Transformation Process at Pharma International Company - Paper Example

Introduction

Pharma International Company was founded in 1994. The company's headquarters are in Amman, Jordan. It specializes in manufacturing pharmaceuticals and other products in the medical field. It offers products for anesthetics, anti-histamines, central nervous system, cardiovascular, anti-infective, respiratory, alimentary, and anti-obesity. It also provides minerals and vitamins (Alt & Puschmann, 2005). Other products include injections, ointments, suppositories, tablets, medicated shampoos, dry suspensions, gels, syrups, creams, and capsules. It is also a center for research and development, marketing, quality testing, and distribution.

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Need for Change

The increasing competition in the pharmaceutical industry has posed a great threat to Pharma's operations. Consequently, the administration noted that the development and selling of products to wholesalers, physicians, and hospitals were inadequate in maintaining its competitive advantage. The operational environment was also dominated by continuous structural changes that impacted Pharma's relationship with its clients. Some of the changes include direct sale drug prescriptions, increasing numbers of informed patients, increasing instances of reductions in the cost of pharmaceuticals by insurance providers and the government and other internet-based initiatives (Bosilj-Vuksic & Spremic, 2004). Furthermore, the continuing technological change raised the need for adjustments to maintain its relevance on the market. With every other company adopting enhanced technological frameworks to streamline operations, the organization had to consider enhancing their customer retention capability through the expansion and personalization of services provided to customers.

Changes

The administration focused on developing a framework meant to not only develop and transform customer relationships through technological undertakings but also to redefine changes regarding strategy, processes and system's architecture (Adler & Gundersen, 2008). The organization started off by streamlining its customer relationship management platform. Their main goal in adopting this strategy was to boost their levels of interaction with clients across different points of service delivery and establishing a consistent perspective of clients' data. The prospected benefit entailed meeting the needs of attractive customers and enhancing the retention of clients in offering tailored provisions to existent and new customers.

The customer-oriented architecture was an instrument comprising of the integration of different components for the development of solutions in different areas. The platform was developed on three levels. They include the business architecture which offered a framework for understanding the transformation of diverse sales channels within the company, a process architecture which entailed the development of design elements meant to shape the delivery of services related to customers and lastly a systems architecture that structured all supporting applications (Anderson, Olson, & Sobelman, 2009).

The business process strategy entailed fostering healthy relationships with all actors involved in purchasing Pharma's products. The organization considered reducing the costs of visits paid by physicians as its first actors who tend to possess the knowledge of prescribing medications for patients. The second actors are patients who tend to be final buyers of products. The company resolved to strive to influence their choice of drugs. Hospitals are third actors as they rely on the expertise of physicians and other members of the procurement staff to order medications. Wholesalers are fourth actors who order drugs and consolidate them for distribution purposes. Pharmacists are fifth actors who buy drugs from wholesalers before dispensing them to patients based on prescriptions. The company used the internet to integrate the delivery of services to its customers. It adopted portals in need to personalize and integrate products information and service delivery from diverse vendors (Basu, Friedli, & Bellm, 2013). Through portals, patients had an opportunity of receiving information and services regarding therapy and disease. Therefore, hospitals received catalogs regarding electronic procurement deals while physicians had an opportunity to obtain information in regards to drugs, treatment, current research, and support while in training. Online product presentations served as alternatives to physical visits from sales representatives. Wholesalers' portals were modified to support the making of online orders and electronic ordering processes. Pharmacy portals have platforms with electronic charts with ordering services and catalog services with prescription handling and order entry. Electronic charts with pharmacists enable patients to fax prescriptions, order drugs and collect drugs at physical stores. The portal provided consistent product information for maintenance of parity in the online platform and fostered competitive advantages through the establishment of certain client segments.

Under process architecture, the administration analyzed customer processes across different segments with the aim of identifying specific aspects and appropriate valued services to be incorporated in a portal. Customer processes are tasks partook by customers so that they can satisfy their needs. Some of the customer processes involve patients, physicians, hospital pharmacies and independent pharmacies. Customer processes of patients are processes regarding the prevention and treatment of diseases. The aspect indicates that even healthy persons can be customers of Pharma's products, buying to prevent diseases. The physician's process entails the treatment of patients through the provision of advice and drug prescriptions. It also entails information from a medical journal and patient medical records (Alt & Puschmann, 2005). Hospital pharmacies emphasize on the management of warehouses through the observation of medical developments and identification of sales figures and side effects of drugs. Hospital pharmacists are expected to initiate purchase orders after checking inventories and comparing terms delivery terms. Goods are then assigned to warehouses after checking upon invoices and receipts. Lastly, independent pharmacies specialize in the dispensation of drugs and providing clients with advice to customers. Most support processes entail ordering and prescription handling. The company incorporated their diverse duties and needs in the portal to enhance efficiency in their levels of performance.

The portal process architecture established pragmatic relationships between portal services and customer relationship management processes such as marketing, sale and service delivery. Pharma's new marketing strategy based on therapeutic fields that the company was providing. Systematically evaluation of customer contacts enables the company to establish an active communication framework and personalized marketing campaigns that defined the information collected by the sales force. Streamlining sales encourages the company to appoint managers responsible for the success of specific customers. Call centers were also established to allow for the provision of up-to-date services to customers. The system architecture supported the functionality of different processes on portals, provided integrated solutions for semantic and syntactic compatibility on customer data and ascertained secure connectivity (Alt & Puschmann, 2005). The application architecture reflected requirements in marketing processes, sales, and services. The ERP serves as a platform for products management, ordering and sales while CRM plays a vital role in call center services, sales force, and marketing. The customer information platform relies on integration architecture to facilitate the use and management of data.

Outcome

The change process was a success as the company was capable of accruing more profits under the customer relationship management process. The company realized the benefit through enhanced efficiency in processes of sales and marketing. Furthermore, the architecture reduced instances of redundancies leading to reusable and interoperable solutions. The benefit is realizable in the possibility of implementing pre-configured portals for physicians in multiple countries while centralizing skills in a specific organization (Huq, 2004). The architecture has also been helpful in the evaluation and integration of innovative technologies effectively.

Constructive Advice

The presented architectural framework was effective in systemizing the methodologies of engineering business relationships. However, the company would have also considered incorporating prospected results f the transformation process so that the goals of the business are put in perspective. The process would have entailed linking the architecture with business objectives such as customer orientation. Consequently, the company would have also developed innovations for personalized care so that patients can also be considered in the development of medications. Personalized care would have ensured that patients' data is consistently monitored for purposes of developing more pragmatic solutions to their problems.

References

Adler, N.J. and Gundersen, A. (2008). International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, 5th ed., Thomson South-Western: Mason.

Alt, R. & Puschmann, T. (2005). Developing customer process orientation: the case of Pharma Corp. Business Process Management Journal, 11(4), 297-315. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1108/14637150510609372Anderson, T., Olson, J., and Sobelman, D. (2009). Assessment of the opportunities for pharmaceutical manufacturers in emerging markets. Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy, 15(5), 396-402.

Basu, P., Friedli, T., & Bellm, D. (2013). "The Future of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing," in Friedli, T., Basu, P., Bellm, D. and Werani, J. (Eds.), Leading Pharmaceutical Operational Excellence. Heidelberg: Springer.

Bosilj-Vuksic, V. & Spremic, M. (2004). ERP System Implementation and Business Process Change: Case Study of a Pharmaceutical Company. Journal of Computing and Information Technology, 1-13.

Huq, M. (2004). Building technological capability in the context of globalization: opportunities and challenges facing developing countries. International Journal of Technology Management and Sustainable Development, 3(3), 155-172.