Global Clinical Research Provider Creates a Global Rollout Template For HCM, Finance & Procurement for Onboarding New Entities 

Client

The client is one of the world’s largest contract research organizations, serving combined industries of Health, Information Technology, and Clinical Research. They provide biopharmaceutical development and commercial outsourcing services, focused on Phase 1–4 clinical trials, associated laboratory, and analytics services.

Challenge

The major business challenges encountered by the client included:

• Ability of IT systems, processes, and applications to handle frequent mergers and acquisitions
• Localization activities for 100+ countries
• Application rationalization to improve process efficiency and cost savings
• Accelerate speed for computation of Treasury Fund sources and flows

Solution

Agile for Frequent Mergers

The client is subject to frequent mergers and acquisitions. Partnering with our client since 2005, Hexaware understood the inherent need for the client’s IT systems, processes, and applications to be as agile as possible and created a global rollout template (small and large country models) for financial, supply chain, project systems, sales, and distribution processes.

This effectively reduced the onboarding time of a new entity from 6 to 4 months for standard processes.

Localizations

With their presence in 100+ countries, the client had to cater to numerous localization norms. Hexaware stepped in and performed bank automation (SEPA & Non-SEPA) in AP & AR in the EU region, electronic documentation, tax setups as per country-specific norms, and local legal reporting to ensure full statutory compliance, thus supporting 180,000+ business transactions monthly for the client.

Automation

Due to its heterogeneous IT landscape, a lot of manual effort was involved in transferring data between systems. For example, from HCM (PeopleSoft) to Procurement (SAP SRM).

Hexaware obviated these interventions by integrating PeopleSoft with SAP HR and SAP SRM. Thus, ensuring that the supplier relationship management users can perform daily transactions according to their default spending limits.

Similarly, Hexaware performed several SAP integrations with the client’s other boundary systems (Coupa, Concur, and Fieldglass) via MuleSoft for Vendors, Accounting, and Payments modules.

Application Rationalization

As a long-standing trusted partner of the client, Hexaware supported strategic application rationalization of moving the client’s HCM suite from PeopleSoft to Workday, Financials from SAP to Oracle ERP Cloud, and Procurement from SAP SRM to Coupa.

Hexaware also strategically manages Workday, Oracle ERP Cloud, and Coupa installs for the client to date, resulting in numerous benefits, such as a single source of truth for employees’ data and a 20% reduction in daily sales outstanding from optimizing credit and collections.

Benefits

The client achieved exceptional results with Hexaware’s contribution. Some of the significant benefits realized include:

• Reduced the onboarding time of a new entity from 6 to 4 months for standard processes
• 180,000+ business transactions supported monthly
• 20% reduction in daily sales outstanding from optimizing credit and collections
• Substantial reduction of manual efforts due to seamless integration

Summary

Hexaware collaborated with one of the world’s largest contract research organizations, specializing in clinical trials and biopharmaceutical development, to address critical business needs. By creating a global rollout template, implementing localizations for 100+ countries, automating heterogeneous IT landscapes, and strategically managing application rationalization, Hexaware significantly reduced onboarding times, ensured statutory compliance, and optimized operational efficiency. The outcomes include a notable 20% reduction in daily sales outstanding, seamless integration resulting in reduced manual efforts, and robust support for 180,000+ monthly business transactions.