Redesigned and digitized sales and operations planning (S&OP) processes, leading to 75 percent reduction in manual work and over 95 percent faster supply network planning—enabling a global biopharma’s Cell & Gene Therapy Division to meet the scope, scale, and complexity of its ambitious growth targets.
The Challenge
The Cell & Gene Therapy division of a Fortune 100 biopharma company was struggling to meet the scale, scope, and complexity of its growth targets.
To get there, they needed to reimagine existing planning processes.
Manual efforts and daily tasks were bogging the team down. Data was siloed, leading to delayed insights and decision-making. The supply network plan couldn't keep pace with shifting demand. The division recognized that their current ways of working couldn't support their future ambitions.
The Vision:
North Highland partnered with the client to design and implement a future state that addressed current pain points while positioning the division for long-term success. We eliminated both inefficiencies and ongoing barriers to scale by integrating and digitizing ways of working, and seamlessly connecting processes, data, and technology.
- Defined Current and Desired Future State: The work started with robust analyses, interviews, and workshops to understand the current state and conceptualize the desired future state, with consideration to cross-industry best practices. This involved building momentum, and documenting pain points, interdependencies, future state business requirements, test scenarios, and acceptance criteria. Our goal was to design processes and technology that could seamlessly connect planning across functions.
- Designed and Implemented Future State: Next, we co-designed the future state business process architecture—mapping, modeling, and interlinking hierarchy from value stream (L0) to step level (L4) detail—ensuring the new Integrated Business Planning technology was configured in alignment. This included drafting detailed work instructions, job aids, and training resources.
- Drove Change and Adoption: A multi-phase rollout plan was developed for the new processes and technology. But we knew that communication alone wasn't enough to drive impact; rigorous change management was critical. This included training need analysis, impact and change-readiness analyses, stakeholder engagement, and weekly communications to foster adoption and ensure strategic ambitions were met.
The Value:
The results of this work were significant:- Up to 75% Less Manual Effort through streamlined, digital workflows and real-time data integration.
- Over 95% Faster Supply Network Planning through digital, rules-engine based solver, enabling dynamic response to fluctuating demand.
- Cost-efficiency through decrease in the linear relationship between supply chain scale/complexity, FTEs, and bull-whip effect.
- Real-Time Insights & Decision-Making by cutting raw data lead-times from days to instant availability, with multi-scenario planning capability enabled.
- Single Source of Truth for demand plans, supply plans, budget plans, processes, standards, and training to drive consistency, employee experience, and cross-functional collaboration.
Beyond these metrics, value lies in what this transformation enables for the future. With streamlined, digitized, planning workflows, the Cell & Gene Therapy division is now positioned to scale with agility. Data-driven decisions can be made rapidly. Resources are freed up to focus on strategy and innovation.
This planning transformation doesn't just solve today's challenges. It sets the stage for the division to pursue its growth ambitions with confidence, armed with the planning capabilities to make their vision a reality and paves the way for a healthier, brighter future for all.
