Just what the doctor ordered

Three years after Sun Pharmaceuticals implemented an ERP solution from Base Information Management, the prescription has worked wonders, says SRIKANTH RP

According to KANDARPA BAGAR, since Sun was growing rapidly using the inorganic route, it was a major challenge to marry the legacy systems of the acquired companies with Sun’s unique business processes

AROUND 1999, Sun Pharmaceuticals was growing at a hectic pace. Not only had revenue had crossed the Rs 350-crore mark, but more significantly, the company was adding at least fifty new products to its portfolio every year. With a sales force numbering close to 2,300, and over 7,600 countrywide distributors, Sun had a tough task on hand as its MIS systems could not handle the volume of business.

Recalls Sudhir Valia, director of the company, “Being in a highly competitive environment, we wanted to lower our lead times, control costs, and re-engineer our business model. We saw an urgent need to optimise resource utilisation, lower our inventory, raise our quality standards, and reap the benefits of an integrated system.” However, when Sun started shopping around for ERP packages, it realised to its dismay that most of the popular packages from MNC companies were suited to processes that were alien to it. While Sun wanted an ERP system as early as possible, at the same time it was not ready to give up its unique processes.

As Valia says, “We wanted ERP to run around our business—not the other way around. Additionally, we were looking for a vendor who understood Indian regulations as these are more complex than international norms.” After considering different vendors, Sun settled for an ERP solution from an Indian vendor, Base Information Management. The reason for this was that Sun felt it was a product that was designed for a typical Indian company and not for a Japanese, German or American corporate retrofitted to Indian conditions. For example, Sun had a unique business process that prevented billing from remote locations going beyond particular limits. These business processes, which were unique to Sun, were not available on most standard ERP packages.

Integration roadmap

The implementation team from Base decided to learn the current system while Sun’s team concentrated on listing key issues. These inputs were used for laying down the business rule definitions. Another major challenge was the fact that Sun was growing rapidly and new products were being added, and new business processes were coming into being. Says Kandarpa Bagar, director, Base, “Sun was growing rapidly using the inorganic route, so it was a major challenge to marry the legacy systems of the acquired companies with Sun’s unique business processes.” However, these challenges were solved since Base’s ERP architecture was parameterised and configurable.

Because Sun also operates in global markets, it faces big challenges such as localising for countries such as the US, meeting FDI stipulations, executing FDA validations and satisfying auditors’ queries. Base overcame these by writing a utility which read the source and localised it instantly. Additionally, Base along with Sun put additional checks in the system for ensuring standard operating procedures and quality. In the first phase, Sun implemented the Finance module, the Purchase and Sales & Distribution modules, and the HR & Payroll module. In the second phase, the Manufacturing module was implemented.

In the pink of health

After following Base’s prescription, Sun has every reason to be happy since the product has scaled according to its growing needs.

SUDHIR VALIA says that after implementing the Base solution, Sun is able to reach 90 percent accuracy in its business forecasts, and its receivables have shown a 30-40 percent improvement

Affirms Valia, “We began to see that despite our business increasing three-fold, there was no strain on the existing manpower. We are now able to reach 90 percent accuracy in our business forecasts. This in turn has led to better capacity utilisation. Our receivables have showed an improvement to the extent of 30-40 percent, and have come down to 22 days. Accurate decision-making today is more by design than accident.”

Going mobile

After the success of the ERP implementation, Sun decided to go in for a business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing solution from the same vendor. The BI solution is useful as it can be customised to generate alerts from any exceptions observed. For example, if a particular customer’s outstandings go beyond a limit, an alert can be generated automatically.

But the killer application that could prove to be the competitive edge for Sun is clearly the M-SFA application, a mobile-based sales force automation application from Base. As in any growing pharmaceutical company, Sun had a large sales force which needed to interact with busy physicians. The need of the hour was to keep the sales force updated so that they could be well prepared to answer doctors’ queries. After evaluating a host of SFA applications, the company finally decided to go in for the application from Base.

Today, Sun’s sales force can request information from the company, access corporate information, and file their activity reports—from any Java-enabled mobile phone. Thus, its marketing team does not have to look out for a cyber cafe at odd hours or locations to send in call reports. Depending on the profile of the salesman, he is shown the list of doctors on his route. Because Sun’s business depends on the relationship with specialist doctors, information about the discussions a salesman has with doctors is critical. Using the SFA application, a salesman can file details of his meeting with the doctor. Top management can also use the filed information to query a list of doctors missed out by a particular salesman during a particular period. Additionally, arming salesmen with the latest product information is now a breeze because any changes made in the information on the corporate server can automatically be uploaded to the user’s phone.

Phase-wise implementation at Sun

Phase I 1) Finance 2) Purchase 3) Sales & Distribution 4) HR & Payroll Phase II Manufacturing Phase III 1) Business Intelligence & Data Warehousing 2) Mobile-based Sales Force Automation

srikanth@expresscomputeronline.com