Information technology plays three strategic roles in GlaxoSmithKline:

•  it facilitates communication and access to information on a global basis
•  it supports key business processes at the local, regional, functional and global levels
•  it enables the transformation and extension of key business activities.

Support for the merger process
Information technology played a key part in providing the planning information for the merger, much of which was derived from the existing systems in Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. Of major importance was ensuring that the new company had the IT systems in place to function effectively as soon as the merger was complete. From the first day of GlaxoSmithKline, the 80,000 employees in 58 countries with e-mail accounts were able to contact their colleagues electronically. Employees could also use short codes for dialling between sites, search on-line phone directories, and access both companies’ intranet sites. Cross-site links to key business applications were provided.

Global communications
The past year has seen major growth in the number of internal websites. These allow information to be shared across the company on a global basis and are supported by internal search engines analogous to those used externally on the Internet. The ability to provide shared access to information has enabled the growing use of ‘virtual teams’, that work collaboratively, spanning multiple geographies and time zones, often subject to stringent time constraints.

Information is also exchanged electronically with a broad array of suppliers, customers and partners. Hence, protection against unauthorised access to key systems, and the growing risks posed by computer viruses, is a major issue. Intruder detection software has been added to company firewalls and virus scanning has been implemented at the gateway, server and desktop levels. The separate approaches adopted by Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham are being integrated in a common standard approach for GlaxoSmithKline.

Enhancing business performance
Virtually all GlaxoSmithKline’s major business processes rely heavily on the use of information technology. Within R&D in both SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome there have been major programmes to capture key information, at source, in electronic form and make it available wherever required. As a result of these efforts, it was possible to make a number of regulatory drug submissions during the past year solely in electronic form. New drug submissions can be 50,000 to 250,000 pages in size and the ability to avoid generating paper submissions gives rise to significant savings in time and cost.

As part of the project to implement standard systems for Manufacturing Resource Planning in Glaxo Wellcome, eight sites, seven in the UK and one in Jurong, Singapore, have been supported for the past year from a single system. Further along the supply chain, SmithKline Beecham introduced standard enterprise financial and commercial software into 108 locations. The ability to consolidate mission critical operations in this way reflects the growing availability and reliability of global data networks and ensures that common processes and standards are implemented across sites, in addition to providing lower operating costs.

Both Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham have installed major systems in the USA to analyse commercially available prescribing data. By better understanding locally of how GlaxoSmithKline’s products are used in the marketplace, it is possible to target promotional and detailing activities and measure the market response. Information from these systems is transmitted electronically to the field sales forces and their responses are then uploaded to the system. With the growing availability of the required technology and infrastructure, sales force automation systems are being deployed in most major commercial markets.

Transforming and extending business activities
Insights gained from genomics and proteomics are transforming the way that disease targets are identified and validated. Information generated from a variety of external sources needs to be integrated with internally generated information in a rapid and flexible manner that relies heavily on information technology support. The analysis of these databases also requires significant amounts of processing power, taking full advantage of advances in computer technology.

e-business
Both Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham recognised the growing importance of e-business and had already put small dedicated teams in place. Web based interfaces to major customers have been implemented in the USA. Current projects span a broad range of key audiences including opinion leaders, healthcare professionals, patients and the public.