to verify a user, data and attest a signature on certain set processes. Only those individuals with access to view the transactions and have the ability to sign off electronically will be able to create the signature. The system will have a log to track the individual, the associated transaction event, date and time of the signature.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (F&O) is a CFR 21 Part 11 compliant system that gives you the ability to record an electronic signature on different Quality-driven transactions. F&O maintains the necessary audits of approvers authorized with a secure certificate from the system. The certificate provides you with an encrypted key using a password only accessible to the user. The system allows users only with the appropriate security credentials to access the transactions and once all the verification is done, lets the authorized personnel create a signature on the transaction.

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For more information on Prebuilt Electronic Signatures for your industry, contact us at contact@xcelpros.com.

Migrating to cloud based erp solution
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Migration from On-Premise to Cloud based ERP System
Migration from On-Premise to Cloud based ERP System 700 500 Xcelpros Team

Introduction

If you are dealing with a legacy ERP system that is slowing down your business productivity or limits your ability to grow, its time to start planning the changeover to a new system. Moreover, if you are struggling to get a grip over the exceeding maintenance cost, it’s no longer an option then, rather an absolute must have to upgrade your legacy system to a cloud-based ERP. Upgrading an ERP system is a critical business decision and involves in-depth research and planning. A scalable cloud-based ERP solution capable of managing a comprehensive set of business functions is what you need.

76%

of enterprises have a formal cloud strategy and 74% of organizations will increase cloud spending to over 20% by 2020.

Source: Per a prediction by Forrester and IDC

2020 has come and gone, with higher cloud adoption than expected. Many companies were struggling to adjust to the new normal with their archaic tools. Companies that transformed prior to the pandemic found it comparatively simpler to work remotely and still keep productivity up, in some cases productivity of a company has gone higher than expected due to remote work. If you take a look at the marketplace of today’s business, it’s a data-driven environment. Any decisions business leaders take based on numbers and insights to get the best results.

If you are operating on legacy systems, your business landscape is not up-to-date to provide real-time analytics or meet a modern business’s requirements. To enable a data-driven organization, you need to revamp your system.

The result is innumerable complexities in business operations such as gaps due to handling multiple databases, duplicate manual data entry, broken data flow between departments, missed deadlines, etc. On-premise ERP systems require a series of hardware updates that make the total cost of ownership (TCO) even higher. Security concerns, regulatory compliance, policy necessities add to the complexities.

60%or more companies still use outdated ERP systems, per Microsoft survey.

59% of respondents expressed they will prefer an upgrade to cloud-based ERP in their next implementation, per the Microsoft survey.

80%of organizations are allocating budget for cloud projects. However, more than half are burdened with legacy systems and lack in-house expertise, per IBM

The journey from ERP 1.0 to ERP 2.0

The evolution of ERP happened over a long period of time. It has taken organizations decades to reach the current shape of ERP. The root of modern ERP lies in older production management models like EOQ (economic order quantity) and MRP (materials requirements planning). After years of relying on old inventory management procedures, the manufacturing industry gets its upgrade, MRP II, a software solution enabling computing power to manage different business aspects. Further scrutinizing the broadened scope of MRP II, Gartner coins the term ERP. Later addressing the key market shifts, Gartner calls the software ERP II, a solution capable of tracking real-time, web-based data.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers Tier 2 ERP solution that offers superior functionality in minimum complexities and cost. It makes the upgrade and integration easier to the latest technologies and provides a transformative experience.

A switch from ERP 1.0 to 2.0 opens innovation areas by increasing your current IT landscape’s flexibility. Also, cloud migrated mainframes produce an approximate 47 percent lower cost of operations spread across five years than on-premise mainframe platforms.

A popular Cisco survey in 2017 showed that 83% of the best performing US businesses planned an effective SaaS strategy and have started collaborating with cloud vendors. Cisco’s Global Cloud Index for the period 2013-2018 showed that 59% of all cloud workflows would be delivered as SaaS by the end of the year. Moreover, Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) will decline to 28% compared to 44% in 2013, and that only 13% of workloads will be delivered as Platform-as-a-Service(PaaS).

A survey report of Harvard Business Review Analytic Services reveals that 36% of 560 marketing professionals reported legacy systems to be one of the biggest roadblocks in implementing real-time analytics.

Legacy systems may offer you a high horsepower and set customer experiences, but upgrading to new software to keep up with the technological and generational growth is essential for ensuring better performance.

Regardless of the advantages of staying in your comfort zone and managing business processes with your legacy ERP system, these factors drive you to switch from legacy to cloud –

1.Operational inefficiencies:When your business expands, migrating to the cloud is an effective solution to keep track of all the real-time data and increase collaboration across your company’s different departments. Clinging to legacy software during business expansion decreases benefits of cloud ERP systems.

2.Growth of business:Growth of a firm often refers to the global expansion, reporting and compliance requirements and expansion of financial services. New opportunities like market growth, acquisitions and disinvestments require stabilized systems with smooth processes to be in place. As mentioned above, streamlining various departmental functions that deal with them for development and growth requires an agile cloud-based platform.

3.Technological Transformation:Unlike the expectations from previously used legacy systems, today’s users demand collaboration and ease. Companies expect essential operational functions like real-time analytics with customized dashboards, social collaboration with increased mobile access, and quick updates. This is easily achieved using cloud ERP systems.

Legacy to Cloud – Data migration challenges

Many companies operate on home-grown legacy systems, comprising both hardware and software. These systems were the foundation of working business systems and managers might hesitate to switch to other alternatives without a transformation plan. Though it is tough to make ERP implementation decisions, every business needs to upgrade to stay ahead of competitors. Some of the fears are also related to Data migration.

Per a report by Bloor Research, 31% of cloud data migration projects fail. Following are a few hurdles faced by organizations today, resulting in migration failure.

  • Insufficient knowledge of source data – A knowledge gap leads to problems such as lack of source knowledge, duplicates, missing information and erroneous data. This gives users a false perspective of data in the new system resulting in an incorrect design. Bad data leads to problems, and companies blame the new system until they figure out what the real issue is. It is essential to understand what information is a business need vs. a system constraint. Such situations make it essential for you to understand the source of data.
  • Unstructured processes – The process of data migration involves disparate technologies used by disparate people. Manual data migration increases human errors resulting in inaccurate, incomplete and outdated information. The outcome of such errors is the lack of technologies and resources to correct data. It is essential to perform an advanced analysis while planning and designing to help you recover these hidden errors.
  • Failure in implementation validation – Ineffective testing during the initial stage of deployment and lack of knowledge about the data sources results in its implementation failures. Running a few tests using the full volume of the data helps estimate the worst-case scenario missed using conveniently available data.
  • Late final result evaluation – This issue usually occurs at the testing stage, where users see only the final data compiled into the system at the end of design and development. Problems like data incompatibility with the new ERP system arise at this stage, which can be avoided with effective testing during the migration process saving the company time, money and delayed data migration time. Users can get involved in the evolving test cases to show them data output’s actual prototypes.
  • Lack of full usage of expertise – Most companies do not use the right expertise. They face issues in decoding large codes, obtaining access to these codes and other functional challenges. Introducing such experts to your project helps make sense of the disparate data for effective data migration techniques.

Figure: 1Benefits of moving ERP to the cloud

Benefits of moving ERP to the cloud

The bigger question – What does the cloud have to offer?

Even though migrating to the cloud might look like a hefty expense, it saves you from the troubles of operational inefficiency, effective demand forecasting, poor customer service and reduced ROI.

A few characteristics and advantages of a new and advanced cloud-based ERP would be –

  • Improved ERP Performance – The switch from on-premise to the cloud helps free up computational power and resources that are essentially necessary while deploying an effective ERP solution. This is one of the most significant advantages offered by the cloud, which eliminates any infrastructural costs, helping smaller businesses flourish and the only necessity is a well-established internet system.Microsoft Azure offers you a flexible cloud platform that quickly adapts to your business’s needs and requirements. It is simple to adjust and provides a host of building blocks that allow you to customize the cloud according to yourself.
  • Reduced Operational Costs – An on-premise ERP software requires a workforce to maintain it. The additional costs on human resources and the ERP software cost can increase operational costs for the firm. Using cloud ERP software gives you benefits like a monthly subscription tailored to the customer’s needs at a low outlay cost. As the implementation costs are much lower, the overall operational costs also reduce.
    The cloud’s added benefit is that it provides a common platform for developing various solutions, negating the developing time for constructing programs from scratch. The aforementioned helps in the allocation of resources for other activities that add a higher business value.Due to its large customer base, Microsoft offers a large volume of discounts to their customers. Azure usually works as a pay-as-you-go model, reducing the input costs for smaller companies. Larger enterprises who sign contracts are offered a more considerable discount as well.
  • Higher Security – The input and output of the ERP systems’ data is generally confidential and requires a well-established and secure maintenance system. Cloud ERP offers superior quality security systems that ensure that the information is effectively protected and encrypted. The user access to such data helps in the effective correction in the areas needed.Microsoft Azure offers you a multi-layered security system helping you detect threats earlier with unique intelligence.
  • Real-Time Analytics – Contemporary software-based solutions make it necessary for industry models to offer real-time data for the process optimization and business intelligence based on which decisions can be made. Cloud ERP software comprises API links to the platform, helping users scale reporting and analytical needs. The instant access to the data on the cloud makes information readily available, which benefits industries like manufacturing, where real-time data tracking helps in process optimization.
  • Enhanced UAT and API testing – An effective User Acceptance Testing and API beta testing has become a more common approach. In opposition to testing in isolation in an engineering setting, UAT and API methodology are more conducive to finding and more responsive to real-world problems.

Figure: 2 Variety of functions offered on the cloud

Variety of functions offered on the cloud

Cloud for ROI

The two main components of calculating ROI for an ERP software are –

  • required investment and savings
  • efficiencies & goodwill

The calculation of ROI for the software does not have a predetermined methodology as the software brings a variety of intangible values with itself. The benefits are primarily in reducing operation cost, optimizing inventory levels, labor cost and improved production.

The ROI is often masked in reductions of operational costs of running the company using transparency in the organization and the activities taking place in it. The benefits can also be reduced administrative costs by reduced paperwork and time information exchange using real-time data tracking. Inventory costs are reduced by optimizing material stock and by tracking the inventory health in turn increasing the ROI of the software.

Azure is the only major cloud platform ranked by Gartner as an industry leader for both infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS).

What does Azure have to offer to you?

As per a Forbes study, enterprise adoption of Microsoft Azure increased significantly from 43% to 58% in 2018, attaining a 35% CAGR.

Raising cloud ERP adoption rates by such a high margin shows the increasing popularity of the software gained from features like increasing flexibility. Azure adopts and adapts other operating systems’ standards and embraces competing for software platforms to ensure it stays relevant to as many people and companies as possible.

Here are a few advantages of Azure –

  • Widespread customer support as Microsoft spreads over 19 regions across the globe and offers support plans in a variety of languages.
  • Offers a hybrid environment that helps you gain benefits from both on-premise and cloud software solutions without any added cost burdens.
  • Visual studio online and application insights helping in developer collaboration and increased options.
  • Offers you virtual systems like Linux and Windows servers, increasing your ability to run virtual machines.
  • Ability to scale on demand
  • Reliable back-ups in case of data loss
  • “Set it and forget it” scheduling
  • Increased automation
  • Reliable data storage and increased security

Figure: 3Cloud benefits to your business

Cloud benefits to your business

Key Takeaways

  • In most organizations, legacy systems are still hovering around because the cost of refurbishing them is too high till they are in working condition and the management sees this as business overhead. On the other hand, the IT department sees it as a can of worms. Due to reeling communication, responsibility and financial problems, the organization are unwilling and initiate this migration.
  • The best thing the organizations can do in such a case is to hire an external vendor or an SME who can assess the situation and make this difficult decision and formulate a pragmatic approach to convince the stakeholders else they will pay for the opportunity cost of losing.
  • Finally, we can’t undermine having a proper cloud alliance that can help the organizations lift-and-shift their legacy systems to the cloud and reinvent these systems’ performance and makes all stakeholders see ERP cloud migration’s long-term gains.

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CRM in Pharmaceutical Industry
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How CRM Fosters Customer Engagement in the Pharmaceutical Industry
How CRM Fosters Customer Engagement in the Pharmaceutical Industry 700 500 Xcelpros Team

At a Glance

  • Pharmaceutical Companies are updating their software systems to improve customer retention, customer satisfaction and increase up-selling products.
  • By the end of 2018, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system became the most extensive and fastest-growing software market globally, estimated to churn out $80 billion revenue by 2025.
  • The primary reason for the staggering growth of the CRM software industry is the accessibility to customer data that help businesses close customer deals.
  • The pharmaceutical industry’s complexity makes CRM software a must for faster development to retain and expand its existing customer base.

Post COVID19, most sales and marketing teams have gone remote. The unforeseen circumstances of not having an in-person interaction with customers have driven businesses to invest in the latest and conversion-oriented CRM tools. Pharmaceutical Companies are rapidly onboarding systems for marketing, sales, and customer service. Companies now have newer sales objectives such as managing long-distance interactions, maintaining the same engagement with health care providers, pharmacies and even end patients. Tools need to be interactive, AI-based and understand customer behavior based on their interactions to meet the mentioned sales objectives. We have seen an increase in polls and surveys, more digital content like videos, podcasts. And more impetus on tracking each of these interactions’ results. There is a lot more crossover between sales and marketing now, with sales professionals taking over some marketing responsibilities. With the role shifting, there is no other way than moving to digital-AI-based CRM systems.

All these changes and life sciences companies rushing to bring out a COVID19 vaccine have intensified competition. But competition is just a small concern that pharmaceutical organizations face. Profitability becomes a key concern with rapidly changing stringent government regulations, time lag between testing, commercialization of the medicine. And stiff competition due to lower-priced products.

Recently Mark Cuban, an American billionaire entrepreneur and investor, announced that he is investing in a business that will manufacture low-cost generic medicines. Per Forbes, the low-cost generic pharmaceutical drug company’s business plan is to maintain supply chain transparency. They intend to achieve this by buying medicines from wholesalers, packaging them, adding only a 15% markup, selling to pharmacies, clinics and health systems.”

Driving drug costs down will become a trend moving forward to make prescription medicines more affordable for end-users. The Pharmaceutical market anticipates its growth to exceed $1.2 trillion by 2022. Due to this growth, companies invest in innovative, and cutting-edge technologies to manage their most significant asset – customer insights.

According to a report by Seeking Alpha, the CRM market’s potential is estimated to be approximately $82 Billion by the year 2025, with an annual growth rate of about 12% per year. The report also suggested that if the same annual growth rate is maintained until 2034, the CRM market can grow to $228 billion. Your company is more successful in selling, maintaining customer relationships. And improve customer loyalty when users from different departments are trained on the right CRM tools.

The statistics prove that CRM helps meet the end-to-end customer acquisition demands, potential leads from the vast database of loyal customers. And keep customers satisfied with the products offered. Pharmaceutical firms gain a competitive edge through lead scoring, quote management, marketing automation integration. Most Pharmaceutical companies need to send samples to customers before actual orders are placed. They track how samples performed and what the viability is for sale to happen.

The solution to a slow-growth company is to increase its profits by keeping the existing customers happy. And acquiring a more extensive customer base. CRM in the pharmaceutical industry offers to centralize functioning by providing a common platform for maintaining the existing customer base and developing new strategies to expand in the market. Maintaining customer relationships helps ensure that customers are happy and will not be poached by competitors.

Figure: 1 How much time do your sellers spend engaging with customers?

32%on average sellers only spend 32% of their time selling.

Source: CSO Insights

59% of sellers say they have too many sales tools.

Source: Accenture

18%Only 18% of salespeople are considered trusted advisor.

Source: HBR

Why Pharmaceutical Companies Need CRM?

  • Building better relationships with customers – The directly proportional relationship between drugs released and an increasing number of patients makes it essential for your pharmaceutical company to strategize relationship building with your existing customer base.
  • Finding and utilizing data – Effectively using CRM insights by capturing useful data about patients, doctors and medicines. Developing a centralized repository with customer interactions accessible to various departments ensures transparency and enhances customer experience in the pharmaceutical industry.
  • Improving marketing strategies – Smart marketing through collateral and digital media can help gain customer attention. CRM in such customer-centric industries derives valuable insights from centralized repositories containing relevant information (of all their open and closed activities) for pharmacies, doctors and other clients. This helps sales experts to expand their customer base and increase customer loyalty.
  • Tracking campaigns – An advanced CRM software helps in campaign management for pharma companies who advertise their products. The software also increases transparency in sales costs vs. the number of leads generated and converted.
  • Effective customer service – Solving queries raised by customers immediately, reducing delays. And providing effective customer support services are must-haves to increase customer retention. Various AI-based customer service tools like assignment rules and alerts are instrumental in building a customer base.
  • Building on customer feedback – The feedback and suggestions gathered from the existing customer base help strategize better customer interaction in the future. This helps in making more refined, enhanced products and services thus, expanding the business areas. Implementing a tool to track feedback helps ensure that departments know to manage unhappy customers, and help with customer pain points.

According to a report by Capterra, 80% of the CRM users reported that their sales teams are the ones who have access to these systems, helping them acquire better quality leads and potential customers. The marketing and customer service departments come after the sales department to access the CRM software used for pipeline reporting and ROI tracking, edging at approximately 45%.

Why building effective customer relationship management in pharmaceutical industry is essential?

  • Salesforce predicts that 51% of sales pros give building and maintaining customer relationships more importance.
  • Building functional customer relationships is the paramount need for companies to increase their customer retention metrics and expand their customer bases.
  • Research conducted by Zesty showed that only 5% increase in customer retention results in up to 25-90% increase in profits for firms.
  • Building an effective customer relationship is essential for pharmaceutical companies as maintaining functional relationships with customers boosts the company’s revenue. And helps acquire large customer bases by increasing customer satisfaction in the pharma industry.

How Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM serves your pharmaceutical company?

Dynamics 365 CRM helps improve the connection between you and your customer instantly by managing your customer engagement from Discovery to closure. It offers you the full range of functionality you need for a high-performance, motivated sales department.

Dynamics 365 CRM for pharmaceutical integrates into your ERP and BI systems to leverage your customer data’s full potential. It is used as your central information platform from leads management functions to smart customer analytics. And with AI helps you make the right moves to close deals. Move ahead of your competition with advanced sales force automation. Dynamics 365 Sales is a state-of-the-art CRM solution that integrates with your everyday tools like Microsoft Office applications to increase seller productivity, fully grasp your customer needs, and increase sales.

Figure: 2What can your company do to get ahead?

Make Smarter Decisions

How do sellers know which opportunities to pursue and how to personalize conversations?

Leverage data-driven insights and AI to guide sellers with next-best point for personalized engagement.

Free up time selling

How much time do your sellers spend on administrative tasks?

Reduce busywork by automating manual tasks and enable sellers to complete actions right from Outlook to be more productive.

Get up and running fast

How many tools does your sales team use to get work done?

Empower your sellers and help your IT staff focus on other priorities with a connected sales platform that is easy to set up, configure, and maintain.

D365 provides you the following add-ons for project-specific extensions-

  • Business intelligence with Microsoft Power BI for business development
  • Campaign management
  • Customer segmentation
  • Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integration
  • Project and Resource management
  • Terms and conditions data price/lists

Key Takeaways

  • You must stay at par with the growing market structures to thrive, mostly post COVID19. And adopt the new technologies as they emerge.
  • The benefits of CRM, especially with AI, has transitioned from just customer acquisition to maintenance of good customer relations and many more.
  • With all the capabilities to make your sales and marketing teams successful, the right CRM application is a key growth-enabler for your company.

Get the right tools for customer engagement and customer relationship management

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Batch Processing In Manufacturing Of Pharma Industry
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Unifying Pharma With Batch Manufacturing Process for Simplified Formula Management
Unifying Pharma With Batch Manufacturing Process for Simplified Formula Management 700 500 Xcelpros Team

At a Glance

  • Batch manufacturing or batch processing in manufacturing are conventional methods used by chemical, pharmaceutical and related sectors. These methods pose various challenges when it comes process management, formula simplification, quality checks and more.
  • Formula management is the core of process manufacturing to manage ingredients and related raw material, making it audit prone and a validated process.
  • Manufacturers are looking for solutions and software to allow the R&D and production team to work together on formulations. Manufacturers need to simplify Formula management and track changes to maintain an audit trail.

The pharmaceutical industry faces many challenges related to formula management in manufacturing. Maintaining formula, formula lines, cross-checking the data, managing raw material supply etc. can be a daunting task for the people on shop floor. Any change in formula needs to be communicated and cascaded down to production line operators to make necessary changes while running the manufacturing process smoothly.

We currently live in a modernized, connected world and it is thus essential to bring these modern hi-tech solutions to pharmaceutical formula management. After all, advanced technologies will dominate pharmaceutical manufacturing patterns, trends and changes in the coming future.

According to a survey by The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, 68% of biopharmaceutical companies think that advances in technology will significantly impact their organizations.

Before we understand how manufacturing software can help in formula management, let us first consider the challenges in this area.

Challenges in Batch Manufacturing and the Need to Simplify Formula Management:

1.Formula Consistency:As stated earlier, pharmaceutical manufacturers need the formulations to be maintained. This would affect the quality and result of the drug (or other pharmaceutical product) being manufactured. In batch manufacturing, formula consistency plays an essential role in getting consistent results. The challenge lies in maintaining this consistency across multiple locations for different batches.

2.Communicating and Implementing Formula/Line Changes:A formula or formula line is subject to change based on batch history, planned vs. actuals, potency values or other unpredictable factors. When changes are not communicated and implemented correctly, pharmaceutical production can be challenging, especially while producing multiple lots. The cost and labor lost in such scenarios is tremendous. Communicating formula changes to all the stakeholders in the process is equally crucial to avoid quality discrepancies.

3.Maintaining and Managing Data:A pharmaceutical manufacturing facility deals with numerous formulations. Bill of Materials (BOM), ingredients, coproducts, byproducts, different formula lines, 3rd party manufacturing within a formula line, vendor management list, supply chain tracking etc. are all interrelated to formula management. This indicates extensive data generated daily, which needs to be collated, documented, and even analyzed, making it a daunting task prone to errors.

Leveraging Technological Innovations to Address Formula Management Challenges:

Today, digitization and automation have paved newer paths for conventional methods. Tools and systems developed for productiveness and superior performance can address the challenges faced by manufacturers. Speaking particularly of formula management challenges in pharma batch manufacturing, organizations can adapt batch manufacturing ERP software to facilitate:

  • Centralized record maintenance of formula, items, formula lines etc.
  • Formula management
  • Automated change communication
  • Data collation, systematic classification, report generation in the system and more
  • Track and tracing of the lot/ batch
  • Effective supply chain management
  • Production line management
  • Cost sheet maintenance and cost management

These and many more such benefits have turned pharma manufacturers’ attention towards integrating ERP in their batch manufacturing process to simplify formula management.

Figure 1:How ERP Software Can Simplify Formula Management in Batch Manufacturing

How ERP Software Can Simplify Formula Management in Batch Manufacturing

How Does Batch Manufacturing Software (ERP) Simplify Formula Management?

With the benefits mentioned above, subject matter experts and CXO’s in pharma companies know how to achieve formula simplification through an ERP software for batch manufacturing. The answer lies in the design and programming of the software which is built to

  • Manage item variants
  • Maintain purchase order sheets for scheduling, re-ordering, etc.
  • Inventory management, forecasting and order management
  • Formula recording, process control, change management and more

The payoffs of investing in batch manufacturing ERP software are numerous. With the increase in globalization, it is all the more important for pharma companies to reduce the time to market while ensuring that the product quality is not compromised. Managing the formula and how it scales for different sizes is probably the first step towards meeting those needs. With the help of high-end software, batch processing in manufacturing can be carried out effectively while simplifying formula management.

Key Takeaways

  • Pharma companies need to go digital to manage formulas for their product lines.
  • Batch manufacturing is a complex process with many factors such as scalability of batch sizes, scrap percentages, potency calculations, by product yields, etc. By simplifying formula management, pharmaceutical manufacturing companies can effectively track their batch production process.
  • There are currently many software tools/ solutions available for pharma companies to integrate into their manufacturing processes. By recognizing their requirements for formula management and batch manufacturing, they should invest in the ones that offer maximum ROI.

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How Managing Hazardous Chemical Information Solves EHS Challenges
  • Xcelpros Team
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How Managing Hazardous Chemical Information solves the EHS Challenges
How Managing Hazardous Chemical Information solves the EHS Challenges 700 500 Xcelpros Team

At a Glance

  • Hazardous Chemicals have harmful effects on the environment and people, and it becomes the company’s responsibility to manage the hazards appropriately.
  • With strong risk assessment in place, adhering to best practices, and complying with regulatory norms, companies can potentially reduce the chemical hazards.
  • An information system that holds chemical data helps companies comply with regulatory standards such as OSHA, GHS, etc., to reduce risk and improve safety standards.
  • Safety Data Sheets and Label management systems help chemical companies manage hazard information and safely label hazardous chemicals.

Hazardous Chemicals Are Everywhere

Chemicals are found everywhere around us in almost every consumer product, from household electronic appliances such as televisions, refrigerators, and personal computers to home goods like furniture, carpets, cleaning supplies, and more. We use chemicals to purify our drinking water, increase crop production and simplify everyday household chores.

As beneficial as chemicals are, many chemicals are hazardous and need to be managed safely or can pose a serious threat to human life and the environment. Very few industries and trades in the world are absolved from chemical exposure. Accidents with chemicals can occur during production, storage, transportation use, or even disposal. Your organization and our community are at risk if chemicals are used unsafely or released into the environment where we live, work and play. Hazardous chemicals can lead to serious injury, long-lasting health effects, property damage and, in worse cases, death.

A report from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) stated that more than 96% of all manufacturing companies utilize chemical substances to develop their products.

There are reports of chemical-related accidents in organizations where it was least expected, such as the food industry.

  • Per a 2014 ABC News report a restaurant in Utah, where a woman mistakenly served a tea tainted with Lye. An employee mistook an unlabeled powdered degreaser – containing sodium hydroxide, or lye – for sugar. This degreaser was then accidentally mixed into a cup of tea, causing extreme burns to the customer’s throat and mouth. This led to expensive penalties, lawsuits, and medical bills, as well as severe damage to the business’s reputation.
  • Another such incident occurred when customers of a significant ice-cream chain were accidentally served vanilla shakes tainted with a hazardous cleaning chemical. This happened when an employee unknowingly used what was thought to be a clean mixing container. The container contained traces of a degreaser which had not been adequately cleaned, leading to extreme burns to the customer’s throats and mouths. Again, this led to expensive penalties, lawsuits, medical bills and severe damage to the business’s reputation.

Both incidents above could have been avoided with proper labeling and handling practices in place.

Figure: 1Some points to consider when you are a chemical company

Some points to consider when you are a chemical company

The impact that improper handling of hazardous chemicals have on your company can be severe – causing irreparable damage to your reputation, large penalties, being shut down, or worse, endangering human life. It is these dangers and the growing list of hazardous chemical regulations from agencies like OSHA, GHS, etc. that are driving companies to take corrective measures in identifying and eliminating these hazardous chemicals, which pose a threat to your organization, employees, customers and all other stakeholders involved.

Eliminating hazardous chemicals from common and business use is a significant challenge, and it cannot happen overnight.

  • In 2014, Adidas declared plans to eliminate the utilization of long-chain perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), a chemical type known to cause asthma and osteoarthritis in children and women. Once developed, this took two years to implement successfully.
  • In 2014, the national superstore chain Walmart initiated a policy in which it became mandatory for suppliers to phase out certain hazardous chemicals found in cosmetics, household cleaners etc. This was not a fast transition. They wouldn’t even begin to report publicly on the progress until 2016.
  • Apple eliminated using two particularly toxic chemicals, benzene and n-hexane, from its manufacturing assembly process when pressured during a campaign by Green America and China Labor Watch (CLW). The company ordered detailed testing of substances at the ingredient level to ensure the two toxins are rooted out from the facilities, as reported by Global Manufacturing.

These examples highlight one aspect of the challenges involved in successfully removing hazardous chemicals from your organization. It may not even be possible. So, if eliminating hazardous chemicals is not possible, they should be managed better to minimize or prevent chemical-related accidents.

Managing chemical footprint is not just an OSHA compliance but more a civic duty

On August 6, 2014, in a leading copper-producing company suffered a tank leakage of of copper sulphate acid contaminating two rivers and turning them orange and extremely toxic leaving more than 24,000 people to survive without water.

As a consequence, the company had to bear huge penalties and clean-up costs as well as criminal charges filed by the Mexican Government.

In recent times, this incident was a wake-up call for companies regarding the global concern chemicals have on employees, public and environmental health & safety. It also was one of the driving forces behind more stringent legislation on the use of chemicals.

Best Practices & Ways to remain compliant

Regulatory Compliance is something that cannot be forgotten, as non-compliance attracts unwanted attention from regulatory agencies – often followed by large penalties as well as a threat to your business’s licenses.

In the US in 2017, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) increased the severity of penalties by 80% and imposed heavy fines ranging from $7,000 up to $12,000 for noncompliance to GHS through 2016-17. For serious violations, the penalties could be as high as $70,000 to $127,000.

Organizations can avoid such fines, unwanted attention from regulatory agencies, and better manage the use of hazardous chemicals to remain compliant are as follows:

  • Adhering to regulatory norms and best practices – conducting risk assessments & safety audits for environmental hazards – offering ongoing safety training, reduces humans’ exposure to hazardous chemicals.
  • Companies should comply with the global rules, standards, policies and procedures for environmental, health and chemical safety in the workplace. They need to operate environmentally safe facilities and manufacture safe products.
  • Smart SDS Management and Labeling applications are designed with managing the impact of hazardous chemicals. This helps your organization’s compliance with hazardous chemical regulations defined by agencies like OSHA, REACH, GHS, FDA, etc.
  • Chemical manufacturers need to ensure their products are correctly labeled according to GHS standards.
  • They should also strive to remain compliant with all other regulatory policies, industry standards, and government policies to ensure safety management.
  • Periodic testing should be performed to ensure that chemicals will not cause harm public health, and if they do, they should be either re-formulated or correctly labeled.

Integrated Technology to manage chemical data

Having the right technology in place can simplify everything we do. Thankfully, most of the issues we mentioned can be taken care of with the help of applications that house chemical information designed to efficiently help chemical companies meet regulatory obligations for compliance and safety.

Figure: 2The GHS process for companies carrying harmful chemicals

The GHS process for companies carrying harmful chemicals

What is a Chemical Management system and how does it help Chemical Companies with compliance?

A Chemical Management system – integrated within an ERP like Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform – helps chemical companies with their SDS Management, Label Management and DEA controls in-line with transactions within the operational ERP system. An ideal solution can help with the following:

Regulatory Compliance

  • Helps chemical companies comply with regulatory standards and government policies such as OSHA, REACH, FDA, HIPAA, LCSA, DEA to reduce risks and improve safety.

Key Product Functions

  • Offers SDS Management, Label Management (incl. Private Labels) & DEA Management in one application.

Label Printing

  • An included Label Management function enables chemical companies to automatically print OSHA chemical labels according to the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) labeling standards. These labels can be embedded within the workflow of key operational transactions such as Production Orders, eliminating the need for manual intervention.

SDS Management

  • A SDS Management & Authoring system allows companies to maintain Safety Data Sheets (SDS).
  • Infrastructure to maintain all 16 sections of the safety data sheet – by country, language, major and minor versions.
  • Note that while an application provides the technology, workflows, and infrastructure to maintain chemical data and information, it is essential to verify the information and approve the information before generating the safety data sheet.

Key Takeaways

  • Chemical companies must accurately label chemicals in adherence to regulatory standards related to the storage, transportation, handling and disposal of hazardous materials and waste.
  • Ongoing training and proper labeling ensure chemical health and safety for the consumers and the companies handling hazardous chemicals.
  • Utilizing the right technology reduces input needed when generating labels and helps streamline the processes to ensure your organization remains compliant year after year.

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