Enterprise resource planning and Microsoft SQL databases had given Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD) New Zealand a wide variety of data on key metrics in industry-standard formats. Unfortunately, extracting this data and turning it into actionable reports to support decision-making was time and labour-intensive.

"We realised early on that just capturing and storing the data was only half the battle," says Craig Laurent, IT technical manager at MSD.

"We needed to be able to extract particular data sets, analyse them and then prepare reports that could be summarised quickly and easily for both management and operational staff, especially in sales. We had all of the data we needed, but putting them into an easily-accessible format was proving problematic."

As a company with global operations and sales in the millions of dollars, MSD has always been at the forefront of technology, both in clinical research and pharmaceuticals and its IT systems. MSD is a firm believer in using advanced tools to help it be more successful in this complex and extremely competitive industry.

To improve the flow of information within the company, MSD had been an early adopter of JD Edwards' enterprise resource planning (ERP). This JD Edwards system could capture the business processes and information but unfortunately, extracting this data and turning it into actionable reports to support decision-making was time and labour-intensive.

Caring for human health
MSD is a pharmaceutical products company with a focus on clinical research. It develops, manufactures and markets a wide range of prescription-only medicines for human health conditions.

A joint venture company, Merial, markets animal health products worldwide. MSD NZ employs around 100 people in a variety of clinical research, regulatory, policy, sales and marketing, customer services and administration roles.

The company has its headquarters in Auckland, in close proximity to the CBD, hospitals and medical school. MSD's manufacturing plant is located in Australia.

New product? No problem!
iQ4bis established their business intelligence (BI) solution in 1984. In 1996, says Laurent, there weren't that many locally supported BI offerings on the market, and iQ4bis was brand new.

"You never want to be the first customer of any IT product, but we were so impressed with the prototype, especially the concept that anyone, even upper-level management, could prepare their own analyses, that we decided to implement the system. It's a decision we've never regretted."

Part of the attraction of iQ4bis for MSD was the fact that the organisation was already proficient in the use of the JD Edwards platform.

"iQ4bis was a perfect fit for us because it gave us the analysis component to complement the transaction processes capabilities of JD Edwards. iQ4bis also leveraged Microsoft's OLAP cube technology for enterprise-wide data warehousing and data mining. With iQ4bis' backend extract, transform and load (ETL) capabilities, we had all of the functionality we needed to fully support our BI requirements."

The design and ease-of-use of iQ4bis was another reason MSD selected the product. "iQ4bis empowers our management and directors with the ability to analyse their own business information," says Laurent. "This is critical as they do not have to rely on analysts to prepare reports for them. They can call up the information they want immediately. And if they want to add or subtract data or create a different view, they can do it themselves, in real-time."

Another key factor in the selection of iQ4bis was the simplicity and convenience of in-house training. "We liked iQ4bis from the outset because we could train our people very quickly in-house," says Laurent. "PST Software trained one of our analysts who in turn trained other staff. Management could learn how to drive iQ4bis easily as they didn't have to be technically minded to use iQ4bis. With the four quadrant view, iQ4bis can display a combination of dimensions, measures, graphs and trends over time. These provide users with the functionality they need to analyse critical business information and make informed decisions fast."

Standardising the methodology
"Because our data was clean and accurate," says Laurent, "the initial implementation went very well. In fact, the methodology and many of the techniques that we developed in conjunction with PST Software, the developers of iQ4bis, have been standardised and now form the basis of their 'Proof of Concept' (POC) and 'Rapid Implementation Module' (RIM)."

MSD and PST also worked very closely together to develop customised views that allowed the company to analyse its data in exactly the way it wanted.

"While being an early adopter has inherent risks," says Laurent, "the flip side is that the service you get is superb. We knew exactly which data we wanted to extract from our databases and how we wanted to display it. PST then set it up precisely to our specifications. PST has provided fantastic pre- and post-sales support from day one and that has been a tremendous help as we continue to evolve our BI capabilities."

One of the key BI requirements for MSD was to create a marketing contribution view that would allow business unit managers and top level management with an expense budget to compare revenue to expenses. iQ4bis' powerful and easy-to-use interface enables managers to track performance and analyse data in many different ways that are consistent throughout the entire organisation.

iQ4bis has enabled Merck Sharp and Dohme management and directors to view business information in a new way which has made a huge difference in the way the business utilises information. "Before we installed iQ4bis," says Laurent, "we couldn't easily access the data from our JD Edwards platform. Now, not only can we access this data, but we can transform it into intelligent business information. This has been a huge advantage when it comes to planning and identification of key trends."

"We had also implemented Cognos PowerPlay to provide more analysis flexibility as we previously thought iQ4bis would be primarily for senior managers who needed a more summarised overall company view," says Laurent. "But as it turned out, iQ4bis meets 95% of our BI needs."

"The sales view has made the biggest impact on the business," says Laurent, "as now we can track sales and product performance. It helps us understand customer buying patterns, analyse trends and hot spots in our business fast and accurately. This has significantly improved planning and decision making."

Click here to register for free iQ4Bis Proof of Concept

For more information contact
Sunesh Samarasinghe
General Manager – Australasia
iQ4bis Software (NZ) Ltd
64 9 529 3767
sunesh@iq4bis.com

February 2005