Pharma Company Taps Planview Advisor for a Centralized Source of Data, Advanced Analytics, and Portfolio Prioritization

The company was about to merge its vaccine and pharmaceutical divisions and needed a single source of truth, deeper analytics, and more efficient portfolio prioritization processes that could support data-driven investment decisions with greater speed across the entire organization.

This pharmaceuticals company relied on a mix of applications, spreadsheets, and heterogeneous workarounds for its project valuations and portfolio reviews, which sometimes created data consolidation and validation problems. Producing reports and analytics for annual portfolio reviews and monthly governance meetings was difficult and time-consuming.

The Pharmaceuticals Company turned to Planview® Advisor as a centralized source of financial data, advanced analytics, and reporting across all divisions. The company now produces reports for portfolio reviews and governance meetings in less time, allowing the company to have four reviews per year instead of one. Increasing the number of reviews helped make the merger more fluid and has enabled the pharma leaders to accelerate growth by empowering them to make informed prioritization and investment decisions faster.

In 2021, the Pharmaceuticals Company communicated its intention to separate its Consumer Healthcare division from the group and merge its Pharmaceutical and Vaccines businesses. This merger would create a robust new positioning for the pharma company. Still, it would first need to combine the two divisions' pipeline production views and analytics to be most effective.

The disparate portfolio management systems, multiple spreadsheets, and temporary workarounds used at the time could have been more conducive to producing the analytics and data necessary for quick and transparent asset valuations and portfolio reviews.

In addition, updating data and rolling up the numbers for portfolio analyses and scenario comparisons took time and effort. Preparing data and reports for monthly project governance meetings took up to four days. For annual portfolio reviews, it took weeks. Data ownership was also problematic as there needed to be a well-defined system of controls to prevent data entry and analysis mistakes that could lead to problems.

“We didn’t have a single solution to produce all the visuals for these meetings, and with spreadsheets and all those workarounds, we were spending a huge amount of time every month just crunching data, reviewing everything, and making necessary corrections in spreadsheets and presentations,” says the Portfolio Data Science Manager for the Pharmaceuticals Company’s vaccine division.

To overcome these barriers and ensure the merger was executed precisely and would help them better fulfill their mission, the Pharma Company knew they needed a single, centralized platform with rigorous rules, controls, and accountability. With this new product portfolio platform, they could ensure integrated data provision, unified valuations, and harmonized governance across all the assets in their pipeline.

After thoroughly reviewing their planning process and data analysis, the pharmaceuticals leader selected Planview® Advisor to provide the needed standardization. The centralized platform and data source would ensure that everyone across each division’s projects was operating similarly with the same valuation mechanics and inputs. Planview Advisor also had state-of-the-art portfolio analytics, supplemented with robust reporting, dynamic scenario analysis, and visualizations, allowing the Pharmaceuticals Company to make better-informed decisions faster using trusted data from their governance and portfolio reviews.

The Portfolio Data Science Manager of the Vaccines Division and his team deployed Planview Advisor in stages. The solution was first used as a central platform for the Pharmaceuticals Company’s vaccine business, supporting asset valuation and analytics for governance meetings and portfolio reviews. It was then deployed across the pharma division and subsequently integrated as the two divisions merged.

“The vendor representatives were very knowledgeable and helped us not just with the software but our related business processes and best practices,” says the Portfolio Data Science Manager for the Pharmaceuticals Company’s vaccine division. “They ensured we did the right things at the right times and never tried to sell us anything that could be done better with another tool.” The agile mindset demonstrated by the Planview Advisor team has also been adopted for the company’s other projects.

Through the implementation, the Pharma Company was able to integrate Planview Advisor as a powerful tool supporting the merger of their pharma and vaccines division. Control and access of all the data inputs, processes, mechanics, and metrics for each division could be managed from one source.

With Planview Advisor, the Pharmaceuticals Company has a unified source of reliable data for all asset valuations needed for governance meetings and metrics such as NPV and ROI for portfolio reviews. Advisor provides the mechanics, governance, controls, and formulas to produce consistent and accurate sales, cost, risk, and timeline metrics. “Thanks to Planview Advisor, we now have the data ownership and accountability we were looking for,” says the Portfolio Data Science Manager for the company’s vaccine division.

With Planview Advisor’s real-time analytics linked directly to reporting, the Pharmaceuticals Company has slashed the time it takes to prepare for portfolio reviews from weeks to days, allowing for quarterly reviews instead of once per year. The result is more well-informed, timely project investment decisions. Preparation time for monthly project governance meetings has been reduced by 75 percent from four days to one.

Thanks to more accurate valuations with improved speed, the leader in pharma has also freed up resources to leverage the sophisticated portfolio insights Planview Advisor offers. “We’ve been able to deliver on a long wish list of advanced portfolio analytics we couldn’t provide before,” says the Portfolio Data Science Manager for the company’s vaccine division.

Best of all, the deployment of Planview Advisor has eased the merger of the company’s pharma and vaccine divisions and improved all the business processes around portfolio management. “Planview Advisor has brought a positive cultural change to the organization,” says the Portfolio Data Science Manager for the company’s vaccine division. We have much more discipline, quality, and accountability for our governance and portfolio reviews, and more engagement from the people involved.”