Building A Strong ITSM Foundation for Pharmaceutical Companies

Driven by technological advancements, regulatory changes, and the ever-growing demand for innovative healthcare solutions, the pharmaceutical industry is in a constant state of transformation. In an era of mergers and divestitures, the role of a robust IT foundation has become paramount for pharmaceutical companies to keep their mission-critical operations on track.

Meridian Medical Technologies collaborated with Praecipio to guide them through the challenges of divesting their IT operations from Pfizer and eventually merging their tools and processes after being acquired by Kindeva Drug Delivery. The Praecipio team supported both organizations in developing a post-merger IT integration strategy to streamline their ITSM processes and scale the Atlassian platform. We helped navigate cultural change and build a technology foundation that could evolve with the dynamic healthcare landscape.

Challenge:

When Meridian divested from Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company faced multiple challenges, including the need to separate IT infrastructure, applications, and support services. Meridian no longer had access to Pfizer’s massive resources for tracking service requests, asset management, incident management, and other critical ITSM processes. 

They were now working with a smaller support team as well, which made it difficult to maintain their previous ITSM software, ServiceNow. Meridian needed an ITSM platform that was right-sized for their team, could scale their service management practices, and could enable their newly formed organization to quickly get their service desk operations up and running.

Divesting from its parent company also meant navigating a tremendous amount of organizational change. The Meridian team needed help eliminating unnecessary processes, making decisions, organizing requirements, and adopting new ways of working. 

On top of these challenges, there was an added layer of stress because of the nature of Merdian’s business. Because Meridian manufactures life-saving medical devices, there was a lot of pressure to get things right.

Solution:

Meridian partnered with Praecipio to support them through the divestiture transition, which started with understanding Meridian’s current IT operations, unique challenges, and helping define their target state. Since Meridian didn’t have an existing Atlassian footprint, our first order of business was migrating their team from ServiceNow to Jira Service Management.  

Compared to ServiceNow, Jira Service Management is a more lightweight, flexible platform that is easier for teams to maintain, and enabled Meridian to get their ITSM operations up and running quickly. Praecipio helped Meridian set up Atlassian Access for user management, in addition to configuring Jira Service Management to support various ITSM processes, including service desk operations and asset management. 

Our team implemented an intuitive service desk portal with centralized request forms and built a connected knowledge base with Confluence. We also integrated Jira Service Management with Opsgenie for monitoring and resolving incidents and with Assets for simplified asset tracking. Additionally, because Meridian operates in a highly regulated environment, Praecipio helped the Meridian team set up permission-based roles to ensure industry compliance and safeguard sensitive data. 

Besides the technical configurations, Praecipio also played an important role in helping Merdian navigate major organizational change. We walked key stakeholders through prioritizing requirements, making important decisions, designing and implementing ITSM processes, and building a service management platform they could scale in the future.  

Challenge:

A year later, Meridian found itself in a very different situation after they were acquired by Kindeva and needed to merge into its IT operations. Navigating the complexities of mergers and acquisitions is always challenging for IT teams, but this particular merger presented a unique challenge because Kindeva outsourced its IT support to a managed services provider and wanted to use the merger as an opportunity to bring its IT operations in-house.

Coincidentally, Kindeva (like Pfizer) also relied on ServiceNow but wanted a more modern and flexible ITSM solution. Besides moving to a new ITSM platform, they also needed help transitioning Meridian user accounts to Kindeva’s instance and ensuring no data was lost in the process. 

Solution:

After successfully supporting Meridian with their divestiture and based on our proven success with enterprise-level Atlassian Cloud migrations, Kindeva knew Praecipio was the right partner. Because Kindeva was moving to in-house IT operations, it made sense for them to build upon the same foundation that Meridian and Praecipio had already established. Kindeva migrated from ServiceNow to Jira Service Management, which offered a more modern, user-friendly solution. Plus, Meridian users were already familiar with the platform. 

As part of the merger, Praecipio helped expand Meridian’s Jira Service Management footprint to incorporate the Kindeva support and operational functions. This included the setup and creation of a new project for the Kindeva group, as well as new workflows, user-friendly and streamlined request types, and other core Jira Service Management configurations.

Praecipio also helped Kindeva and Meridian align their teams and tools across a single Atlassian Cloud instance. This included merging Meridian and Kindeva user directories and ensuring that Meridian teams seamlessly transitioned to Kindeva accounts without losing data. 

After implementing Jira Service Management, Meridian saw significant improvements in just four weeks, including enhanced customer and employee experience, reduced incident resolution times, streamlined communication, and a simplified asset management lifecycle. Most importantly, Praecipio’s work during Meridian’s divestiture laid the groundwork for expanding its Atlassian footprint and ITSM processes.

After experiencing the magic of Atlassian’s connected suite of tools and being acquired by Kindeva, Meridian scaled its service management practices to the Kindeva organization. Praecipio helped both organizations merge their IT operations, connecting teams, processes, and tools across a unified Atlassian Cloud instance. 

By having an integrated digital ecosystem and a strong ITSM foundation, the Kindeva organization has seamlessly transitioned to in-house IT operations and ensured continued alignment with business goals and evolving industry demands.