by DAN CALLOWAY
Published 12 May 2010
M. B. Haynes Executives
CHARLOTTE, NC – M. B. Haynes Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a medium-size pharmaceutical company located in Charlotte, NC that specializes in the production of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in humans and for veterinary purposes. Some of the over-the-counter drugs they manufacture include Aleve, Motrin, Ibuprofen, and others. Stronger forms of these drugs are also manufactured for prescription purposes as well. The company is experiencing an upturn in their financial posturing among like companies in the pharmaceutical industry and they are currently very competitive due to their strategic business planning practices and policies that rely heavily on the alignment of the business with IS/IT. For example, the company’s annual gross revenue in 2009 was in excess of $13 Billion and their annual gross profits for 2009 exceeded $200 Million with an investment in new technology in excess of 15% of gross revenues.
The company’s business mission, goals, and objectives are consistent with other manufacturers of arthritic medications in the pharmaceutical industry. Among their goals are: (1) To become the leading pharmaceutical company in the State of North Carolina, and the most valued company to patients, doctors, colleagues, investors, business partners, and the communities where they work and live; (2) To produce high-quality, low-cost over-the-counter medications for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis for both human and animal consumption; and (3) To become one of the most competitive companies in the industry by investing in technology and seeking the advantages that collaboration and technology integration bring to the business.
The reasons that M. B. Haynes Pharmaceuticals has been successful in the marketplace is primarily attributed to their senior management’s commitment to aligning the business with IS/IT and the importance they have placed on strategic systems planning within the business enterprise. The business information systems strategy at the company follows the outline as prescribed in Ward and Peppard (2002) in that the company has: (1) Analyzed the external business environment by looking at the state of the industry in terms of profitability, growth, and structure, and the degree to which IS/IT is capable of altering the products, markets, and interrelationships within the industry; (2) Approached the external IS/IT environment to see how its competitors and others in the industry might use IS/IT to gain a competitive advantage in the market, and utilized this environment to their advantage by creating opportunities to change the balance of these competitive forces on the industry, both in the existing value chain and through product substitutions; (3) Analyzed their own internal business environment to determine how new IS/IT applications could more effectively enhance and support their own business strategy in the enterprise, and how these new IS/IT applications could enable the company to adopt a business strategy that is more in-line with their future business environment plans; and (4) Taken a hard line on the internal IS/IT environment and applications portfolio to assess the degree to which their existing systems support their business strategy, if these systems avoid business disadvantages as well as promote existing business advantages, and whether the existing approach of IS/IT management is appropriate to the business strategy (pp. 277-278).
M. B. Haynes Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has approached the systems planning aspects of their company by first interpreting the company’s business objectives and strategies (identifying what they might do, what they want to do, what they must do, and what they can do); secondly, by analyzing the industry value chain and information flows; thirdly, by determining their critical success factors; fourthly, by determining their strategic potential; and finally, by establishing the relative priorities of investments they should make in IS/IT, which they realize is crucial to their success (Ward & Peppard, 2002). The systems planning framework, which has been adopted by M. B. Haynes Pharmaceuticals is one that includes most of the tools and techniques generally found in a logically linked process whereby the company has ensured that both the internal and external strategic input are assessed in relation to one another which has enabled their business IS strategy planning to be identified and a consensus of agreement to be reached among the business units and IS/IT with management endorsement.
It is important to remember that the systems planning undertaken by M. B. Haynes Pharmaceuticals, Inc. or any other company is a continuous and continual process, and one in which the systems planning framework needs to be repeatedly revisited to ensure that the applications portfolio that has been developed is still relevant (Ward & Peppard, 2002). Although the systems planning process used by the company has been entirely successful over the last two decades they have been in existence, it might be enhanced through improvements in portfolio management by developing strategies for managing key aspects of the delivery of the supply in anticipation of a greater demand in applications based on the needs of the company as well as ideas generated by the business in order to satisfy the assortment of requirements inherent in the applications (Ward & Peppard, 2002).
References
Ward, J., & Peppard, J. (2002). Strategic Planning for Information Systems (3rd.). Cranfield, Bedfordshire, UK: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.
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