Pfizer creates countrywide enterprise portal with Compuware`s OptimalView

When a leading South African supplier of prescription medicines identified the need for an enterprise portal to disseminate information throughout the organisation to improve business performance, its exhaustive search for an appropriate solution led it to Compuware Corporation`s OptimalView.

Pfizer Inc researches, discovers, manufactures and markets medicines for humans and animals, offering many of the world`s best-known consumer pharmaceutical brands. The company has three business segments - healthcare, animal health and consumer healthcare - and employs 120 000 people around the world. With products available in more than 150 countries, the organisation has extensive South African operations; its head office is located in Sandton and it has branches around the country.

According to business technology director for the company, Theo Hattingh, it initially perceived a portal project as a 'nice to have` some three years ago. "However, with the changes that have occurred in the technology industry, and with our changing perception of the role that technology plays in business, the concept of the portal moved to business imperative status," he says.

The company`s objectives for its portal sum up the value that it expects to derive from the project: "The portal is focused on improving business performance. It will be the key channel for delivering information which is critical to making people within the company more efficient and more effective," says Hattingh.

With this focus, Pfizer sought a solution that would allow it to easily tap into the diverse sources of information within the organisation. "We were especially impressed with the rapid deployment window that OptimalView offered, which was enabled by the ease with which it connected to our various data sources," notes Hattingh.

"Furthermore, we intend to roll the portal out to over 1 000 users across the country once it has been fully configured; scalability of the solution chosen was critical. OptimalView fulfilled this requirement."

Hattingh adds that the chosen solution also had to satisfy the criterion of justifiable cost. "The portal has to reliably make information available to the right people at the right time as cost-effectively as possible," he explains.

The initial phase of the project, which has resulted in the roll-out of the portal to management team leaders, was completed in just one month, with an initial focus on sales information. Feedback from the initial users will be used to refine the portal, before making it available organisation-wide.

"The project will be broadened to include various other business systems including human resources, global manufacturing and more. As we progress with the project, we are finding ever more uses for the portal," elaborates Hattingh.

From previous experience, Hattingh states that for a portal project to be successful, the functionality and purpose of the resource must be made clear to employees. "Key to the project has been a process of educating users and promoting the use of the portal to enable sharing of information. Portal projects have failed in the past because employees have not understood that the portal is intended to be the first place that they should look for relevant business information," he explains.

Ben van Niekerk, product manager at Compuware SA, says Pfizer`s choice of OptimalView is an important win for the company as it edged out products from other vendors based on the strength of its technology and the support offered by an established vendor. "OptimalView offers strong customisation and content management abilities, allowing Pfizer to integrate applications into a single, manageable point of access," he says.

"Because the company intends providing the portal to diverse individuals throughout the organisation, its ability to cater to the different information needs of various role players also made it a winner."

Delivering on the demands of shareholders for increased profitability relies on productive employees, particularly their ability to complete the most critical projects at the right times using accurate information and data.

"Pfizer has selected OptimalView as a step towards giving its employees better access to information, ultimately applying portal technology to improve business performance," concludes Van Niekerk.