Quick facts

	SAP software fully supports our growth strategy by providing accurate and ontime information and by helping our staff improve their overall performance.
Éderson L. Osório, Administrative Director, Prati-Donaduzzi

Prati-Donaduzzi is a fast-growing Brazilian pharmaceutical firm involved in the research, manufacturing, packaging, and distribution of medicines for 30,000 drugstores. To meet growing demand and increasingly complex regulatory and product management requirements, the company needed more-timely and accurate information. A year after implementing the SAP® ERP application, Prati-Donaduzzi had grown by 30%, streamlined its business processes, and improved regulatory compliance.

• Industry: Life sciences – pharmaceuticals
• Revenue: US$140 million
• Employees: 2.400
• Headquarters: Toledo, Brazil
• Web Site: www.pratidonaduzzi.com.br
• SAP® Solution and Services: SAP® ERP application
• Implementation Partner: Plaut Consulting
• Key Challenges:
  Support company’s fast-growth strategy
  Improve visibility and control of key business processes
  Improve accuracy of costing and profitability indicators
  Comply with industry requirements
  Align business needs with IT solutions
  Consolidate financial and accounting statements of 4 subsidiaries
• Implementation Best Practices:
  Use of standard software for 90% of company requirements
  Dedicated implementation team
  Completion within 5.5 months
  Selection of an implementation partner with strong industry experience
• Financial and Strategic Benefits:
  Enhanced decision making through greater accuracy and timeliness of management reporting
  Greater costing accuracy
  Full regulatory and accounting compliance
  Streamlined auditing for manufacturing partners
  Ability to measure employee performance, spurring staff initiatives and efficiencies
• Why SAP Was Selected?
  Scalable functionality
  Worldwide pharmaceutical references
  SAP’s commitment to research and development
  Extensive support for implementation
  Robust functionality that incorporates industry best practices, including those for process redesign
• Low Total Cost of Ownership:
  Increase in overall employee productivity via reduced rework and manual reporting
  Replacement of a highly customized solution with a standard solution that meets specific business and industry requirements
  Empowerment of business users to customize their own reports, which reduced IT development backlog
• Operational Benefits:
  Ability to generate invoices 90% faster
  Ability to close books 80% faster
  Greater inventory accuracy
  Reduction in on-hand inventory
  Reduction in inventory obsolescence
  Less IT help tickets

Supporting Innovation and Growth

Founded in 1993, Prati-Donaduzzi is a fast-growing pharmaceutical company with about 150 current products and 70 products in the pipeline. Headquartered in Toledo, Brazil, the company is involved in the research, manufacturing, packaging, and distribution of drugs and boasts about 300 R&D employees. Its key markets include the Brazilian government, drugstores, and production outsourcing units for major pharmaceutical companies.

To meet its growth objectives, Prati knew it had to align its IT and business strategies, gain greater visibility into and control over its key business processes, and enhance compliance with industry requirements. The company lacked tools for determining the true cost of its products. Because it had difficulties controlling its inventory effectively, Prati-Donaduzzi had to conduct physical stock counts several times each year.

After evaluating three solutions to replace its outdated, highly customized IT landscape, the company chose the SAP® ERP application. Prati-Donaduzzi was particularly impressed with SAP’s pharmaceutical experience and with the industry best practices embedded in SAP solutions. Implementation of the new software, which took about five and a half months and was supported by Plaut Consulting, prompted the reengineering of many key processes and adoption of industry best practices.

Accurate Costing and Inventory Counts with Less Effort

With consolidated financial information and automated processes enabled by the SAP software, Prati-Donaduzzi can more effectively monitor the overall performance of its subsidiaries. A backlog of requests for managerial reports has virtually disappeared; the company can quickly track product components and more accurately determine inventory levels and establish product costs. Within months of the implementation, inventory levels and obsolescence had been reduced.

“Prati-Donaduzzi now has a complete solution focused on the needs of the pharmaceutical industry. Using SAP ERP, it has been able to optimize quality control processes and lower IT maintenance costs,” says Joelci Sousa, SAP director at Plaut Consulting. The company has also further benefited from a reduced need for IT business support. “The number of IT tickets has been drastically diminished, and we can give greater attention to strategic business issues,” adds Éderson L. Osório, administrative director at Prati-Donaduzzi.

Prati is now able to work more effectively with the partners to whom it outsources manufacturing. “We now use the same tracking methods as these manufacturers,” says Osório. “Whenever we mention that we run SAP software, it gives great credibility to our information.”

In addition, the company can measure job performance more accurately. This has spurred staff initiatives and efficiency and has helped employees understand their impact on the business.

A Foundation for Future Success

Prati-Donaduzzi expects to leverage its SAP investment by deploying the SAP Customer Relationship Management application and the SAP NetWeaver® Business Intelligence component to enhance performance measurements, extract better data for strategic decision making, and improve managements of complex new products over their entire life cycles.

Says Osório, “With SAP software, IT has been transformed from a growth constraint to a growth enabler.”