A standard ERP solution supports accounting, finance areas, but they are unable to meet the needs of pharmaceutical companies when it comes to manufacturing, inventory , sales and purchasing.

This is mostly true as “standard” ERP applications were designed for discrete manufacturing, instead of process or batch manufacturing.

If you are evaluating a Pharmaceutical ERP solution you should ensure that the application fits the industry’s best practices and they are seamlessly available in the solution, without additional effort costs and compromises to your procedure with a workaround.

Moreover while evaluating a solution you should get a feel that it was designed for your industry and your users would be comfortable with the terminology. Vendors will assure you that anything can be changed to meet your pharmaceutical requirements, this may be true hypothetically, but any change would be a retro-fit and will never be “by design” approach.

These retro-fits may give you an output in a roundabout way which may not be acceptable in a industry where methods and processes are as critical as the end results.

It is also advisable to understand “How” your requirements are addressed by the ERP vendor. Does it provide the automation to the required process? .Does it validate at each step? .Does it minimise human error.? And many more.

It helps that your ERP partner has expertise and experience in life sciences and familiarity to the pharmaceutical industry.

In the next post we will shall explore a few critical requirements of a Pharmaceutical ERP.