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 Firms
across the world are realising the power of IT and healthcare
companies are no different. Delhi-based Morepen Laboratories
is one such company that has gone on a massive IT implementation
spree to help it manage its fast growing business better.
Dheeraj Kapoor reports
Companies
all over the world are leveraging IT to help them scale up
and manage their operations more efficiently and Delhi-based
Morepen Laboratories has been no exception to the rule.
Having started off operations 15 years back as a bulk drug
company, Morepen Laboratories has grown by leaps and bounds
to emerge as a $200 million transnational healthcare company,
with export operations covering over 50 countries including
USA, Canada and Europe. With the rapid growth of its business,
the company also decided to lay the foundation of a massive
IT infrastructure to support the growing needs of the company.
Says Navneet Jain, head-systems, Morepen Laboratories, “From
the very beginning we had been using software that was developed
in-house for managing our business. However, with the increase
in business, the old systems proved to be inadequate and we
therefore embarked on a rapid IT-fication drive. As a result
of this, we have now developed new software and are in process
of setting up a Wide Area Network (WAN) to connect our corporate
office, manufacturing locations, sales and marketing offices
and CFAs.” This task, he affirms will be completed soon,
and forms part of the company’s efforts to stay in sync
with the changing business environment.
At home with IT
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According
to Jain, support from
top management has ensured that all the IT efforts of
the company bear fruit |
The
company embarked on its IT path soon after the commencement
of operations, with the implementation of software developed
by its IT team. This included financial accounting software
based on Foxpro. It followed it up with the development of
software for fixed deposits, import/export and the mother
of all applications payroll. Most of these applications were
Foxpro based, while others were developed using Clipper. All
these were standalone packages and were installed at different
locations. (Morepen’s corporate, sales and marketing
office is located at Delhi. It has three manufacturing facilities
at Himachal Pradesh and CFAs in various states.) The company
also installed a Local Area Network (LAN) at each of its locations.
While the LAN at the corporate office can support up to 100
PCs, the one at the manufacturing units can support 50 PCs.
Growing with IT
Over the last six months, the company has made renewed efforts
to scale up its IT infrastructure and is currently in the
process of setting up a WAN to connect its various locations.
Jain points out that one of the main problems with the earlier
IT infrastructure was that all the packages where standalone
packages installed in various locations. Though these locations
would send in data on a regular basis, the company did not
have access to latest information such as stock, inventory
etc. It therefore decided to set up a WAN, which would link
all its offices through VSATs. For this, the company roped
in HECL. “The WAN,” says Jain, “will support
voice and data applications.” The WAN currently supports
the sales and distribution and fixed account package.
The company has connected its sales and marketing office in
Delhi to the WAN through an 8 Mbps radio link. For connecting
its 22 CFAs, it is evaluating wireless connectivity through
Virtual Private Networks (VPN). According to Jain, the reason
the company decided to go in for wireless connectivity is
primarily because such a link offers high speed, always on
connectivity. Also, recurring costs are lower in this case.
The company expects to complete setting up the WAN within
the next few weeks.
It has also developed new software as part of its IT expansion
drive, the most recent being the Visual Foxpro-based sales
and distribution package. Says Jain, “This package takes
care of sales, invoicing, stocks, receivable and payable accounting,
pricing and batch number, which is crucial in the drugs industry.
It is also designed to cater to the invoicing structure in
various states.” In addition to this, Morepen has developed
a new fixed deposit software, which is based on Visual Basic
at the front-end and SQL server at the back-end.
Morepen currently uses Lotus Notes for messaging, and plans
to add new features to the same in the near future. These
would include notice boards, where the policies, procedures,
new products and important events of the company would appear.
Jain adds, “The main reason, why we have been able to
make a success of most of our IT initiatives has been the
involvement of our management.” He adds that the current
chairman and managing director, has been personally involved
in the IT initiatives right from the beginning, thus giving
the necessary boost to the company’s efforts.
Morepen has created a central IT helpdesk to iron out issues
that emerge in the day-to-day running of its systems. It has
also created a disaster management and IT security policy.
As per this policy, the company has created a dual security
layer: one at the entry level and the other at the application
level, which ensures limited access. The company uses anti-virus
packages for security at the PC level and a Checkpoint firewall
to combat intrusion. For disaster management, it has created
a proper backup system and redundancy in its servers to ensure
seamless working (Morepen uses eight IBM entry level servers).
The company aims to achieve 100 percent IT literacy at the
user level and organises training sessions for its employees
on a daily basis. It has a Web presence in the form of morepen.com,
which provides complete information on the company including
its offerings. Morepen also supports a non-profit spiritual
portal, onlined- arsan.com. This is in line with its belief
that mental health is the next most important element after
physical health.
Future initiatives
In the future, the company plans to implement an Enter-prise
Resource Planning (ERP) package within the organisation. According
to Jain, right now the company is focussing on streng-thening
its infrastructure and once this is done, it will implement
ERP to further streamline its operations. “The company,”
he says, “will begin evaluating ERP packages within a
few weeks and has already touched base with a few ERP vendors
for this purpose. The package will cover each and every stage
right from planning till dispatch. Particular emphasis will
be laid on quality.” The company also plans to extend
its applications through the Net to the mobile sales force
spread across the country.
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