As pharma faces increasingly complex compliance standards and fierce competition, many companies are at a crossroads. Technology is driving the industry and while a decade ago the cloud may have been considered risky, quite the opposite is true today. Legacy technology is putting life sciences organizations at risk and holding them back from the efficiencies, security, and innovation they need to be a market leader.
This article will help you identify the biggest risks of remaining on legacy, on-premises Microsoft Dynamics AX systems as well as highlight some of the benefits you can expect by migrating to a cloud Dynamics 365 ERP platform and unified infrastructure.
Reduced agility: You are limited on how or if you can scale your organization up and down as needed without interrupting current business. This includes functionality, capacity, number of users, etc.
Less flexibility: User access to data is limited to specific locations and equipment on site and during regular hours.
Inadequate security: Most organizations struggle to keep up to date with the latest security concerns and breaches and do not have the internal skills and software tools required to adequately protect data.
Costly disruption: With all IT centralized in one place, your organization is vulnerable to interruption of service due to power outage, hardware or software issues, network problems, or other disaster. It is difficult, or impossible, to access a backup and perform disaster recovery in a timely manner.
Expensive maintenance: There will be a point where you’re spending more money to maintain your legacy systems than you would if you had upgraded your systems to a modern infrastructure.
Non-compliance risk: Regulatory standards must be followed and your technology must be supported to prevent fees and penalties for data breach (security holes), increase of downtime, loss of clients, data, etc.
In the Forrester Report, The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, seven enterprise organizations were interviewed that moved legacy systems to Microsoft Dynamics 365. Quantifiable improvements as a composite average across the seven represented organizations include:
For pharma, there are specific advantages and benefits of the cloud that have become mandatory to enable growth and innovation into the future, such as:
Maximum agility: Cloud ERP solutions enable you to stay agile and competitive as you can scale and align your technology aligned to your organization’s growth or need to downsize.
Lower cost of ownership: With lower upfront costs required to implement world-class technology, you can reduce your capital expenditures and shift funds to more strategic growth initiatives. License costs are flexible and affordable so you can improve access to everyone who needs it.
Best-in-class security: Cloud vendors like Microsoft lead the world in security and privacy. You automatically inherit leading security systems and controls helping you stay compliant with no additional costs or IT resources required.
Built-in disaster recovery: Eliminate the concerns and risks of disruption in the face of disaster. The cloud offers always on disaster recovery and data redundancy so you can be back up and running quickly to minimize downtime and data loss.
Anytime, anywhere accessibility: Remove the constraints of accessibility tied to specific locations and equipment by providing staff with easy, secure access from any location or device.
AX for Pharma specializes in helping life sciences organizations migrate from Microsoft Dynamics AX on-premises systems to a unified Dynamics 365 cloud infrastructure in a practical, phased, methodical manner. Within a highly regulated industry, it is critical that your Microsoft Dynamics cloud solutions partner bring advanced expertise in life sciences and pharma compliances and processes.
Here are a couple of critical components of a Microsoft Dynamics cloud migration for pharma companies:
The validation must be based on the risk level of the application
The first, and most important, step you can take is choosing an experienced and reputable Microsoft Dynamics life sciences technology partner to guide your cloud journey from end to end. AX for Pharma is an ISO 9001:2015 certified Microsoft Dynamics 365 partner and global systems integrator with a global team of life sciences experts.
From implementations to Computer System Validation (CSV) to our AX for Pharma 365™ industry ERP solution built on Microsoft Dynamics 365—you can depend on us as a strategic partner for all aspects of your transformation. Contact us today to discuss your goals and your next steps.
