The company
Founded in 1945 Eisai is a multi-national pharmaceutical based in Japan. Created to meet the healthcare needs of a population struggling to overcome hard times, Eisai literally means “healthcare consumer goods”, setting out the company’s orientation from the very beginning.
Over the years, Eisai has become increasingly international with a mission of great importance; “taking care of the health of every individual”, hence the concentration on both patients and their families.
The efforts of each Eisai employee contributes to a global project that, consistent with its original mission, strives to encourage and promote the humanisation of healthcare.
Eisai has been in the Italian market for just 5 years, yet have delivered significant results for a young organisation and many rewards for its young tem With 80 employees and sales of 37 million euro (in the 2009 financial year), Eisai has focused in two areas in particular, neurological therapy and antalgic therapy, addressing both the Retail and Hospital channels via its own network of pharmaceutical scientific informers.
The need
Eisai’s need was to standardise the analysis of data obtained from different sources, both internal and external Much of the available information was collected in spreadsheets and managed by the various departments in an independent and unstructured manner. This made it impossible to obtain an accurate, integrated overview of the primary business indicators which, by contrast, needed to be monitored and shared on a timely basis, especially in the context of a growing business.
Eisai recognised that there was a need for a BI solution and began the process of identifying and comparing potential suppliers. The selection criteria focused on the following characteristics: ease of installation, likely implementation and maintenance costs, the ability to create business models starting from a blank sheet, the possibility of joint development and interaction between departments, and the ability to train company personnel to create and analyze information on demand.
The project
The Finance Administration & Logistics Director at Eisai, Roberto Blatti, had already formed a positive opinion about BOARD as a result of previous professional experiences; accordingly, he suggested its inclusion among the software candidates when the Finance and IT departments worked together to promote the adoption of a Business Intelligence and Performance Management system.
BOARD, as it turned out, fitted Eisai’s requirements exactly. Unlike its competitors, BOARD is not the result of combining different products and technologies. Rather, it is one product with one interface and just one development environment that unifies Business Intelligence and Corporate Performance Management, supplying a complete solution for supporting, controlling and managing the organisations decision-making processes. There is no need for programming of any kind. Altogether, BOARD provides a personalised solution that meets the needs of users, with decidedly moderate implementation and maintenance costs.
Drawing on its specific experience in the pharmaceuticals sector, B4C Consulting assisted Eisai in all stages of the project, designing and implementing a solution that is able to supply summary and detailed analyses for all business areas.
The project began in 2007 by dealing with these aspects in the Sales & Marketing area. Following this phase, further development resulted in the first applications for the Finance Administration & Logistics Department.
”Tackling projects of this kind stimulates those involved to develop an in-depth knowledge of the corporate processes to be controlled – says Roberto Blatti, Finance Administration & Logistics Director at Eisai - facilitating the cultural growth of the organisation by focusing on interdisciplinary skills and spreading them throughout the firm.”
Sales & Marketing
The BOARD project in the Sales & Marketing area started with an analysis of territorial market data by micro area, province, scientific-medical informer and Regional Sales Manager.
- Distribution process (Ex-factory data)
- Purchasing process (Forecast and Purchasing plan)
- Preparation of budget income statements and related periodic revisions (Forecast to quarter end)
- Expenditure vs Budget
In 2009, the project developed using BOARD enabled Eisai to monitor its business indicators at an important stage in its growth, with the launch of new products in Italy and, at the same time, the evolution of its sales organisation - no longer structured by Business Unit, but now by Therapeutic Area with three lines of scientific informers.
“The projects implemented have resulted in solutions that require minimal management, relieving the IT team of maintenance and support activities as key users are able to manage their applications independently - continues Marco Nicoli, IT Manager at Eisai. In the final analysis, rapid development times and the low demand on IT resources at an organisational level mean that the Total Cost of Ownership is small compared with the results obtained.”
The benefits
By using BOARD, the objective of having a shared view of standardised data has been achieved, allowing business performance to be monitored, saving time when consulting information and making all available data more accessible.
”For BOARD users - states Marco Nicoli, IT Manager at Eisai - the most attractive features are its fast creation of analytical environments without programming of any kind, and the ease of data navigation in dynamic mode.”
Requests for new information from Business Lines or Headquarters now receive timely responses, due to the ease with which on-demand analyses can be built.