When life sciences businesses engage with contract research organizations (CRO) to perform pre-clinical testing and other scientific work, millions of dollars can be committed to contracts. Typically, research performed under contract terms comprises multiple projects which are part of larger, longer-running programs. Setting up, operating, and tracking programs and the management of the business relationships with the CROs involved are business-critical, highly consequential activities.
Too many times, neither life sciences executives nor program and business managers have the right level of visibility. Given that CRO and program management are areas of the business on which auditors like to focus, limited transparency results in the high risk of unsatisfactory audits and penalties.
Many life sciences companies experience typical program management challenges in one or several of these areas:
These well known issues are often tolerated when a company’s focus is on achieving certain scientific or medical results, and business leaders may need to handle them as emergencies when they become too troubling. However, it takes relatively little effort and investment to forestall them in the first place.
To help life sciences companies avoid and address these shortcomings, we have augmented the comprehensive business management functionality of cloud-based NetSuite ERP with comprehensive program, project, and contract management capabilities, so you can:
NetSuite provides a centralized repository for contracts, reports, and other important documents. Managing these in a separate tool can be cumbersome and error-prone. But if you do use a document or contract management or lab system that you want to retain, so your users can continue working within their accustomed software environment, we can integrate your preferred software tools with NetSuite.
In optimizing NetSuite for life sciences companies, we also connect financial and program management with stakeholder approvals, using best-practice workflows. If your contract management provides for various levels of required approvals, where managers, executives, the CEO, or even the board have to approve expenditures at certain dollar levels, we can configure the right approval workflows and show you how to adjust them to suit your service vendor engagements. For many life sciences clients, we also have added approval validations and sign-offs to further reduce any risk.
What is likely to change in your business following a fast NetSuite deployment enhanced for the life sciences business?
For one thing, you can take better control of your programs and vendors. You can project accurate financials without surprises, such as overspending. You can set up meaningful budgets and execute to them, and you can implement appropriate approvals for spending and major decisions. Audits can become less painful and more predictable. At an individual level, contributors at any level of the organization receive the information and functionality that allow them to act in the company’s best interests.
Those changes, in turn, can mean a strategic advantage in a highly competitive, rapidly evolving industry where you need to keep your eyes on your goals without being distracted by obstacles and problems that could easily have been addressed.
Visit our NetSuite for Life Sciences page to learn more and get in touch with the Sikich life sciences team.
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