Trend towards a “shared economy” in the pharmaceutical industry
“We have been experiencing a trend towards a shared economy in the pharmaceutical industry for twenty years,” explains Elmar Weber looking back at the company's history so far. As Chief Financial Officer (CFO), he is responsible for all corporate services (HR, Finance, Legal and Corporate IT) at EXTEDO. “With our solutions, we were able to decisively influence the first phase — the transition from paper-based to electronic approval procedures. EXTEDO is also involved in the second phase, the digitization of the very complex approval process, and is developing a cloud platform for all project partners involved in the process. ”
Especially in the early days, the company received large development orders, which were billed on a time-based basis. The combination of Microsoft Access database, Excel lists and Word documents used at the time for time recording and billing quickly reached its limits. Even though he wasn't employed at EXTEDO back then, Elmar Weber knows from stories: “Aggregating the numerous documents at the end of the month in order to be able to generate invoices from them proved to be very time-consuming and prone to errors. For this reason, the decision was made in 2007 to look for a special solution for time recording. ”
As part of an appropriate research followed by a selection process for various providers, EXTEDO finally decided to use the ZEP solution. ZEP stands for time recording for projects and was developed specifically for use in project-oriented companies.
Time recording and more: ZEP in use at EXTEDO
EXTEDO currently uses ZEP not only for pure time recording, but also uses the “Travel Expense Report” and “Vacation and Absence Management” modules. In addition, invoicing is carried out via the ZEP module of the same name. For this purpose, the times entered in ZEP are automatically transferred to the invoice. The data is then transferred to financial accounting via the DATEV interface available for ZEP. “Due to our international activities with branches in the USA and China and projects all over the world, there is of course extensive travel activity that must be managed accordingly,” says Elmar Weber, explaining the use of the individual modules. “The DATEV interface was essential for us to ensure seamless data transfer to the FIBU system. ”
As an operating model for using ZEP, EXTEDO chose to operate in the cloud model. Elmar Weber explains: “We have been following a 'cloud only' strategy for several years, i.e. a software solution is only purchased if appropriate cloud use is possible. We simply don't want to have to worry about running the application.” However, data security and data protection play an important role. After all, an approval process in the pharmaceutical industry also involves comprehensive confidential data. “For this reason, we are also carefully examining the data protection measures of each of our software suppliers,” confirms Elmar Weber.
As a “cloud service made in Germany”, ZEP is operated in a certified (ISO 27001, basic IT protection) high-performance data center on a fully redundant, highly available server cluster in Germany. The Internet connection to the ZEP servers is 1000 Mbit/s via redundant fiber optic lines. The user agreement concluded between ZEP customers and provantis naturally also includes the contract for order processing required since the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force.
“Never Change A Running System” plus world-class support
ZEP has now been using EXTEDO for more than ten years. Elmar Weber sums up: “Time recording is generally not a popular topic among employees, so usability is an important prerequisite for acceptance. There has certainly been a suggestion or two in the past to look for an alternative. However, I have to admit that we haven't found anything that is better than ZEP.” In addition, the system has proven to be extremely stable so far.
“ZEP is running and running and true to the motto 'Never change a running system, 'we currently see no need to change anything about it. ”
Elmar Weber
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Elmar Weber gives ZEP Support top marks: “The support for the solution is really great. On the one hand, provantis has a clear product development strategy. The company knows exactly which change requests are implemented on a customer-specific basis and which will be incorporated into a future release, while keeping an eye on the standardization aspect that is important to us when using the cloud.” In addition, according to Mr. Weber, the company always proves to be a point of contact on equal footing: “With every call, it is immediately clear that someone is sitting at the other end who is working intensively with the solution. ”
Conclusion from the satisfied Extedo CFO:
