Pharma Company Wyeth Turned to IT to Drive Productivity

Anant Pundlik, director-IS, Wyeth, says, "A top executive asked me one day: 'During meetings, participants make commitments but do not always follow-up on them, nor do they keep me informed of progress. I end up wasting a lot of time in following-up both between and during subsequent meetings. Can you find me a solution?'"

What followed, says Pundlik, was a brainstorming session in which the IT team decided to create an off-the-shelf application that would help managers and CIOs stay in sync with the issues discussed and milestones set during business meetings.

Pundlik decided to go online with his solution. He created a portal and called it the 'tracker system.' It helps create individual dashboards, send e-mail reminders and enhance the ability to park agenda items for subsequent meetings.

"All points discussed and commitments made in a meeting are captured online during the meeting, at the end of which, the minutes of the meeting are mailed to all participants," he says.

Every participant is provided with a dashboard which lists his or her commitments with deadlines, date and time. The employees were also allowed to update the list with color codes, as soon as their projects were completed. "The system generates reminders to employees when an activity nears deadline," says Pundlik.

The only challenge was to make sure that the system was user friendly and for that they banked on an experienced member of the IT team.

The system helped the enterprise monitor the projects allotted to individuals and teams, and at the same time assess the progress made on a regular basis.  Since the distribution of work thus became clear, it was possible for the participants to straightaway discuss the progress of projects.

It was hugely beneficial for Wyeth because it helped it regulate the cost and time spent on all its meetings, which helps the pharmaceutical concentrate on actions plans rather than wasting time on progress assessment.

The Person Behind It

Anant Pundlik

Director Information Services Wyeth

“We are now able to focus on actions plans rather than wasting time on project assessment."