Top 10 Tips for Effective B2B Practices in Pharmaceutical R&D
Join Melody Alfather, Associate Director of Technology Planning & Architecture at Pfizer Global Research & Development, as she shares crucial insights from her experience with B2B web development in a large pharmaceutical setting. This workshop highlights ten essential tips for optimizing business processes, embracing global complexities, and utilizing the right technology to streamline operations. Learn how to implement best practices and navigate the unique challenges of research and development in the pharmaceutical industry.
Top 10 Tips for Effective B2B Practices in Pharmaceutical R&D
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Presentation Transcript
Yaffe Center Web WorkshopB2B Panel - Top 10 Tips/LearningsSeptember 20, 2002 Melody Alfather Pfizer Global Research & Development
About Pfizer • Pfizer is a large, global pharmaceutical company with divisions including finance/marketing, manufacturing, central IT, and research & development (r&d). • Within Pfizer Global R&D, there are departments including research (covering discovery, initial development, safety, and efficacy of drugs), development (covering clinical trials, additional safety & efficacy of drugs), and enterprise (covering enterprise-wide business applications for r&d). Each department has a central r&D informatics (IT) group working with it closely. Yaffe Center Web Workshop - Melody Alfather - B2B Panel
Pfizer Global Research & Development • 4 main sites for r&d division: Ann Arbor, MI; Groton, CT; Sandwich, UK; La Jolla, CA. • Many additional smaller sites in r&d including those in Japan, Germany, Canada, and France. • Strategic technologies in use currently: J2EE (WebLogic application server), IDE (JBuilder), source code control (ClearCase), UML modeling (Rose), unit testing (JUnit), data modeling (ERWin), business process modeling/integration (WebLogic Integration Suite), data warehousing mapping (Informatica), etc. Yaffe Center Web Workshop - Melody Alfather - B2B Panel
About Panelist • Melody Alfather - Associate Director of Technology Planning & Architecture - Ann Arbor Labs, Research Informatics • Been with Pfizer for 3 years; before that University of MI’s Web Services; HCIA; GRI; EDS. • Tech Planning & Architecture team is responsible for promoting best practices, fostering developer knowledge-sharing, suggesting application architecture, developing ‘enterprise’ architecture, etc. Yaffe Center Web Workshop - Melody Alfather - B2B Panel
B2B - Top 10 Tips/Learnings - Intro • Pfizer Global Research & Development doesn’t do much B2B due to the nature of our business - research. Pfizer Corporate uses B2B for procurement - Ariba to OfficeMax, etc. • Pfizer R&D does do much global business web development, however, due to the nature of our business - global research & development within large, diverse pharmaceutical company. Largely secure intranet development, though we accept information from outside vendors into safe zones. Yaffe Center Web Workshop - Melody Alfather - B2B Panel
Tips/Learnings 1) Keep things simple & easy to use - lots of web applications applications in R&D. Externally served web sites usually hosted externally. 2) Functional, but ugly is fine for corporate intranet - heavily used in large global companies. 3) Consider locale differences for all apps - time zones, date & time formats, cultural differences, etc. 4) Global deployment adds complexity - applications become 7x24 due to time zone differences; central vs. distributed deployment varies based on requirements & environments. Yaffe Center Web Workshop - Melody Alfather - B2B Panel
Tips/Learnings 5) Enterprise Architecture should be standardized for scalability/flexibility/re-use/maintenance/etc. 6) Technology should be used (correctly) to aid in development, deployment, and maintenance - not just for technology’s sake. 7) Use application servers for web applications! They give you many good things & provide for many apps on a server, something not very common in corporations, especially in win2000/nt world. Yaffe Center Web Workshop - Melody Alfather - B2B Panel
Tips/Learnings 8) Use frameworks (like J2EE), standardized builds (like ant), patterns (like MVC, MDA, auditing, etc.) - they promote best practices & re-use & reduce software maintenance costs. 9) Expect new versions of IDEs & application servers - 2 per year - customer & IT plan for upgrades/maintenance decisions/schedules. 10) Use automated unit testing - much of Pfizer’s environment is regulated by FDA & other organizations - many applications need to be validated from IT, regulatory, and user perspective - automated testing saves resources & time. Yaffe Center Web Workshop - Melody Alfather - B2B Panel