Taiho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
CACHATTO for increase in efficiency of MR business operations and new means of communication
Mr. Hiroyuki Nakajima
- Vice president & ERP Chief, Promotion officer
- Information System Department
TAIHO PHARMACEUTICAL CO., LTD. has conducted research, development, manufacturing and sales of medicinal drugs since it was established in 1963. As a leading company especially in the cancer treatment field, they have engaged in social contribution initiatives including the Pink Ribbon Campaign, which promotes cancer screening for providing care for patients and their families.
They are expected to achieve business expansion in global markets as one of the core companies of the Otsuka Holdings that now has 150 domestic and international group companies.
Table 1.1: Taiho use case
‘There had been requests from MRs (Medical Representative) in the Sales Department for access to internal emails through mobile phones. The reason for this was to respond to an emergency email when they are outside the company. However, taking PCs out of the company must be strictly managed from the perspective of managing personal information protection and information security. While I was seeking a solution, I met a person from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. at an IT department information exchange meeting within the Otsuka Group and the person told me: "We have introduced a remote access service product called CACHATTO and have been performing a trial operation of it. This product is highly evaluated in terms of security and overall we are satisfied with it." This was the first time I had heard of the product,’ said Hiroyuki Nakajima, the Vice President of Information System Department and the Chief of ERP Promotion Office, recalling those days.
“We immediately started evaluating several competing products. Keeping in mind the dual importance of security and business efficiency as the selection criteria, we expected the vendor to present a good proposal that included groupware and SFA. As a result, we selected CSK who has established records from their own operation of the combination of Lotus Notes and SFA, which we have been using, and CACHATTO. They have extensive know-how on coordination with Notes, so I think we made the right decision.” (Mr. Nakajima)
- October 2010 Started trial use. Around that time, because CACHATTO did not support the version of Notes in use, the communication became unstable in some cases, but this issue was uneventfully addressed.
- December 2010 Purchased licences for 200 users and started the full-scale test with MRs in Tohoku district and the branch chief level nationwide. MRs in the Tohoku district evaluated CACHATTO highly evaluated CACHATTO because the areas they are assigned to in Tohoku are so wide that they are likely to be away from their offices for a long time.
- December 2010 Upgraded to Notes version 8 for more stable operation.
- February 2011 With the link with ‘MR2GO,’ an SFA product for MRs manufactured by CSK CORPORATION, the number of users smoothly increased to 1,500 users.
‘Upgrading to the latest Notes ver. 8 along with the introduction of CACHATTO also achieved a successful outcome. The operators in the field gave us better feedback like "the communication with latest version was faster than with the trial version". The operation is now stable after addressing the issues raised during the use of the trial version. In addition, with reduction in the operational load on the system built on a virtual server, operational costs including monitoring from the CACHATTO monitoring center have been reduced,’ said Mr. Nakajima with a smile.
‘We were planning to deploy the product to the sales offices nationwide in March 2011, but the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred. During the aftermath of the disaster, we found an unexpected effect,’ Mr. Nakajima recounted an episode. ‘Immediately after the earthquake occurred, the safety check system sent an email to the employees to check if they were safe, but emails were hard to reach via mobile phone carriers. Shortly thereafter, however, "Iʼm safe emails" started to arrive via CACHATTO from the MRs in the Tohoku district. I had never imagined that the trial test started in Tohoku would bring such an unexpected effect,’ he recalled.
‘The earthquake emergency response system established by e-Jan Networks immediately after the earthquake was also very helpful. In response to our request, e-Jan soon allowed us to increase the number of users, which triggered other MRs to actively use the product. After that, nationwide deployment has been successful, leading to better business efficiency. We have learned an important lesson from that earthquake.’ Mr. Nakajima favorably commented on the system e-Jan established with CACHATTO for earthquake measures.
‘For mobile access services for MRs in the future, one of the challenges is to limit the terminals to specific ones as much as possible. Some tasks still require the use of a PC, but I think a more efficient operation is possible. Our users have also evaluated that the system is convenient, so we will further promote our business innovation.’ The company has now introduced about 300 iPads and shows interest in increasing that number.’
We have received another request from the company: 'It would be more convenient if it was possible to view the bulletin board and meeting schedule on the application DB'.(Reply from e-Jan Networks: With the DB option licence, viewing is available. Customisation is also possible according to the design specifications of the DB.)
We would like you to help us conduct a trial operation soon', said Mr. Nakajima.
Currently, the company holds more than 1,800 licences, which is second to Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. among the group companies of the Otsuka Holdings group.
With more than 5,500 users of CACHATTO in the whole group, the company has enjoyed a high reputation for its advanced initiatives in the pharmaceutical industry.