CIO Straight Talk - Issue 7 - 68

68

end budgeting cycles. I can turn to my

mindset we had worked so hard to

colleagues and show them how we've

foster had stalled. Team members

identified $5 million worth of savings

had changed, and with our new-found

that's deliverable using just $500,000

freedom in the marketplace, Shire

worth of investment in full-time

immediately made an acquisition of

employee time. That's $4.5 million

our own.

worth of savings we can take to the

As we gained our identity back,

bottom line immediately. We try

we continued to make progress

to make the benefit as concrete

on a number of our initial

as we can.

recommendations and decided

And we explain not only the cost

to implement the biggest idea we

savings we'll be able to achieve but

had: a comprehensive supplier

also the improvements in efficiency

strategy, which we called Partner

and effectiveness. By consolidating

Full Potential. The hallmark of this

our change management platform,

program was to streamline our

we were able to reduce the amount

supplier landscape from 55-plus

of time it takes for a change to move

vendors to a handful that would enter

through the system by 30% and

into multi-year "exclusive" contracts

to reduce errors associated with

with Shire to deliver IT services.

management of that change.

As with our previous innovation

We have not offered any financial

initiatives, our focus would continue

incentives for employees to participate to be on value, efficiency, and cost.
in the program. Instead, we have

That program is currently in the

marketed our IT transformation

implementation phase. And while it

crowdsourcing program by

has brought significant cost savings,

highlighting the satisfaction our

we continue to look for those smaller

people get from suggesting -

opportunities that will help us deliver

and being recognized for - an

the IT services that will support

improvement that positively impacts

Shire's aspiration of becoming a

Shire's ability to serve our patients

leading biotech focused on rare

around the world. We've found that,

diseases and specialty conditions and

generally speaking, IT people are

that make IT a better place.

excited about being able to change
something for the better.

From Small Improvements
to Major Changes

As we continue to negotiate
new contracts with our suppliers,
one thing we are very keen on is
innovation. Each supplier now
includes an "innovation fund" in the
contract, which is money that comes

Last fall, a larger company made

back to Shire for our investment in

an acquisition bid for Shire. After

something new. While the original

months of uncertainty, Shire emerged

innovation initiative gained traction

from the failed acquisition as a

within IT, we are finding that

separate entity. But the innovation

suppliers are eager to participate in

One idea that we
immediately tested was
a tool that was able
to take a production
snapshot of an
environment so that
an exact copy could
be spun-up in a new
virtual environment
within a couple of
hours, thus eliminating
the need to maintain
a development
environment for that
system.
CIO Straight Talk - Issue 7

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CIO Straight Talk - Issue 7
