The case of the pharmaceutical multinational Zambon, which equipped 120 scientific informants and agents with iPads. «A Mobile Enterprise Management solution in software-as-a-service allows us to erase data when necessary, configure and enable functions remotely, distribute applications, and check data traffic»
Of Daniele Lazzarin MOBILE MANAGEMENT 27 May 2014 WIRELESS INNOVATION
Since its appearance on the market in 2010, the tablet computer has been hailed by many sectors as the ideal tool for certain categories of workers. A typical example are informants and agents of the pharmaceutical sector, among which the tablet is in fact starting to be very popular and in some cases it has even already replaced (or is about to do so) the laptop as the only working device.
An interesting case in this respect is that of Zambon, the Italian pharmaceutical multinational, a case we spoke toFederico Marzio, IT business area sales & marketing of Zambon Group. «Zambon is an Italian entrepreneurial reality that has been operating in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry for 108 years in three therapeutic areas: respiratory, pain, women. The Zambon Group, which has its headquarters in Milan, today employs more than 2,600 collaborators and about 900 informants and 100 agents in 73 countries and 21 operating branches», explains Marzio.
Zambon's "field force" typically addresses to doctors, providing scientific information in the practice and in the hospital, and pharmacists, promoting products and collecting orders. «Previously these people had been equipped with laptops for years, but their work is characterized by long waiting times compared to the actual interaction with doctors and pharmacists, so on average, only the 1% carries the pc with it while it works: they usually print what they need during their daily work, and then at home in the evening they enter the orders on the PC».
For these reasons, continues Marzio, the Marketing & Sales functions have been asking for years Mobile tools and applications for the Field Forces: «For scientific representatives, there was a need for an updated medical file, preparation for visits to doctors, immediate reporting with precise information; for Agents in the pharmacy, order entry and status functions, credit checks, and for both profiles, sales statistics and promotional material in electronic format».
The vision of the tablet as a "consumer" only tool has been overcome
To make these functions available on the move, pharmaceutical companies have experimented with various tools over time, including PDAs with stylus pens and convertible PCs, but at the time of its appearance, in 2010, the tablet computer seemed the ideal tool. «As IT we started proposing it right away, but at the beginning in our sector it was seen as very consumer tool, because compared to the PC, there was no possibility of managing security and applications».
The problem was solved by Zambon adopting a Mobile Enterprise Management (MEM) solution in mode Software-As-A-Service (SaaS). After a search on specialized suppliers it was chosen AirWatch (recently acquired by vmware): «This solution allows us to manage the security of 120 iPads, of which 80 in Italy and the rest in Holland, Belgium and Spain, in terms of "wipe" the device (deletion of data in the event of theft, loss or illicit behaviour, ed), and rules of configuring, enabling or disabling its featuresas well as the distribution of Apps, and verification of data traffic and roaming».
Apps distributed through the “Zambon Store”
More precisely the Apps are distributed through the “Zambon Store”, accessible directly from an icon on the iPad: «We have Our apps for scientific promotion (presentation of scientific material, clinical studies, advertising, etc.), CRM(medical files, visits and essays, profiling, etc.), order entry for agents, Business Intelligence, while other Apps downloadable from the Apple Store allow you to completely replace the company PC with the iPad».
In fact, Marzio continues, already today the 40% of the Zambon field force uses the iPad, And the definitive decommissioning of the PCs is expected by June. Reception is in fact very favorable also because the company also allows personal use of the iPad: «Initially the Apple Store was unusable on these tools, but then we realized that we were losing an opportunity because users can discover in a personal capacity Apps useful for their work".
Personal use is also permitted, as well as that of Dropbox and Google Drive
Periodically therefore the IT sends a report to the sales management with the Apps used for the appropriate checks, but there is also a mechanism whereby the individual user can propose an App that he deems useful to the sales management, who in the event of a favorable opinion, asks IT to distribute it to all iPads.
Even the use of public cloud repositories such as Dropbox and Google Drive it is allowed: «In these cases there is in fact a risk of data exposure, but whistleblowers use the public cloud only to save non-sensitive data – underlines Marzio -. The strategic and sensitive data are on the PCs of the area managers and on the central systems; with the iPad it is only possible to view them, but not to export them».
Finally, the SaaS method chosen for the MAM solution, concludes Marzio, has resulted in several benefits: «The implementation took two weeks and one person, which is also sufficient for day-to-day management, relationship with App vendors, App distribution and new policy implementation, while updates and patches are delivered automatically by Airwatch».
