Boehringer Ingelheim Italia S.p.A.

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Global pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim Group has always promoted research and production, enhanced by training that helps employees gain top-level skills. To support those endeavors, the company has continuously worked on new projects to improve its IT infrastructure. However, the company operated with a decentralized technology environment and lacked a defined set of IT management policies. Without a framework for IT service delivery and management, the ability to innovate sometimes conflicted with organizational limitations or regulatory requirements in the pharmaceutical industry.

In 2005, Boehringer decided to start improving its IT processes through its corporate Information Systems (IS) division. The new initiative, called the Balance Project, initially focused on business units in Italy because their highly automated business processes require more IT support. To improve support, Boehringer wanted to organize and structure its service desk processes. The company identified the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) as the most suitable reference to use for updating its IT processes to meet the requirements of the pharmaceutical environment. ITIL is a collection of best practices designed to improve the delivery and management of IT services. The ITIL model provides a reference standard for the appropriate management of IT services and aids the development of a systematic approach that conforms to business objectives.

"Boehringer has always used a highly decentralized model," explains Filippo Ermini, IS infrastructure manager at Boehringer Ingelheim Italy. "This allows strong local autonomy, but it is gradually changing to cope with the new requirements of the worldwide market. The desire to achieve a higher level of operational efficiency and rationalization of resources led to the need to be able to exercise greater control over peripheral activities. Out of this strategic approach emerged the need for consolidation, not only of IT but also of other functions, to harmonize processes and achieve cost savings."

"On the basis of this strategic approach, we started market research to identify possible local partners and selected three," explains Andrea Pini, networking and telecommunications specialist service desk manager at Boehringer Ingelheim Italy. "From these, we chose Sun Microsystems Italy for various reasons: first of all, for its representativeness on the market as a company and the reliability of the partners it proposed and then on the basis of the development plan it presented. The plan was centered on training, which corresponded to our vision for implementation. With respect to cost, Sun's offer was not the cheapest in absolute terms, but it certainly had the best quality-to-price ratio. Sun's proven track record in training also led us to select it as our implementation partner.”

Boehringer Ingelheim Italy decided to introduce ITIL— especially at the IT infrastructure level — through a series of workshops. Staff learned about the potential benefits of process integration that ITIL introduces, and then faced the challenge of making ITIL part of internal culture and training."Other Boehringer Group units had followed a practical application model to implement ITIL through the immediate adoption of a tool for the local situation," explains Pini. "At the help-desk level this tool-oriented method encouraged a more structured approach but, without an ITIL-oriented culture, this led to operating in essentially the same way. Our strategic choice, meanwhile, was to acquire skills before implementing the tool."

The new approach involved the organizational processes and directly influenced how staff worked and communicated. With Sun’s support, the Italian subsidiary decided to train and certify a few key people in ITIL, and gradually extend training to other staff. "The use of a tool was a lower priority," says Ermini, "because, in effect, we took it for granted that it would work. Our primary focus was the education process. In my opinion, a strategic approach should not transfer the old processes with their errors, omissions, and inefficiencies to the tool. We chose ITIL specifically in response to the need to improve processes and increase efficiency. Only when we had done the training did we understand the real possibilities for optimizing processes."

Boehringer Italy's internal training activity happened on two fronts. First, the training team worked with the people responsible for implementing the processes — the help-desk staff. Then the team explained the benefits of ITIL and the reasons for implementing it to department and work group managers. The goal was to create shared awareness among management and those who would have to work directly with the new best practices. The strategy was highly effective. "The chosen approach, in the light of the conclusion of the various stages of the process, has proved to be totally successful," Ermini says. "To date, thanks to the adoption of ITIL and Sun Microsystems' support, Boehringer Ingelheim Italy has managed to internally implement a set of skills that have led us to be recognized as an opinion leader within Corporate, even though the number of IT employees here is very low compared with Boehringer Germany, for example."

Boehringer Italy planned an approach made up of different stages, beginning with a personalized training phase carried out by Sun Microsystems consultants."The initial training activity involved four key internal people,” says Ermini. “This stage allowed us to get to know Sun both from a planning point of view and as regards skills. We were able to experience firsthand the excellence of the service offered, which led us to pursue the partnership in the second stage, aimed at passing on the skills internally."

The second stage involved assessing the state of processes and evaluating the level of maturity of services through a series of interviews carried out with Sun's assistance and involving all IT and process managers. Sun trained the managers and helped to reinforce the adoption of the ITIL methodology at Boehringer Italy through training courses held at all levels of the IT organization and through actively encouraging an ITIL-based culture. "Sun demonstrated excellence in both project management and ITIL skills,” Pini says. “We were fully satisfied because all aspects relating to managing the partnership were carried forward effectively."

In the final phase of the project, the team implemented the ITIL methodology, which led to the organization of various support groups. Boehringer’s IS division was able to continue its successful tradition of providing personalized service for each user, enhanced by the dedicated structure created with ITIL methodology. For example, the new framework has shaped service desk support, which operates on multiple levels, including infrastructure, application, and content. Aligning with business needs, Boehringer now has four separate service desks dedicated to specific user groups. The groups include the Florence and Milan offices, the Consumer Health Care sales force, and more than 500 drug representatives working in the field.

"Thanks to this project we have managed to increase service desk efficiency by optimizing resources and…effectiveness through targeted actions, so we are able to be continuously available for the user and to improve the service,” Pini says. “But, above all, we have tried to understand how the business processes permeate IT, and we have focused primarily on the priorities of our customers — that is to say, on the business objectives related to the service desk."

The service desk system now deals with more than 120 calls a day. The first service-level agreement (SLA) was prepared at the start of 2006. Since then, the number of incidents and service requests closed within the SLA deadline has increased by 2% each year. "The change in the quality of service delivered as a result of adopting ITIL has been so clear that, on some fronts, it has even been unexpected," Ermini says. "Our monitoring confirms this. We have increased the efficiency in the level of service offered to the user without increasing the number of resources, even though we started from a customer satisfaction level that already was very high."

Some of Boehringer's internal support groups that were not involved in the first stage have asked to join the project, because they have seen the potential benefits for their operational structure,” Ermini says “ For example, the Bidachem organization based in Bergamo has asked to be integrated with the service desk and the ITIL procedures. The impact at the organizational level required an initial commitment but has produced a successful model that does not require much effort now."

Boehringer hopes to create a unified virtual service desk and to adopt standardized processes on the European scale by leveraging the ITIL-based reorganization accomplished in Italy. "The training received from Sun Microsystems in the ITIL context has allowed us to deal with these new developments with renewed effectiveness," Ermini says. "ITIL opened the way for the Balance Project, because processes cannot be rationalized if they haven't first been standardized. ITIL is the beacon that should be used because it covers all IT and lights the way for new opportunities in such areas as risk, change, and capacity management."