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At a higher level, project management also requires effective management of the business case and allocation of resources: |
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Business case management. Maintaining the balance between scientific and commercial viability has not been an easy concept for R&D departments. But it has become essential to recognize the increasing importance of managing the business case at key milestones throughout a development project to ensure that critical decisions are timely and that all implications are known as the key drivers change. It is no longer acceptable to create the business case at the beginning of the development cycle and, then, leave it to one side. There are IT tools today which can assist the what if analysis process of managing the business case. However, these are not widely employed. |
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Resource management/capacity planning. Managing the allocation of people across projects has always been difficult and, with the growing pressure to reduce head counts, it is important to improve this process. Some of the bigger project management IT tools mentioned earlier in the chapter provide resource management but suffer because the detailed data entered at the project level are inaccurate. At present, little use is made of IT to capture historical information and use it as a benchmark for future projects. |
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Supplying precise, current information to project management processes and monitoring key drivers are essential if critical decisions are to be made with any accuracy. This is imperative for the successful pharmaceutical companies of tomorrow which will have to work with much slimmer margins and tighter timescales. |
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Pharmaceutical companies have made a significant investment in IT and have reaped substantial benefits using it. No organization is fortunate enough to have a clean sheet on which to start. For the successful deployment of new technology, it is essential that appropriate consideration is given to integration with existing systems. |
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III.
Major it Developments |
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The constant evolution of IT is rapidly providing new opportunities for business solutions. As prices fall, these technologies also become increasingly viable for organizations to implement. The effect of IT on business operations can be traced through the past 30 years (see Fig. 3). |
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