Drug Research Firm Cuts Costs and Boosts Training Quality with Collaboration Solution

Microsoft Customer Solution Customer Solution Case Study

Overview “We expect to pay for our initial investment in ProtoSphere Country or Region: United States and Lync Server 2010 by the end of 2011—an ROI of about Industry: Life sciences—Pharmaceutical contract research organizations six months.”

Customer Profile Mike Wilkinson, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer, PPD PPD is a global contract research organization serving biopharmaceutical clients. It is headquartered in PPD, a global contract research organization serving clients in Wilmington, North Carolina. the biopharmaceutical industry, wanted to improve the quality

Business Situation of employee training while reducing travel costs and enhancing PPD wanted to improve the quality of its collaboration across the company. PPD implemented PPD® 3D, a employee training, while reducing travel costs, by employing new forms of custom-tailored version of ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010 from collaboration that could also be used for Microsoft partner ProtonMedia. ProtoSphere builds on Microsoft other company functions. Lync Server 2010 with a virtual space in which users collaborate Solution through the use of three-dimensional avatars. PPD has used PPD deployed PPD® 3D, a customized version of the ProtoSphere virtual ProtoSphere to boost knowledge retention for trainees, thus collaboration environment from making them more effective employees. Reduced travel costs ProtonMedia. PPD 3D takes advantage of the communications features of have helped the company recoup its software investment in less Microsoft Lync Server 2010. than six months. Building on the foundation of ProtoSphere and

Benefits Microsoft Lync Server 2010, PPD and ProtonMedia are currently Improved trainee engagement expanding the groundbreaking collaborative experiences into ROI of six months Competitive differentiation through other business processes. expanded services Situation For years, Wilkinson had been on the PPD is a leading global contract research lookout for ways to improve PPD training, organization providing drug discovery, ideally through a combination of increasing development, and lifecycle management knowledge retention and reducing costs. services to support its clients in developing However, PPD also had wider goals. It was medical treatments. The company’s clients seeking to investigate new methods of and partners include pharmaceutical, collaboration that could improve clinical biotechnology, medical device, academic, trials. and government organizations. PPD has offices in 44 countries and more than “The ‘e-clinical’ approach is very hot right 11,000 employees worldwide. Its 2010 net now,” Wilkinson says. “Everyone in the revenue was U.S.$1.4 billion. industry is seeking to use technology to run trials more quickly, at reduced cost, with “Pharmaceutical research is a highly reduced burden on the patient and on the regulated environment, so it’s extremely site—all while maintaining the highest important that our quality is high,” says quality.” Mike Wilkinson, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer of PPD. “It’s In short, PPD was looking for a new also a highly competitive environment, collaboration solution that could improve which means our performance has to be the quality and reduce the costs of training, high. To continuously improve quality and as well as show promise in providing similar performance, we put a lot of effort into benefits across the company. training.” Solution A major component of PPD training is a 10- PPD investigated numerous approaches to day course for new clinical research improving training and collaboration. “We associates who monitor clinical trials. “We assessed several companies over the years hire experienced monitors, so we’re going and didn’t see much value, didn’t see good beyond the basics to teach them how we return on investment,” Wilkinson says. “So do monitoring at PPD,” Wilkinson says. we kept looking.” Traditionally, the courses were led by instructors using slides and other media to In December 2010, PPD learned about a show the types of activities that clinical solution called ProtoSphere from research associates perform in their jobs. ProtonMedia, a Microsoft partner with a Silver Unified Communications PPD hires people all around the globe so competency. ProtoSphere is a virtual they can be close to customer and research collaboration environment in which sites. One drawback of this system was that individuals engage in highly social, employees had to travel to a regional hub interactive, and visually appealing three- for training. “Over the course of a year, we dimensional virtual spaces. paid close to $2 million in travel costs for this training,” Wilkinson says. ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010 enhances the functions of Microsoft Lync Server 2010

25 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. “We The primary integration involved provide a visual layer and additional reconfiguring the traditional PPD training integration that help companies take full for a virtual environment. “We didn’t have advantage of the always-on, unified to do much from the technology communications benefits of Lync Server perspective,” Wilkinson says. “But you don’t 2010,” says Ron Burns, CEO of want to take a paper-based training ProtonMedia. For example, ProtoSphere methodology and run it virtually. So we provides text chat, voice over IP, restructured the content and format to take application sharing, blogs, wikis, and user advantage of virtual delivery.” For example, profiles—but it does so in the context of a PPD reduced its reliance on slideshows and networked environment in which each user provided more activities mimicking those is represented by a three-dimensional that employees perform in their jobs. avatar. ProtoSphere shows the avatar moving through space and interacting with At PPD, Lync Server 2010 and PPD 3D run people and groups, thus providing a on virtualized HP ProLiant DL580 server context that helps enrich those interactions. computers. As of November 2011, eight (See Figures 1 and 2.) PPD 3D training courses have been completed. In the second phase of the “We saw great potential in the software, project, PPD and ProtonMedia are and we had great chemistry with the exploring e-clinical initiatives that take ProtonMedia leadership team,” Wilkinson advantage of the ProtoSphere and says. Furthermore, PPD had just embarked Microsoft Lync Server 2010 infrastructure. on a partnership with Microsoft and was implementing Lync Server 2010, SharePoint Benefits Server 2010, the Active Directory service, PPD has used ProtoSphere and Lync Server and Microsoft Office 2010. So PPD was 2010 to improve trainee engagement, impressed that ProtoSphere takes reduce costs, and achieve a six-month ROI. advantage of all these Microsoft The solution has also given the company a technologies—technologies that PPD was lot of potential to explore new already familiar with. groundbreaking opportunities it can offer its customers using the same infrastructure. In March 2011, PPD signed a partnership deal with ProtonMedia that called for PPD Improved Trainee Engagement to implement a customized version of PPD is using the rich virtual environment of ProtoSphere Lync Edition 2010—named ProtoSphere to improve the performance PPD 3D—and for the two companies to of employees in its training programs. work together to develop e-clinical “They’re more engaged because the initiatives. PPD spent three months tailoring software is fun,” Wilkinson says. “For the software to its business processes and example, a huge advantage over standard executed its first PPD 3D training session in distance-learning solutions is that in June. ProtoSphere it’s easy to break people into private conversation circles and then reconvene a larger group. Trainers love to

35 break people into small groups, and we required little development time or cost. couldn’t do this with any other solution.” “We used mostly out-of-the-box functionality,” Wilkinson says. Furthermore, ProtoSphere helps trainees continually pay attention. “In the past, it The result is an extraordinary return on was easy for a trainee to disengage from investment. “We expect to pay for our the constant barrage of slides and pure initial investment in ProtoSphere and Lync classroom time,” Wilkinson says. “But now Server 2010 by the end of 2011—an ROI of they spend less time in the classroom and about six months,” Wilkinson says. more time with activities. They can do virtual monitoring with virtual instructors Competitive Differentiation Through looking over their shoulders.” Expanded Services PPD is eager to use ProtonMedia and In post-training surveys, participants gave Microsoft technologies in other areas of the the virtual course higher scores than the company. “The training piece is extremely face-to-face course for relevance, important to us, but we also used it to comprehensiveness, and learning bring this software into the company,” outcomes. The increased engagement Wilkinson says. “We have all kinds of means that employees can get more value opportunities throughout our business to out of the training, reaching a richer have teams meet virtually instead of over understanding of PPD procedures. the phone or via traditional online conferencing.” Wilkinson says, “In coming years, we expect PPD 3D to improve our employees’ quality One advantage of such virtual meetings is and performance, resulting in a more that documents or presentations that were successful company.” shared in the meeting stay in the virtual room. “If you missed a teleconference, you ROI of Six Months don’t have to wait for the minutes to come In the first three months with ProtoSphere out,” Wilkinson says. “You can go into the Lync Edition 2010, PPD drastically reduced room and everything is still there. The travel costs. “There are some cases where event has persistence.” we want less-experienced employees to PPD plans to take advantage of these have face-to-face time with their opportunities not only within the company, managers,” Wilkinson says. “But in most but also with external partners. Many of the cases we are able to eliminate our training company’s partners in clinical trials use travel costs.” Microsoft technologies. Thus PPD plans to use Lync Server 2010 to federate with these Furthermore, ProtoSphere Lync Edition trusted partners. Federation makes it 2010 represents a low cost of entry to a possible for organizations to communicate collaboration solution for PPD. It costs less in real time in an encrypted, authenticated, than videoconferencing solutions, which and managed environment. With require cameras. And although PPD 3D is a federation and ProtoSphere, Wilkinson customized version of ProtoSphere, it hopes to achieve the dual benefits of

45 improved performance and lower costs. Microsoft Server Product Portfolio “Federation could be a game-changer for For more information about the Microsoft us,” he says. server product portfolio, go to: www.microsoft.com/servers Wilkinson hopes that these collaborative e- clinical initiatives will result in improved competitive advantage for PPD. “With ProtonMedia and Microsoft, we can differentiate our services for our customers, showing that we can achieve better results more quickly, and at lower cost than our competitors.”