The Vice President IT in a $20B global pharmaceutical company sought to transform the organization from a reactive, order-taking organization to a strategic business partner. The company’s use of IT was lagging behind industry standards. Gaining a broad view of all existing and planned efforts was virtually impossible. Decision-making and governance of projects was decentralized and only focused on “bottom up” execution. It was also clear that IT investment levels needed to increase to support business growth. The selection of these investments became a strategic issue for the business division leaders within R&D, manufacturing, and sales. Once initiated, a critical need for consistent management of investments emerged.

1. Challenge
The Vice President IT in a $20B global pharmaceutical company sought to transform the organization from a reactive,
order-taking organization to a strategic business partner. The company’s use of IT was lagging behind industry
standards. Gaining a broad view of all existing and planned efforts was virtually impossible. Decision-making and
governance of projects was decentralized and only focused on “bottom up” execution. It was also clear that IT
investment levels needed to increase to support business growth. The selection of these investments became a
strategic issue for the business division leaders within R&D, manufacturing, and sales. Once initiated, a critical need for
consistent management of investments emerged.
The VP faced several challenges related to the transformation of his organization, including a parochial view of IT
support organizations, no tracking of business benefits, no basis for IT to participate in discussions for selection or
prioritization of projects, and a project execution focused organization.
Solution
UMT was asked to support the transformation of the organization by introducing the Microsoft Office Project Portfolio
Server (formerly known as “UMT Portfolio Manager”) and a
project portfolio management process which included
delivering value through 2 major dimensions:
1. Governance: Provide an enterprise view of the
portfolios within and across divisions.
2. Communication: Improve the dialog between IT and
Business leaders.
And, position the organization to evolve portfolio
management in an additional three dimensions:
3. Alignment: Align IT projects with business strategy.
4. Prioritization: Prioritize investment based on strategic value.
5. Optimization: Apply portfolio analysis to optimize the utilization of resources and investments.
Big Pharma: IT Project Portfolio Management
Improves Business Alignment and Transforms Organization
A UMT Case Study
Create
Portfolio
Select
Portfolio
Plan
Portfolio
Manage
Portfolio
Contributors: Business Division and Functional Leaders, Sen-
ior Management, UMT Consultant, 1 UMT
Account Manager
Time to Success: 8 Months
Deliverables: 5 dimension portfolio management process
Benefits: Visibility, IT Business Alignment, better
communication

2. The introduction of new project portfolio process was a
major shift within the IT organization and the business
divisions.
A phased approach was required to allow the process, IT
organization, and business divisions to all mature and evolve
together. The first step was to gain visibility into the existing inventory of IT projects. The creation of this
inventory enabled IT to engage business divisions in broader discussions of not just system requirements, but also
business needs. Gaining control of demand management and the ability to consistently track all IT projects was a
critical first step in transforming the IT organization. With the VP of IT and his senior management team, UMT
designed, communicated, and supported the processes and workflow for demand management and portfolio
tracking. These initial processes were designed with a vision for future expansion of the IT Project Portfolio
capabilities to support project selection, prioritization, and portfolio optimization.
Results
A robust process was implemented and supported first within a few critical IT divisions (R&D Informatics, Sales and
Marketing, and Manufacturing). Over time, the process was adopted across the whole organization and a new
organizational unit was developed to support the process.
The IT organization has achieved a new level of participation with their business partners. IT projects are viewed as
business projects with an IT component.
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Software
Microsoft Project Server
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Reporting Services
Microsoft Windows Server