Indeed, as the pharmaceutical industry continues to consolidate
and its supply chain expands into new geographies and encompasses additional
suppliers, the need to monitor, manage and respond quickly becomes even greater. However, IT investments can be quite costly
particularly for an industry that is under pressure to reduce costs in order to
remain competitive in an environment of changing regulations and declining
revenues.
Perhaps an IT option for pharmaceutical companies is that of cloud computing. Cloud computing has been on the increase across all
industries - perhaps due to its relatively low cost startup, speed of
deployment and ease of maintenance. Its
definition, however, remains fuzzy, but broadly speaking, it is a general term
for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.
Because of its benefits, it appears cloud computing maybe a
good fit for the complex pharmaceutical supply chain.
For example, according to a recent Financial Times article, Pfizer reconfigured its IT systems and has
adopted a cloud-based supply chain platform from GT Nexus. This approach allows
all of Pfizer’s supply chain partners to connect and interact among each other
without having to invest in Pfizer’s resource planning software. Partners are
able to be added or removed quickly, track and trace shipments in real time and
may also help respond quickly to disruptions.
Another example is Lily which is using Amazon’s Virtual
Private Cloud (VPC) for advanced analytical capabilities particularly for
collaboration purposes within its R&D function. Finally, GlaxoSmithKline moved
to Microsoft cloud services and estimates they will be able to reduce
operational costs by 30%.
Despite the many benefits of cloud computing, one of the
biggest problems that is keeping many pharma companies from moving broadly into
cloud services—is securing the data, and controlling access to it. In response
to this concern, the not-for-profit organization, Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)
was formed in 2008 with the mission to promote the use of best practices for
providing security assurance within cloud computing, and to provide education
on the uses of cloud computing to help secure all other forms of computing.
As security fears ease, it is likely more pharmaceutical companies
will adopt cloud computing. Its cost savings, quick deployment and
collaborative tools are all major benefits in which the intricate pharmaceutical
supply chain values.
