Company
Novartis Crop Protection is one of the world leaders in Life Sciences with core businesses in healthcare, agribusiness and consumer health with operations in 142 countries worldwide. Novartis with the aid of BOARD International, the Swiss-based management intelligence software provider, has implemented BOARD International's management intelligence toolkit, BOARD 4 to enable on-line reporting.

Business Challenges
BOARD will help increase sales productivity, shorten sales cycles, reduce costs and increase capability for campaign analysis and reporting, by providing the sales team with the tools necessary to orchestrate, trace and analyse sales cycles in real time.

BOARD Solution
As the global population grows and society becomes more industrial, the demand for more food, sturdier plants and healthier animals is increasing. In early 1997, to meet these requirements, Novartis recognised the need to update its existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, which also enabled a re-evaluation of the inherent sales force reporting system. Working with BOARD International meant understanding that any changes to their business technology had to be management driven. A software solution was needed to replace the existing system for core sales/business administration functions to allow information to be deployed both locally and over a distributed architecture, and yet, have the capability to be developed in-house.
Novartis had several specific requirements, which had to be met by the software and the supplier. The major considerations had to be the versatility of the solution combined with the ability to meet an aggressive implementation time scale of eight weeks. BOARD International was selected after a comprehensive evaluation process. Novartis reviewed a number of management intelligence software systems, and after three months, selected BOARD International because of their flexible approach and their proven track record.
The success of the project is due to the management commitment and BOARD International's understanding of business needs to provide the expertise and leading edge software capable of supporting Novartis in the future and keep them ahead of the competition.

Business Benefit
Richard Leech continues: "Novartis needs to take a view on stock in advance of any demand, therefore instant up-to-date information is of great importance to us. Implementing BOARD has enabled the field sales force to access information in real-time with the capability to drill down and deliver on-line reporting." Richard Leech, Finance Manager at Novartis, said: "We needed to move away from a disparate system to a single integrated system. It was essential for the sales and management teams to have a system that could be easily and quickly updated offering accurate up to the minute data analysis sales information, position on products, customer history, forecasting and much, much more." BOARD helps each business manager to adjust sales forecasts on a monthly basis. By downloading daily sales data each evening into the central BOARD system all sales data is consolidated for customers, products and sales areas. Every member of the sales and management teams has access to the latest information available to manage the business and identify customer requirements to tailor reports, input new data and enhance the sales force professional image. BOARD International worked closely with Novartis to develop and implement the system.
Diep Doan, IT Specialist for Novartis, said: "The BOARD sales project was time critical and in only eight weeks, we had built the BOARD application, going live overnight. Whilst the project was complicated it was the simplicity and rapid development that BOARD offered, that enabled us to meet our deadlines within budget and on time."