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Laying the foundations for large-scale technology transformation
Software and Technology
Addressing underlying organizational issues with user research techniques at a global medical affairs company
Modernizing outdated technology is challenging for any organization, but technology is often mistakenly identified as the root cause of all business problems. During large-scale technology transformations, underlying organizational issues can also be a significant factor hindering innovation and must be addressed to smooth the path to success.
Our client, a global medical affairs company, recognized its product lifecycle platform was reaching the end of its lifespan. To maintain its competitive edge, the company needed a modern solution that would be easier to use, cheaper to maintain and provide a more user-friendly and reliable service for its customers.
As we explored the best way to achieve this, it became clear that a long-term rebuild was the best approach. However, technology wasn’t the only challenge – broader issues around processes, culture and ways of working would also need to be resolved to enable effective transformation.
We pivoted our approach to provide a holistic set of recommendations, helping the company understand and address the foundational issues at play. With this, the organisation gained immediate value and is better prepared to rebuild its platform in the future.
Outcomes
12 weeks
to deliver rapid guidance
16 hours
of interviews with staff members
40 recommendations
across technology and ways of working
About the client
Our client is a leader in medical affairs, providing software and solutions for the pharmaceutical industry. A global company with offices in North America, the organization works with more than 200 pharma and biotech companies.
Industry
Software and Technology
Organisation size
1,000 employees
Location
North America
Length of project
12 weeks
Challenge
Preparing for technical transformation and modernization
The drug approval process is long, complicated and time-consuming. Attention to detail is paramount as a single error or missed deadline can have disastrous consequences for a pharmaceutical company.
Our client created a software product that simplified this laborious and difficult process, building a reputation as an industry leader. However, with software continually evolving and new competitors emerging, it needed to modernize its product to maintain its leading position.
Seeing the value in pivoting to a Software as a Service (SaaS) product, the organization first engaged Equal Experts to review if the current on-prem solution could be rearchitected. However, we uncovered limitations in the product, including an outdated tech stack and legacy development and design practices, which meant this would be a difficult and costly approach to take.
Unlimited customer customizations and configurations had also increased complexity, work and confusion, with more than 40 unique instances of the product in use. Updates were risky to deploy and required collaboration with customers, a time-consuming and costly process which also led to rising customer dissatisfaction.
Our initial recommendations outlined technical gaps and alternative solutions, including a ‘strangle’ approach – incrementally rebuilding sections of the product, and maintaining integration with the current platform before deprecating the old component. Although the organization took steps to evolve and modernize the existing platform, a later follow-up review revealed that the product was more tightly integrated than anticipated, making incremental changes more complex than originally understood.
Solution
Using user-research methods to understand organizational issues
As part of a new 12-week engagement, we conducted a discovery exercise to identify technology interventions to support the organization’s aims. While some progress towards modernizing the platform had begun, such as migration to the cloud, many of the technical gaps remained and the numerous versions of the platform still hindered progress. We reiterated our view that the product could not be evolved and that a new platform was required to achieve a modern customer experience, stronger competitiveness, and operational efficiency.
Through our internal user research, we also uncovered varying perspectives on the company’s challenges. While technical limitations were a factor, resolvable organizational issues — including inefficient processes, resource constraints, and restricted customer service — were also hindering the software modernization process.
With support from the client, we pivoted our approach to provide a more holistic review, incorporating insights from the staff alongside a deep dive into the technology. We utilized user research methods, including staff interviews and value stream mapping, to better understand the human and organizational factors at play.
Our findings revealed that siloed working, legacy organizational structures, limited knowledge sharing and overly complicated and opaque processes were impeding the organization’s ability to deliver software. Staff morale was also low due to cumbersome development processes, lack of management oversight and support, and negative customer feedback.
By addressing these foundational issues now, the organization could unlock immediate value while preparing itself for the larger challenge of rebuilding the platform into a modern, scalable SaaS product.
Results
Addressing the root cause, not just treating the symptoms
We acknowledged that rebuilding the platform would be time-consuming and expensive, but it was ultimately the right thing to do for the long-term success of the business. While providing technology recommendations to support this, we also included suggested actions that would address the root cause of the problems – the processes and culture – rather than just treating the symptoms.
- Our suggestions included:#Empowering product leaders to determine and prioritize development, with a focus on solving root causes rather than symptoms, helping to stem unnecessary customizations.
- Creating an environment where true agile practices can be developed, including reducing the planning and preparation cycles and increasing delivery cadence with shorter sprints to reduce risk and increase quality.
- Including customers in the product design process and creating a formalized, transparent process for understanding customer needs and designing new features.
- Employing product managers across the full spectrum of the product, across all technical services, enabling them to focus, consult and feedback to teams in a consistent manner.
- Evolving a more effective way of working process, with equal visibility for all team members, and where product management is the source of truth for UX, and what is most valuable for the customer and the business.
These recommendations and the artefacts created, including start/stop/continue frameworks, are already helping the organization improve its ways of working.
Once these are embedded, the business can begin to utilize the recommendations for maintaining the current platform while a full rebuild is planned. This included:
- Continuing migration to the cloud
- Implementing best practices for version controls
- Continuing to limit feature development and begin the process of designing and building a new platform, employing a gradual release process.
- Addressing technical knowledge gaps across testing, automation, Continuous Integration/Continuous Development and monitoring.
These recommendations will provide the organization with a core framework to refer back to when they begin the redevelopment process.
Solving technical problems is always harder, longer, and more expensive to accomplish when there are underlying culture and process issues at the heart of the business. While our client has a long journey ahead to rebuild its platform for future growth, by spending time addressing the underlying organizational issues, it is seeing immediate improvements and feels better equipped to face upcoming challenges.