Veeva CRM is one key to Boehringer Ingelheim’s business goals. The software is used to plan and execute customer engagement across the globe – and to do it in a consistent, compliant, and user-centric way. Data from CRM generates relevant customer insights, which in turn enable Boehringer Ingelheim to deliver life-saving innovation faster and more effectively.
“We are a highly data-driven industry,” says Bhawna Paul, IT M&S Customer Facing Excellence Head at Boehringer Ingelheim. “We listen to our customers because the more we know about what customers and patients experience, the more effectively we can meet their needs.”
Gaining these insights requires fast and flawless software delivery so that users are always working with the latest, most robust version that includes the features they need to get the job done.
As a pharmaceutical company, Boehringer Ingelheim operates in a regulated environment, with compliance and data protection requirements. Meeting GxP standards – as well as the high internal standards set by Boehringer Ingelheim – requires rigorous testing to ensure systems are properly validated. And historically, this intensive testing seemed at odds with the team’s mission to deliver value faster. Before automating their testing process, it took a team of manual testers three to four days to complete testing before an update. So the team began researching what it would take to automate it. As they quickly discovered, it would be far from simple.
“Once you get deeper, you realize it requires data simulation, data access from many different sources, and application simulation for iPad in addition to the web app,” Utschig-Utschig said. It would also require testing complex use cases and collaboration across many external partners, including Veeva, Tricentis, Saucelabs, Automators, Capgemini, and msg.
The team knew this would require a new toolset and approach. “We needed a cutting-edge platform to maintain continuous delivery and allow our teams to focus on features and high-quality outcomes rather than worry about infrastructure.”