From ERP Selection to Enterprise Reset: Architecting a £180M Pharma's Digital Foundation
The Situation
A global speciality pharma in rare disease (£180M turnover) had committed to an ERP transformation programme and the CFO appointed me to lead the build-buy decision. The organisation was operating through a complex contract-led manufacturing and 3PL distribution network, with disconnected spreadsheets serving as the primary mechanism for stock visibility, supplier performance tracking and demand signals. Month-end close was running at 14 days, planning cycles were slow, and the board lacked the integrated reporting needed to manage a regulated, life-sciences supply chain at pace.
The Task
My remit was to lead the ERP platform selection and shape the underlying technology and operating model to support it. Early in the engagement it became clear that the inherited 3PL landscape—commercial models, contract structures, data infrastructure and integration architecture—was misaligned to the business’s supply chain reality and board reporting requirements. Selecting an ERP on that foundation would have embedded existing dysfunction into a multi-million-pound platform decision. The real task was therefore broader: stabilise the foundations, design the end-to-end target architecture, and run a credible vendor selection, while embedding governance fit for a GxP-regulated environment.
The Action / Approach
I structured the engagement around a disciplined 90-day plan to move from a standing start to vendor selection readiness, sequenced as five overlapping phases:
- Discovery & Planning, forming the selection team, defining business goals and setting budget and timeline
- Process Mapping & Requirements—an 11-week deep-dive into current state, future state design, and requirements capture
- Market Research & Vendor Shortlist—market analysis, RFP development and longlist-to-shortlist filtering
- Detailed Evaluation & Demos—live demos against scripted use cases, scorecard-based assessment and reference checks
- Final Selection & Decision—commercial negotiation, TCO finalisation and executive sign-off.
Within that frame, I began with a forensic operational and data assessment, then presented findings directly to the CIO and CFO, securing alignment that the 3PL and data model required redesign before ERP selection could credibly proceed. Working collaboratively with the executive team, I rebuilt the 3PL operating model, partner framework and integration architecture from the ground up, including a control tower framework, creating a stable foundation for vendor selection. I then designed the end-to-end integrated technology stack—defining application design patterns and data flows across ERP, Finance, Sales, WMS, CMO integration and control tower layers, and specifying non-functional requirements across the full supply chain architecture.
The Process Mapping & Requirements phase ran end-to-end discovery workshops across each functional area – Inventory & Supply Chain, Procure-to-Pay (direct and indirect), CRM/Sales, Finance (GL, AR, AP, Fixed Assets) and Quality/LIMS/QMS, documenting “as-is” and co-designing “to-be” processes with detailed requirements, prioritising process standardisation, automation, elimination of non-value-adding steps and defining roles, approval levels and master data ownership. I deliberately used L1-L3 process mapping as a data discovery tool, surfacing data requirements the organisation didn’t know it had, and delivered an ERP glossary and data harmonisation framework to establish common terminology (Sold To, Ship To, etc.) and accelerate ERP language adoption, shaping a data strategy that would support not only ERP integration but future AI operability.
In parallel, I led vendor evaluation against the complex CMO and 3PL integration requirements, conducting TPRM-aligned assessments across WMS integration, cloud/SaaS architecture and GxP compliance, and built the business case. Security, GxP, GAMP5 and GDPR governance were embedded into solution design from the outset, alongside cloud and SaaS adoption frameworks. I designed a Minimum Viable Operating Model for O2C, P2P/S2P, S2F and R2R processes across the contract-led network, and established a greenfield PMO with integrated master planning, RAID management, dependency mapping, decision authority matrices and stage-gate controls to govern agile workstream delivery throughout the 90 days.
The Result
The redesigned architecture and operating model delivered a 50% reduction in planning cycle times and £4M in working capital optimisation, replacing fragmented spreadsheets with a single, governed, integrated view of stock, supplier performance, exceptions and demand. The ERP business case evidenced a £500K TCO reduction, vendor evaluation was accelerated by 40%, and the recommendation secured unanimous C-suite alignment within the 90-day window. The MVOM cut month-end close from 14 days to 5 and reduced compliance, fraud and financial risk by 50%. Perhaps most importantly, by using process design as a data discovery exercise, the organisation emerged with a data strategy positioned not just for ERP integration but for the next wave of agentic AI capability—turning what began as an ERP selection into a foundational reset of the enterprise’s digital and data architecture.
