Outsourcing Platform and SAP Enable Rapid Growth through Acquisition for West-Ward Pharmaceuticals

“Capgemini’s strength and capabilities have given us the confidence to increase our focus on outsourcing.” – Edsel Pereira, Corporate IT Director, Hikma

The Situation

West-Ward Pharmaceuticals Corp. is the US subsidiary of Hikma (LSE:HIK) (NASDAQ Dubai: HIK), a leading specialty pharmaceutical company based in Amman, Jordan. West-Ward Pharmaceuticals is focused on the development, manufacture and sale of generic drugs for the US domestic market. In 2004, Hikma group developed a business strategy that focused on the expansion of business in the US market. Hikma has been growing at a rapid pace through a series of strategic acquisitions. A key component of this strategy required the implementation of a state-of-the-art ERP solution and development of the infrastructure supporting services to run this solution. Rather than building these capabilities on their own, West-Ward Pharmaceuticals looked to an outsourcing provider that could provide infrastructure management services at a reasonable cost and could support the company’s wider global operations. Capgemini was selected after a series of rounds with other service providers in this space.

The Solution

An initial contract was signed in April 2004 with Capgemini to assist with the implementation of the SAP ERP solution. Capgemini implemented its SAP-certified best practice solution for Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies called Ready-to-Run. Ready-to-Run Life Sciences provides an integrated business system that meets the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) requirements and in turn enabled West-Ward Pharmaceuticals to streamline operations, achieve greater visibility and control of its core business processes, and respond more rapidly to changes within the industry. After four years of a successful working relationship the agreement between West-Ward Pharmaceuticals and Capgemini was renewed and expanded in 2008 to provide infrastructure hosting and SAP operational services through Capgemini’s Rightshore® global delivery model. This model enables cost-effective solutions without sacrificing quality, efficiency or access to the best talent Capgemini has to offer. In the case of West-Ward Pharmaceuticals, infrastructure services are delivered globally including server hosting, shared storage, backups, and server monitoring from Capgemini’s data centers in the US. SAP Basis and operational support is provided from India and 24/7 help desk services are delivered from Poland.

The Result

With an improved IT system in place, West-Ward Pharmaceuticals is now able to access the data they need to more effectively manage their business in the US. Notable accomplishments of the collaboration between Capgemini and West-Ward Pharmaceuticals include: access to a state-of-the-art ERP solution providing timely and accurate data for making business decisions, ability to begin standardization of process on a global basis, improved visibility of inventory tracking resulting in better operating efficiency and decreased data security risks. Financial and business reporting has also been streamlined through new implementation, built on best practices with a common process model, to enhance integration of all business operations quality. This resulted in reduced inventory and overall purchase costs. The speed-to-value delivered through Capgemini’s Ready-to-Run SAP solution for Life Sciences has led parent company Hikma to roll out the solution across other global locations, including Germany, Egypt, Algeria and Jordan amongst others.

Ted Levine, Vice President with Capgemini, who serves as the Senior Client Executive for Hikma, comments on the partnership: “Capgemini enables a number of growth-oriented Pharmaceutical and Medical Device companies to achieve their growth strategies through our scalable enterprise application and infrastructure services. What began five years ago as an SAP project to enable sustained entry into the US generics market has grown over the years into a strong, global technology and outsourcing partnership. Hikma is a strong player in its market, and we are pleased to be their partner.”