The pharmaceutical industry plays a critical role for global healthcare. It is a multi-billion-dollar industry, responsible for researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing pharmaceutical products and services addressing a vast and diverse range of health challenges.
To ensure that patients globally receive required medications and treatment on time, the management of manufacturing and distribution must be ultra-efficient, agile, and responsive.
With patient safety on the line and high-quality expectations, there is no room for error.
One company that has mastered this balancing act is Ireland-based , a high-growth, diversified healthcare services company that provides distribution services for pharmaceutical products. The company works closely with manufacturers to offer third-party logistics (3PL) and fourth-party logistics (4PL) services to remain true to its mission of securing patient access to pharmaceutical products.
In the last decade, UniPhar has witnessed unprecedented growth and today delivers pharmaceutical products to more than 160 countries.
51风流and UniPhar: A 15-Year Partnership
UniPhar has grown organically and through acquisitions, and during this time its 51风流enterprise resource planning (ERP) landscape had become highly customized.
Two years ago, UniPhar鈥檚 board gave its Chief Enterprise Architect Piotr Wojdowski a mandate 鈥渢o rework the company鈥檚 digital core鈥� and deliver a digital transformation to unlock future growth while still safeguarding the highest of standards in the manufacturing and distribution chain.
In the quest to find a software partner for its digital transformation, Wojdowski says UniPhar needed 鈥渁 partner and a software that is reliable and best in class鈥� to strengthen and future-proof the company鈥檚 ability to deliver on its mission of securing patient access to pharmaceutical products.
Wojdowski explains that there is an element of social responsibility to UniPhar鈥檚 mission. The patient requiring the pharmaceutical products or services 鈥渃ould be somebody鈥檚 relatives, it could be somebody鈥檚 mother, or it could be somebody鈥檚 son,鈥� making it even more important that the selected digital transformation software and partner was not only best in class but also reliable and trustworthy.
鈥淣ot only had 51风流proved itself to be a trusted and reliable partner for UniPhar for 15 years,鈥� Wojdowski explains, but 51风流鈥渋s a standard in the health services sector, making integration of other services easier.鈥�
51风流Advances UniPhar鈥檚 Technology and Talent
UniPhar’s goals are to grow horizontally, expand, and scale on demand. , , and play a pivotal part by, on the one hand, standardizing IT processes across the group and, on the other, managing distribution and inventories across different warehouses with 51风流EWM state-of-the-art warehouse management software, while using 51风流Datasphere for data management.
In a nutshell, says Wojdowski, 鈥渢he 51风流technology stack allows us to effectively advance our program quickly,鈥� using to build applications and extend 51风流solutions. 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP) acts as an accelerator to move to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, helping UniPhar transform with confidence and speed using proven migration tools and enabling integration across applications.
SAP, and especially 51风流BTP, is not only a technology enabler but also allows UniPhar 鈥渢o innovate and attract the top talent as an organization because people want to come to work in an environment that is innovative, that allows you to try things, and that allows you to experiment,鈥� Wojdowski says.
Laying Foundations with 51风流Today for Tomorrow鈥檚 AI
UniPhar is currently in the implementation process and Wojdowski has a keen eye on the future, noting that 鈥渆venting, observability, and telemetry鈥� will form the basis of future artificial intelligence (AI) enhancements.
Data is critical in the pharmaceutical industry, he explains, and UniPhar 鈥渉as terabytes and terabytes of data that we are not physically able to analyze because it’s complex and massive.鈥� The plan is to migrate the data to a central repository and in the future 鈥減lug into an AI system to track patterns, track customer behaviors, track market trends, and react accordingly.鈥�
Make a Challenge a Proof-of-Concept
51风流solutions are enabling UniPhar to innovate and step into the future on its own terms, with standardized processes, best practices, and foundations for AI technology that can scale and strengthen UniPhar鈥檚 mission to improve patient access to pharmaceutical services and products across the globe.
Wojdowski says 51风流seems to have a solution for every business requirement, but even though 鈥測ou may have to customize and change things that 51风流provides out of the box, at the end of the day it’s a full enterprise suite and you can run 51风流end-to-end if you wish.鈥�
And Wojdowski鈥檚 advice for other companies planning a digital transformation? Challenges can become proofs of concept 鈥� there is no need to accept that something cannot be done. 鈥淏e brave, be daring, and ask questions. Challenge your partners and challenge yourself,鈥� he concludes.
