Outsourcing without loosing focus

When a company decides on outsourcing IT functions, it is essential for the management to be able to keep a good overview over these functions to continuously make strategic decisions, prioritise efforts and make sure that IT supports the company’s business processes in the best possible way.

In connection with outsourcing of the IT functions to external suppliers the Swedish pharmacy organisation, Apoteket AB, decided to evaluate the organisation's IT usage with an analysis from IT Optima A/S, a Danish benchmark and analysis company. Apoteket's IT facilities have an annual turn over of around half a billion Swedish kronar, and following up on IT support of business processes and continuously making sure of its development is highly prioritised by the IT manager Anders Persson. Via a standardized benchmarking analysis IT Optima has uncovered the usage and efficiency of the company's most important IT systems:

In relation to the outsourcing process a strong wish had emerged in the organisation to take the temperature of the IT functions: The management made increased demands for good economy and greater accessibility to Apoteket's products – as well as for efficiency in the IT budget. A clearer picture of the present situation on the area of IT was required, and at the same time Apoteket wanted to create more visibility around IT within the organisation. In connection with the outsourcing Apoteket wanted a better basis for making decisions concerning IT – a basis that would make it easier to prioritise efforts in the future. Amongst other things a deeper knowledge of trouble spots in the organisation's IT was found necessary.

IT Optima carried out a Total IT Performance (TIP) analysis for Apoteket AB. The analysis consists of a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis of the organisation's IT costs in total and of a user survey. For Apoteket the analysis as a whole has been an excellent tool for creating visibility and better communication concerning IT. The analysis focuses on the utility value of IT in relation to the users/usage and does not only measure within technical issues. Therefore it has also been easy for the management to communicate the results of the analysis to i.a. the users in the organisation. At the same time Apoteket has been pleasantly surprised by how easy it was for the organisation to have this kind of analysis carried out – and by how little time the whole process of measurement consumed.

The analysis

When Apoteket realised the need for a measurement of their IT usage, IT Optima A/S was chosen to carry out the analysis. Apoteket had a few very clear reasons for this choice:

• Simplicity: The analyses from IT Optima do not require a lot of legwork from the client and are therefore not very time consuming for the company in question either.
• The possibility of making a comparison to other organisations: With benchmarking Apoteket obtained a unique possibility of learning from other organisations' experiences and seeing what efforts work and what efforts that do not.
• The low costs of carrying out the analysis were also a clear advantage.

Focus on relevant matters

At Apoteket they already see the effects of carrying out the analysis: The visibility around IT, required in the organisation, has been created in a simple way without great costs. The analysis has provided the organisation's management with an objective basis for discussion – this applies to the IT unit as well as on a general organisation level. With the analysis Apoteket has obtained a management tool that helps the management keep focused on what is important and maintain the overview, even if the IT delivery is now being made by external suppliers. Hence with this analysis Apoteket AB is able to measure its IT use continuously and by comparing with other companies, and thereby ensuring an optimal IT support of the company's business processes.

Apoteket AB

Apoteket AB is a state-owned company with 11.000 employees. The company's primary task is the distribution of pharmaceuticals in Sweden, working to make sure that this distribution is practiced at the lowest possible costs, and delivering all approved pharmaceuticals for selling across the country at the same price. Also Apoteket is responsible for delivering information from the pharmaceutical producer to the individual consumer as well as to hospitals/health services.

Apoteket serves about 90 million customers a year and handles about 69 million prescriptions. Apoteket's web site has about 200.000 visitors every month, and the customer centre takes about 11.000 calls every day.