Emtec Helps Pharmaceutical Maker Lower IT Costs

KOAN-IT, a subsidiary of Emtec (2009 VAR500 rank: 206), will provide Value Based Management (VBM) services to help align the IT infrastructure at Axcan Pharma. As part of the VBM assessment performed by KOAN-IT, Axcan lowered its operational costs and improved its ability to measure the value of IT services for the organization.

The assessment evaluated the activities/services of its outsourced IT support provider, which was responsible for supporting more than 500 Axcan employees in the U.S., the European Union and Canada. KOAN-IT performed an analysis of Axcan's IT needs, the services its IT outsourcer provided, and then created a road map with specific recommendations for development of an IT improvement plan.

"As our company continues to expand, we wanted to strategically assess and measure all of our IT components, specifically time to resolution," said Jean Morin, senior director of information technology and solutions at Axcan. KOAN-IT created a customized framework that would identify and detail the pharmaceutical company's IT services and measure the value of its offerings. "By the end of the process, we nearly doubled our service catalog, documented expected service levels and are now able to measure performance/time to resolution," Morin added. "We have become more proactive instead of reactive."

VBM correlates IT operations and functions to IT services and the corresponding organizational value they deliver. IT services are then related back to the organization using quantifiable metrics such as performance, cost and risk. KOAN-IT developed a value chain model for Axcan's IT infrastructure that let the company identify areas for improvement.

"By understanding the demand-for-value that is consumed by the organization, and how ongoing IT activities and initiatives are contributing to the delivery or improvement of that value, IT managers and executive staff are empowered with real data to make decisions and no longer need to rely on instinct and intuition," said Rene-Claude Lafontaine, IT strategic value consultant at KOAN-IT.