Merk

C ASE STU DY

Merck Case Study

Background

Merck & Co. Inc. is a global research-driven pharmaceutical company dedicated to

putting patients first. Since its founding in 1891, Merck has grown to more than 50,000

employees in more than 120 countries today. The company discovers, develops,

manufactures and markets vaccines and medicines in more than 20 therapeutic

categories.

Merck has embarked on a growth strategy based on internal innovation combined with

aggressive pursuit of business partnerships ranging from research, discovery and clinical

trials, through manufacturing, marketing and sales. While 10 new partnerships were

created in 2001, more than 80 were created in 2004. The size and complexity of the

business partnerships range from the joint development and marketing of Zetia with

Schering-Plough, another large pharmaceutical company, to basic research and licensing

agreements with small biotech firms. No matter what the size, these partnerships

require close collaboration and frequent exchange of time-sensitive, proprietary

information.

To improve its existing business, Merck is driving toward a more seamless customer

experience, paying close attention to data quality and transparency to ensure

accuracy, timeliness and consistency in key customer-facing business processes.

Data quality and transparency also play a pivotal role in initiatives to drive down internal

costs through operational efficiencies.

Challenge

As Merck’s external alliances and business processes have extended the reach of the

company in all directions, the complexity and importance of electronic communication

has also increased. The pace of new alliances has been so fast and mission critical

that the Merck IT staff often have very little lead time to set up secure exchanges with

a diverse set of partners. On one hand, they must manage data exchanges to the

technical specifications of large partners such as Wal-Mart; on the other, they must

work with small...