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Mundipharma sales representatives had been relying on an antiquated customer relationship management (CRM) system that had very limited functionality and was difficult to integrate. Outside of call reporting and expense recording, the on-premise CRM system didn’t meet Mundipharma’s growing needs, especially as it set out to launch a new analgesia product. The company had a manual system where all of their sales information, including physician lists, budgets, call tracking, and customer profiles, was stored in different areas. This forced reps to seek out all of that data to build their own lists and reports – a highly inefficient process. Mundipharma needed a modern solution that would better support their sales team and administrators.

Questcor Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company, was struggling with its existing client-server customer relationship management (CRM) systems. The company's two specialty care commercial teams, neurology and nephrology, found the systems clunky and inflexible. Questcor needed a more flexible solution that would be easy to manage while also offering life sciences-specific functionality relevant to a specialty pharma company. The company conducted a thorough search, reviewing most of the leading CRM solution providers. They were looking for a reliable, easy-to-use system that offered the right industry functionality for their specialty care teams and the flexibility to expand to other functional areas in the future.

Millennium Pharmaceuticals was facing challenges with their previous customer relationship management (CRM) system. The system was inflexible, slow, and unreliable, causing frustration among sales representatives and pulling technology managers away from strategic initiatives to fix system errors. The company needed a new system that was agile enough to handle the new speed of business in biotech, with an intuitive, easy-to-use user interface, a single integrated system for managed markets, medical science liaisons and sales reps, system integration with the company’s intranet for shared best practices, and additional industry-specific functionality.

Kythera, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, was facing challenges in managing clinical documents and facilitating business processes for the development of its newest product candidate. The company had 26 studies already on file along with four active clinical studies, resulting in thousands of documents to share, manage, and store. Kythera had been using a patchwork of different document repositories and systems for each functional area, including a file share system for TMF documents and a SharePoint-based system that was difficult to access and use for internal collaborators and external partners. Multiple versions of documents changed hands with no reliable document accountability. The resulting errors slowed study processes and added risk. Exchanging documents by couriers internationally only added to the inefficiency. Kythera’s legacy system was also extremely difficult to manage and update. Without the luxury of a large internal IT team, Kythera required a turnkey system that integrated clinical, regulatory, and medical affairs document management and didn’t require dozens of staff to implement and maintain.

The global biopharmaceutical company was preparing for the launch of two blockbuster drugs and needed to supplement face-to-face interactions with digital engagement across brand, medical, and sales teams. The challenge was to expand the ability of their representatives to reach customers through their preferred channels while ensuring compliance.

With two blockbuster drug launches on the horizon, a global biopharmaceutical company sought a new way to reach healthcare professionals (HCPs) to supplement face-to-face interactions and educate about new products. Giving field teams the ability to send personalized email to customers would increase engagement and deliver valuable scientific information outside of office visits. At the same time, the company had to ensure its teams only sent approved, compliant content to HCPs. They needed an email solution that was built for life sciences.

Coloplast, a Danish multinational company, was facing increasing pressure from regulators to adequately link claiming documents to promotional materials and provide a full audit trail. However, fragmented systems and processes made it difficult to achieve full visibility into their promotional materials. They were using an inefficient custom Microsoft SharePoint solution and simply sent Microsoft Word documents to auditors over email. The company relied on multiple, siloed systems and processes to manage their content. The company used email for many content management tasks and had no central repository for available content. This limited visibility into where and how assets were being used.

The company’s UK and Ireland affiliate had been handling promotional material management through a paper-based, manual process. Brand managers struggled to efficiently collaborate on materials both internally and externally with advertising agencies. The process of reviewing, approving, and disseminating each new promotional piece was complicated. The manual handoff of drafts and revisions between stakeholders had become counterproductive, with team members unknowingly duplicating efforts or missing corrections made in previous versions. Medical, legal, and regulatory (MLR) reviews diminished productivity, with final approvals taking as long as 40 days*, on average. An impending office move would physically separate stakeholders, too, making it virtually impossible to execute this paper-based process.

Exom Group, a global contract research organization (CRO) for the life sciences industry, was experiencing rapid growth. With each additional sponsor came more clinical trials and corresponding documents to manage. The company was using an electronic data capture (EDC) platform with limited document management functionality. Users had to waste time logging in and out of the EDC system every time they needed to access the TMF rather than being able to upload documents in process. Exom was also challenged by a pattern of missing, duplicate, and unauthorized documents, while signatures and timestamping had to be performed manually. Exom wanted to provide investigator sites and sponsors with a single access point for all clinical information to streamline collaboration and ensure TMF completeness.

Sanofi Pasteur MSD was growing rapidly, and with each new affiliate came another disparate customer relationship management (CRM) system. After a few years, the company amassed a number of different systems that created silos between teams. Duplicate content was re-created in each region. Promotional reviews, still done on paper, slowed progress. And customer engagement suffered. In order to transform its commercial operations worldwide, Sanofi Pasteur MSD determined it needed a single, global solution with multichannel capabilities and integrated content management to provide a holistic view of the customer and drive orchestrated engagement. The timing was right, too, as Sanofi Pasteur MSD prepared to launch new vaccines across Europe.

In the early 2000s, Teva Pharmaceuticals began acquiring various companies to expand its business. As the company grew, it needed to harmonize its commercial go-to-market strategy across regions and divisions, share best practices, and capture a comprehensive view of the customer. However, due to the acquisitions, the company was challenged with disparate customer relationship management (CRM) systems worldwide – more than 35 different, siloed systems in Europe alone – impacting visibility across the enterprise. Teva needed a unified CRM system globally that was configurable to meet local requirements and support all teams across generic and branded drug products. In addition, a variety of interaction preferences from different customers and the proliferation of handheld technology sparked an increase in the number of communication channels required to market Teva’s drug therapies. This drove Teva to search for a CRM solution that would enable coordinated multichannel execution and provide complete visibility into interactions across all channels for a complete view of the customer.

Custom Profile, a profile extruder based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was in growth mode. They had recently moved into a newly constructed building, and the company was continuing to expand and hire new employees. But as its extrusion business naturally developed, it became painfully clear that Custom Profile’s enterprise software was failing to support its basic needs. The company was trying to run a competitive business through four different software systems. A combination of homemade software, Access™ databases, QuickBooks™ and Excel™ spreadsheets was resulting in several system crashes a day and costly data entry errors from duplicate information entry into both Access and QuickBooks. Additionally, customer service was struggling as sales orders took a costly amount of time to produce due to a lack of easy access to accurate production data, plus shipping was cumbersome, delayed or inaccurate. In short, the pieced-together legacy systems did not support the basic needs of a growing business.

Donnelly Custom Manufacturing, a short-run manufacturer, was facing challenges with its outdated OS/2 operating system and various software packages. The company's growth was outpacing the system's capacity, and the manual system of scheduling and managing the shop floor was becoming too cumbersome. The existing system's limitation on the number of people who could be in the same module at the same time had become untenable. Furthermore, Donnelly's customers and suppliers wanted to communicate and interact through electronic means, which Donnelly's system could not adequately support. The company needed an ERP system that could support higher levels of connectivity and excellence.

Miniature Precision Components, Inc. (MPC), a leading tier-one supplier for major automotive manufacturers, was facing challenges due to its outdated enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The system had been heavily modified over the years to accommodate the company's specific requirements and add third-party functionality. However, these modifications hindered easy and cost-effective updates, leaving MPC's system about three years behind current technology, even as the company paid for regular system updates. The system was also restrictive and disjointed, making it difficult to reconcile and manage data. MPC needed a new ERP system that could support its mission of delivering top-tier quality to the major automotive manufacturers, provide real-time data, and integrate all segments of the business.

Double H Plastics, a manufacturer of high-quality plastic cores for the paper, film, and foil converting industry, was facing challenges due to its growth into the food packaging industry. The company was using a Unix/DOS-based system called Tiny Term, which lacked real-time data and system integration across its enterprise. This was causing inefficiencies and delays in their operations. The company realized it was time to modernize and thoroughly evaluated multiple ERP vendors before selecting IQMS for its familiarity with Double H Plastics’ industry and its comprehensive functionality that required no third-party applications.

Sturgis Molded Products Company (SMP), a Michigan-based injection molder, was facing challenges with its outdated, multi-system ERP software. The company serves a variety of high-demand markets, including the medical, automotive, consumer, industrial, and heavy truck industries, and needed to be meticulous in its manufacturing performance and agile in its ability to optimize plant operations. The old ERP system was not able to support the company's growth and SMP wanted to move to a true Windows-based solution and add a quality system and preventative maintenance software. The cost to retrofit the old ERP system was high and it would require multiple third-party vendors to meet the company's growing business needs. SMP needed a single-source solution that would enable it to exceed its customers’ quality and delivery expectations, while gaining operational efficiencies that would directly benefit its bottom line.

Steinwall Scientific, a precision thermoplastic molder, was facing challenges due to its outdated DOS-based operating system. The system, while advanced at the time of its development, had become obsolete and was causing the company to become vulnerable and rigid. The system was unable to keep up with the company's growth and modern standards. The company's internal software, named Putty, and IBM's accounting software were standalone systems and as the company expanded, the inability of the two systems to communicate became a significant bottleneck. The company tried to upgrade to a new system called MISys, but after two years, found it wasn't robust enough, especially when it came to creating a Bill of Materials (BOM).

Top Die Casting Company, a leading provider of aluminum die castings and plastic-injected moldings, was hindered by an outdated, home-grown enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The old system was slow, especially when multiple people were using it, and had evolved through several different in-house programmers and stages of company growth, resulting in the loss of critical information such as production history and employee data. The company needed a single-source, centralized ERP system that could provide real-time data accuracy to everyone in the company, from the shop floor to the top floor.

Nissen Chemitec America, a leading manufacturer serving automakers, was managing enterprise operations with an AS/400-based system, which was eventually replaced with an ERP software that promoted its design for automotive manufacturers. However, the latter system, while conforming to automotive customers’ stringent requirements, hindered Nissen Chemitec America’s ability to advance lean manufacturing principles. The company was looking for a more tailored ERP solution— one built specifically for contract manufacturers serving the automotive industry. The previous system was cumbersome, required heavy data entry, and blocked the company's lean efforts due to the maintenance required. The company needed a fully automated system that not only adhered to the automotive compliance requirements like electronic data interchange (EDI), Labeling, and quality functions, but was also robust as well as scalable.

Plastic Components, Inc. (PCI) is a leading, globally-competitive supplier of critical molded plastic parts for a diverse range of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). However, the company was struggling with managing operations with several nonintegrated, manual databases, which was putting a heavy load on the company’s staffing resources. Data was scattered throughout the company, and there was no standard for reporting, so information was often unavailable or inaccurate. Without accurate data, PCI couldn’t easily provide value quotes to its customers, and because the system lacked inventory management controls, inventory could not be checked without calling a live person. The company was looking for a single database solution that offered centralized, accurate, and relevant data that was accessible to everyone in the company.

Poly-Cast Plastics (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. was established in 2006 to support a United States customer that was simultaneously setting up a plant in Suzhou, China. In addition, Poly- Cast recognized a large business opportunity in the emerging Chinese market. Since it opened, the China facility has grown rapidly, from a modest two machine and three employee start to a current 10 machine spread. Additionally, the Suzhou facility has a full and independent team on the ground to run the daily operations and offer Poly-Cast’s customers a very competitive solution that eliminates the risks associated with doing business in China with unknown suppliers. In response to two challenges—the complexity of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) tax system and Poly- Cast’s lack of resources at the company’s start-up— Poly-Cast decided to sub-contract all of its financials for the first several years of operation. Unfortunately, the outsourced China CPA only managed the financials for PRC tax law (tax accounting), rather than providing accounting for manufacturing. This financial report structure, in addition to being expensive to outsource, made it very difficult to pull any data that would help Poly-Cast better run its business. The lead time alone to process a monthly financial was often 30 to 60 days, and Poly-Cast felt it was always looking backward.

Jabil Packaging Solutions (JPS), a provider of precision molded plastic products, was facing dynamic changes in the healthcare and packaging markets. Technologies, regulations, patient and consumer behaviors, population demographics, and business models were all experiencing transformation, making the future of healthcare difficult to predict and navigate. In 2013, Nypro was acquired by Jabil to provide new long-term solutions for Jabil customers as well as to continue to serve Nypro’s diversified customer base. When JPS was acquired by Jabil, they moved to SAP, which was their core enterprise system; but they wanted to keep the real-time manufacturing enterprise system (MES) software they had been using. JPS Iowa had been using the complete IQMS solution for nearly two decades, but was adamant about keeping the MES piece after moving over to the SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Global Interconnect (GII) was under pressure to deliver fail-safe products while managing a complex global supply chain. Their antiquated MRP system had reached its limits, making it difficult to manage their growing business and expanding supplier base. For instance, to prevent counterfeit items from entering the supply chain, GII bought a significant number of parts domestically and consigned them to their factories in China. This practice required manual calculations of needed components based on finished assembly usage and inventory levels at the factory. Additionally, communicating with their Hong Kong and China operations required them to share and access data around the clock, which was challenging due to time differences. Furthermore, GII had to account for inventory with a manual backflush process, which was time-consuming and prone to errors.

Dymotek, a leading custom molder in the United States, was facing challenges in managing its growing business. The company had been using a combination of systems since its inception, which no longer satisfied the needs of its ambitious growth goals. The company needed a system that could provide real-time information to their customers and adapt to changing demands in an increasingly challenging global marketplace. The company also needed a system that could provide an exact understanding of the costs of goods produced, including the cost of equipment usage involved in production. Furthermore, the company needed a system that could provide excellent customer service, such as providing daily updates on production to customers with tight inventory requirements.

DPS Skis, a company that designs and manufactures advanced skis, was experiencing rapid growth and found that their existing QuickBooks accounting software was not robust enough to support their expanding operations. The company's business model, characterized by high seasonality and the manufacture of an expensive product, left little room for error. As DPS grew and set up its own manufacturing facility in Salt Lake City, it became apparent that QuickBooks was not up to the task, particularly in managing inventory and order entry. The company also faced challenges when it began working with an app called Sellpad, which was eventually pulled from the market, leaving DPS without tech support and a need for a new system.

Load Trail, LLC, a leading provider of high-quality trailers, was facing challenges with its existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, Epicor’s Vantage solution. The software was unreliable and had limited scheduling capabilities, which was affecting on-time material planning and processing. This was leading to decreased cost savings and was negatively impacting customer relationships. The software lacked the necessary functionality to maintain excellent customer service, operational efficiency, and competitiveness in the market. As a result, Load Trail began to seek a more comprehensive software solution to manage future growth and better serve its customers.

Ventura, a semi-automated assembly and production company, was facing challenges in scaling their systems to support global growth. With eight plants globally running from a single ERP instance on a server in Zeeland, Michigan, the IT team was struggling to keep up with the demands of the growing company. The system was slow, taking up to 2 hours to run reports supporting production operations, and there were concerns over the availability and disaster recovery objectives. The company needed a new system architecture that could scale more efficiently and increase the speed of system updates.

Plastic Components, Inc. (PCI) is a world-class injection molder of plastic parts. The company has established a reputation as a visionary manufacturer because it runs fully automated facilities: no direct labor is involved in their manufacturing process. However, at a little over a decade into their development, PCI’s information system was a potpourri of Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, and legal pads with pencils. They didn’t have a good handle on production scheduling, inventory, and true manufacturing costs. To address this situation, PCI conducted an assessment of a number of ERP systems, including IQMS. PCI committed to IQMS’ Manufacturing ERP, and spent nine months getting ready for implementation.

Apple Rubber Products, Inc. is a manufacturer of rubber components for the medical device and aerospace industries. The company was facing challenges with its paper-based quality control program which involved multiple filing systems. Information was stored in various locations, leading to wasted hours keying duplicate data into different places, searching through file cabinets, and sending paper documents around to different buildings for approval. The company needed a centralized quality system to streamline its operations.

Thogus Products Company, a custom plastic injection-molder and contract manufacturer, was facing a changing business environment. The company's focus was shifting from automotive parts to a diverse product mix from various industries. This shift required improved access to and availability of critical business and production operational data, increased productivity, reduced data storage costs, and support for growth. The company's previous data system was not used properly, leading to bloated data storage costs and unreliable information. The company needed a system that would eliminate waste, simplify processes, and provide real-time insights into all manufacturing operations.