The Client
A Fortune 200 pharmaceutical manufacturer
The Challenge
Our client was faced with the challenge of developing a consistent methodology to send and receive critical data throughout the world. This challenge was viewed as a mission-critical element of the organization. Although several departments desired this type of capability, the finance and treasury areas were the largest stakeholders and drove the effort. These two departments had requirements to send and receive key financial reporting data to and from their affiliates around the world. However, the financial data coming in from the hundreds of affiliates around the world was not in a compatible format and could not be easily routed through the client’s organization. As a consequence, this data was being manually reformatted and entered into their production mainframe systems.
The data being transmitted was critical to the timely reporting of financial statements to the SEC and other regulatory agencies. As a result, our client wanted to structure the data transfer and routing around a single messaging infrastructure. After the key financial requirements were addressed, our client needed to be able to communicate compensation and benefits, global-share information, and order confirmations between worldwide affiliates and their corporate headquarters.
Business goals:
- Have the system completed and in production within a six-month time frame
- Minimize the impact of a new technology solution on the end-user community
- Leverage existing technologies including the Oracle-based database architecture
- Integrate the new solution into the existing IBM MVS financial systems
- Enable the new system to accept any type of file format or message from any messaging system
- Develop a solution that would enable easy nonprogrammatic changes and new applications to be deployed and supported by operator-level personnel
- Deploy a system that was validated according to FDA standards
The Haverstick Approach
Our client selected Haverstick Consulting to develop a complete software solution that would meet their business goals. The client determined that a consulting team with all the necessary skills to implement a total solution was the best value and the most effective approach.
We and our client developed a joint project plan that covered all phases of the project from requirements definition through implementation. After a brief assessment of off-the-shelf Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) products, we agreed that a custom-developed solution would best meet their needs and leverage their existing infrastructure.
A technical feasibility analysis was conducted and a compatibility assessment was made of the programmatic interfaces into the Oracle database. After a successful proof-of-concept analysis, the project followed an object-oriented approach through design and analysis, development, and implementation. Select Enterprise process-modeling tools were used throughout the project to help design and communicate a complete solution. The software development activity was conducted off site at the Haverstick Consulting development and integration labs. System testing was conducted in the client corporate test environment.
The Result
The resulting business solution has proven to be highly effective for our client. The initial cost savings and enhanced reporting capabilities for the financial organizations were significant. The application takes advantage of the existing client infrastructure and seamlessly allows a bidirectional data flow between all of their worldwide affiliates. Several departments including human resources, sales and marketing are now using the system to exchange data between the disparate systems of the client’s affiliates. The system is projected to be in use for nine years and provides a scalable, reliable platform, which has enabled multiple applications to exchange data in a timely and controlled fashion.
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