The Israeli subsidiary of a global pharmaceutical firm needed to re-platform numerous local applications to retire its end-of-life SharePoint and InfoPath platform. To speed up delivery, the company turned to OutSystems.
By using a co-delivery approach—with OutSystems professional services and Israel-based OutSystems reseller Proceed—the company ensured its team received on-the-job training while delivering a customer-facing quote-to-order system in less than two months. Set up for success, the pharma subsidiary has continued to migrate similar local applications to OutSystems.
“We were looking for a low-code platform to provide a very fast time to market. A co-delivery approach allowed us to train our developers and assure long-term success. OutSystems was the right choice. After two months, the system was up and running, and we are already working on additional customer-facing applications.”
Although this biotech firm primarily uses global standard systems, country-specific variations sometimes require local solutions. In its Israeli pharma operation, many of these local systems were developed using SharePoint and InfoPath.
In early 2021 the global company decided to decommission SharePoint and InfoPath. Its operation in Israel needed to urgently find a new way to rapidly deliver and update local applications.
“We wanted a low-code approach to be self-sufficient and make rapid changes to local applications. We investigated three low-code platforms, and OutSystems quickly emerged as our favored platform for agile development.”
The global company already used the OutSystems platform, which was available for independent use by local subsidiaries. As this was one of the first OutSystems projects to be delivered in Israel, the affiliate wanted to ensure it had the necessary local support and expertise to up-skill its new OutSystems development team.
Speed-up development and improve agility
Modernize legacy systems
Enable continuous deliveryThe pharmaceutical company partnered with Proceed, a reseller and integrator of OutSystems in Israel. It also engaged OutSystems Professional Services to deliver training and on-the-job enablement for its new development team.
“We engaged Proceed and services from OutSystems to accelerate development and benefit from their expertise,” explains the IT Manager. “We wanted to upskill our local team while delivering this project, equipping them to be self-sufficient for the future.”
OutSystems conducted an application portfolio assessment for the company, identifying 25 legacy applications that needed to be re-platformed.
“We identified our legacy customer quotation system as the first application to re-platform,” says the IT manager. “It was not overly complicated and would deliver significant business value. This made it an ideal first application to deliver while at the same time up-skilling our development team.”
Proceed Tech, a company of Proceed & HMS, is the leading reseller and integrator of Outsystems in Israel. We have certified developers, architects, tech leads and mobile developers on Outsystems....
Learn more about Proceed Tech Ltd“This was not just a lift-and-shift development project, as we wanted to improve the process at the same time,” explains the IT manager. “The old system was developed a few years ago and lacked several requirements including complex calculations, customer collaboration, and the latest security standards.”
The project was delivered in less than two months, including training three developers, scoping out the new process, and developing and testing the application. The new customer quotation tool went live at the end of December 2021.
“We were pleasantly surprised how quickly our developers mastered development on OutSystems and the quick wins we’ve delivered to the business. We’ve rapidly replaced or improved existing processes and dramatically improved the user experience. These fast results are exactly why we chose OutSystems.”
The new customer quotation portal has significantly improved efficiency thanks to end-to-end automation. “In the past, the old quotation system lacked traceability,” says the IT manager. “Once we produced a quotation, we had to compose an email to the customer and attach it manually. Now the entire process is driven through the portal. So, we can measure the end-to-end process.”
Customers log in to the portal to access their quotations, and any comments or discussions can be dealt with online. Once the customer is happy, they can sign to accept the quotation within the portal.
“That’s a much better experience for our customers,” says the IT manager. “The elimination of unstructured emails reduces the effort for our salespeople and customers, and there’s no longer a risk of delays or mistakes due to misplaced emails.”
One significant benefit that the firm gets from OutSystems is increased development reuse across the organization.
“Because the application is so polished, we’re sharing it with other subsidiaries. We never achieved this kind of reuse from a SharePoint and InfoPath development project. Reusing development in this way will improve agility across the wider organization.”
The customer quotation tool was the first of 25 local applications to migrate, and the company plans to re-platform all its SharePoint and InfoPath applications in the next few months.
