Impax Laboratories Drives Stronger Performance with IBM Business Analytics
November 20 2009 - 9:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
- Specialty pharmaceutical company saves thousands of hours per
month tapping information that helps transform decision-making,
improve sales, and minimize risks - ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 20
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced today that Impax
Laboratories, Inc. (NASDAQ:IPXL), a technology-based specialty
pharmaceutical company, is using IBM business analytics technology
to gain stronger insights into their business and better predict
risks and market opportunities. (Logo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO ) In such a
highly-regulated industry, pharmaceutical companies need a
360-degree view of their entire product development and delivery
chain in order to best transform reporting information into
business insights, and improve a wide range of critical functions.
Prior to implementing IBM business analytics technology, Impax Labs
was dependent on IT staff to produce critical line of business
reports using information that was spread out across the
organization. This approach created an overload of information
requests that made it difficult for executives and managers to
quickly recognize trouble spots or capitalize on new market
opportunities. Once the information was delivered, it was usually
out of date, and cycles would be spent trying to determine the
accuracy of the data. With IBM business analytics, business users
can now build their own reports and analyses instantly, enabling
them to quickly identify performance trends and adjust plans
accordingly, forecast sales to ensure top and bottom line growth,
and provide senior management with the reports they need to
effectively manage the overall business. Today, users across all
departments -- including accounting, sales operations, and
manufacturing -- have standardized IBM business analytics into
their daily routines, optimizing critical functions such as product
development, order fulfillment, inventory management, and long-term
revenue planning. For instance: -- forecast managers can now
quickly analyze current and historical product inventory levels
within an 18-month forecast and shipment history, enabling them to
proactively manage customer demand and internal inventory levels,
as well as identify potential supply issues -- Sales and marketing
executives can track net sales performance against corporate plans
on a daily basis, granting them immediate visibility into whether
corrective actions are required, such as negotiating specific
customer treatments, to improve sales -- C-level Executive
Committee can now easily pull together a single view of net sales,
profitability and competitive market share information, helping
them to determine whether to expand or decrease product production
By eliminating IT bottlenecks and empowering business users to
manage performance directly, company executives estimate they have
saved over a thousand hours per month in time that would normally
have been spent chasing and authenticating information. "We now
benefit from quicker access to accurate performance data, which
means management has greater confidence in the information and more
importantly the decisions they make around resource allocation and
overall corporate strategy," said Jonathan Retano, associate
director of business intelligence at Impax Laboratories, Inc., who
worked with IBM business partner ISA Consulting in developing the
company's enterprise-wide business analytics strategy. "Business
intelligence and analytics has crossed the threshold from a novelty
to an integral, critical part of our business operations." Using
IBM's flexible dashboarding capabilities, Impax Labs also
implemented a "4 in 4" program, where senior managers are now able
to review the top four performance indicators that are key to their
line of business or unit, in under four minutes. This helps them
better manage their day-to-day operations and ensure that every
decision they make is best aligned with corporate objectives.
Furthermore, the IBM analytics technology empowers Impax Labs to
meet internal policy demands and minimize risk exposures. For
example, the sales operations department generates comprehensive
rebate backup reports that detail every indirect sale by product,
wholesaler and pharmacy. This enables them to easily substantiate
all customers' rebate requests before they are fulfilled,
eliminating the risk of unnecessary cash outflow. IBM business
analytics and optimization is driving new innovation in information
management as organizations transform the way they use information
to better understand what is going on inside their business.
"Pharmaceutical companies face tremendous costs to support their
research, development and sales and marketing initiatives.
Effective business analytics solutions can eliminate the typical
information blind spots that can interfere with a company's ability
to act with speed and agility and make fact-based decisions," said
Paul Hake, life sciences executive, business analytics and
performance management, at IBM. About Impax Laboratories, Inc:
Impax Laboratories, Inc. is a technology based specialty
pharmaceutical company applying its formulation expertise and drug
delivery technology to the development of controlled-release and
specialty generics in addition to the development of branded
products. Impax Labs markets its generic products through its
Global Pharmaceuticals division and markets its branded products
through the Impax Pharmaceuticals division. Additionally, where
strategically appropriate, Impax Labs has developed marketing
partnerships to fully leverage its technology platform. Impax
Laboratories is headquartered in Hayward, California, and has a
full range of capabilities in its Hayward and Philadelphia
facilities. For more information, please visit:
http://www.impaxlabs.com/. About IBM: For more information about
IBM Smarter Planet, please visit
http://www.ibm.com/press/smarterplanet. For more information about
IBM Information Management, please visit
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/. Media Contact: David DeRosa
IBM 613-356-6033
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO DATASOURCE:
IBM CONTACT: David DeRosa, IBM, +1-613-356-6033, Web Site:
http://www.ibm.com/
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