Reviewing the successes of 2011; looking forward to the challenges of 2012: an interview with Yaki Almoznino
2011 was a particularly active year for Teva Global IT, with both planned projects – including the integration of ratiopharm, development of a new supply chain process, and the launch of a new employee portal – along with a few unplanned tasks – the Cephalon integration, the Proctor and Gamble joint venture and the acquisition of Taiyo in Japan – keeping IT staff on their toes. 2012 promises more of the same, continuing 2011’s emphasis on harmonizing business processes and the ongoing move from local and regional processes to true global ones.
These were some of the high-level take away’s from our conversation with Yaki Almoznino, Senior Director and Head of Teva IT. Almoznino is understandably proud of how Teva performed in 2011. Here are just a few of the myriad projects IT staff worked on last year (Almoznino represented the customer on these):
• Supply Chain Alignment, as implemented through the Atlas project for Europe (profiled in this issue of the Global IT Newsletter) and its sister project Polaris for the U.S.
• The addition of ten new modules to the Teva Global Business Intelligence system, covering procurement, accounts receivable, collection and purchase orders, and TGS Global QA. More modules will come online in 2012.
• The Global Lab IT Solution group’s efforts to harmonize the standards, terminology and data structures in Teva’s research and production labs around the world. This included the Laboratory Informatic Management System (LIMS) and the Chromatagraphic Data System (CDS).
• The Teva.net global organizational portal, which allows news and information to reach every employee with the push of a button, and which creates shared team workspaces, a single launch page for applications, a common messaging dashboard, and more. See our profile here [include a hyperlink].
Looking towards 2012, Almoznino says that Global IT will be focused on three main priorities: QA and Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Sales and Commercial Support.
• For QA and Manufacturing, IT will continue to work on LIMS, organized according to the highest risk sites; the TrackWise system for global management of quality business processes; and an improved ERP program for manufacturing.
• Supply Chain activities will include further deployment of Atlas and Polaris; a TAPI-Phrama “push-pull” model; and improvements in the Demantra system.
• Sales and Commercial Support will see enhancements in the CRM systems for Italy, the U.K., Germany and Hungary; and Phase II of the Rebate Management program in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Spain, France and The Netherlands, needed to address government involvement in pricing in these and other regions.
Beyond the three main areas, work on the Cephalon and Japanese integrations will continue during 2012. Japan represents a unique challenge, Almoznino points out, as Teva will be building an entire IT organization in the Land of the Rising Sun.
The SAP upgrade in Ulm is also on the books, focusing on improving security, supporting business growth and replacing equipment.
Finally, Teva needs to make an important and long awaited decision in 2012: whether Oracle or SAP will be chosen as the ERP system for Teva’s large manufacturing sites in Jerusalem, Kfar Saba and Debrecen. Once the verdict is in, the roll out is so large that it won’t be finished until the end of 2015 or in early 2015, Almoznino says.
Managing so many projects – there are hundreds for 2012 – is always a challenge. While every project receives its necessary attention, Teva CIO Gil Yam and his team meet monthly to review the 10 biggest ones – those with at least a budget of $750,000 or that are deemed to have a significant impact on the business.
If 2012 is anything like 2011, Global IT will once again be quite busy, yet abundantly productive “Every month we measure ourselves according to the work plan,” Almoznino explains. “In 2011, 90 percent of the projects we worked on were delivered on time and within the scope the customer asked for. Indeed, if you factor in the projects that were not originally part of the work plan, we did even more than what we promised.”
With Almoznino at the helm, that’s a plan that should work well indeed for the coming year.