AstraZeneca's recently announced seven-year
£736mglobal outsourcing dealis the first
of its kind for the pharmaceutical industry, IBM has
said.
According to Gary Harwood, client executive at IBM, the
agreement is among the first of a new breed of outsourcing
agreements based on desired outcome or "service effect".
"
Outsourcing agreements have tended to be very IT-focussed in
the past, but clients are now more interested in the service effect
than the details of how IT gets delivered," he said.
This new style of outsourcing agreement is underpinned by IBM's
concept of
on-demand utility services, and allows the outsourcer greater
autonomy on methods of delivery.
AstraZeneca will still retain control of its IT strategy.
Another unique feature of the new-style outsourcing deal described
by Harwood is the use of joint governance boards.
"Strong joint governance boards have been set up as part of this
relationship, so although IBM will determine how IT is delivered,
AstraZeneca will still have control over the broader IT
infrastructure," said Harwood.
Chris Dalton, head of external affairs in UK communications for
AstraZeneca, said that by giving IBM more autonomy in delivery
areas where they have more expertise, AstraZeneca would be able to
concentrate on governance, supplier management, innovation and
other value adding activities.
Other areas of joint collaboration drawing staff from both
companies will include innovation and managing cultural and
behavioural change to ensure both companies work well together.
In the past six years, IBM has focussed only on AstraZeneca's
core supporting systems in its three hubs in the US, UK and Sweden.
In contrast, the new deal provides
a single global infrastructure and includes all IT services in
the 60 countries where AstraZeneca has offices.
Although the efficiencies derived from having a single
infrastructure and
standardised services around the world will drive cost savings
in many countries, Harwood says cost was not the primary driver for
the new infrastructure.
"The main objectives were to meet distinct business needs,
provide agile and flexible services to meet the rapidly changing
demands of the pharmaceutical industry, and deliver value for
money," said Harwood.
He said the challenge for IBM was to demonstrate its ability to
pull together a wide variety of bespoke core systems across
different parts of the business into a single and consolidated
system.
"Many businesses that have grown through mergers and
acquisitions face similar challenges, IBM is probably the only
outsourcing company that could provide the depth and breadth of
support AstraZeneca needed in so many geographical locations," said
Harwood.
IBM will be operating mainly in a virtual global environment,
but Harwood said IBM may need to call on people in each location as
the need arises, particularly in the period just following the
system's implementation.
Harwood said some "interesting and unique" mechanisms were in
place to ensure all 70,000 of AstraZeneca's customers experienced
increased levels of satisfaction.