Zinc Case Studies
One: Compliance
Challenge:
Client 1 received some complaints from other industry members regarding some of the materials they produced, and some of the activities they had undertaken.
In order to make sure that all of their future materials and activities fell within local guidelines, Client 1 began to draw up more robust and regulated operating procedures. During this process, it became clear that several different approval methods were being used across the company, which led to confusion among stakeholders. Recognizing that a single, universal process would help their company, Client 1 decided to contact Zinc Ahead.
Implementation:
Client 1's key priorities were visibility, transparency, and above all, accountability. They needed a system which allowed clear overview of the entire copy approval process to promote and ensure consistency across the portfolio.
Zinc MAPS was quickly rolled out throughout the company, and was being used by over 200 of Client 1's stakeholders within a short two-month period. Not only was implementation rapid, but Client 1 was pleased to find that Zinc MAPS fulfilled all of their defined requirements, whilst providing a range of other useful features.
Results:
Following the implementation of Zinc MAPS, Client 1 saw impressive results:
- Approval time was halved within six months.
- All brand teams operate under one SOP, regulated by the Zinc MAPS system.
- A team was created to monitor and randomly audit the quality of materials entering and leaving the Zinc MAPS system. This allowed quality control of all material undergoing review, a feat which would have been impossible before Zinc MAPS.
- All approved materials are now stored in one place, with restricted access where appropriate.
- Staff benefitted from a greater understanding of the copy approval process, thanks to the simplicity and clarity of the Zinc MAPS system.
- Hard copy job bag storage was reduced, saving material resources.
Two: Time Saving
Challenge:
All life sciences companies employ professionals of the highest calibre, and due to the potential consequences of inaccurate material, only the best are involved in the review process.
Because approval stakeholders are so important, they also need to contribute their expertise to other areas of the business. This makes it critical that the company's review process is as swift and efficient as possible.
Research carried out across 31 pharmaceutical companies in the UK shows that approval stakeholders spend up to 30% of their time on the review process. A lot of this time is taken up by simple clerical tasks, such as tracking job bags, which could easily be automated, saving time and money.
Client 2 is a small-medium sized life sciences company where 30 people are involved in the approval of promotional material. Here, review time was found to cost the company approximately £150,000 per year.
Implementation:
Client 2's key priority was to find an approval method that could save time for its viewers, thus saving money for the company. Zinc MAPS was rolled out across the company, and in no time, Client 2 had a simple, time-saving method of completing the approval process.
Results:
After implementation of Zinc MAPS, Client 2 saw a 25% reduction in approval cycle time. This equated to an annual savings of £40,000 across the company. For Client 2, Zinc provided the time and cost saving benefits they needed.
Three: Capacity Benefits
Challenge:
Every professional in the life sciences industry is faced with the difficulty of balancing a large workload. Reducing the amount of time that approval stakeholders devote to copy approval can give them more time to spend on other work, leading to increased capacity within the company.
Client 3 is a medium-sized company that found itself suffering loss of capacity due to a slow approval process. Not only were individual employees spending large amounts of their time on approval, but approval cycles were lengthy, meaning that the overall number of pieces of material completing the process was low.
Implementation:
Client 3's key priority was to increase the efficiency of their approval process, leading to faster approval cycles and saving time for its employees.
Zinc MAPS shows information on materials moving through the approval process in a clear, logical way, so that everyone knows where everything is at all times. This easy tracking system makes it much easier for approval teams to process materials, meaning that more can be undertaken in less time.
Results:
Client 3 implemented Zinc MAPS during late 2003, and by 2004, over 91 of its employees were using the application daily. The new-found speed and efficiency of their approval process with Zinc MAPS had an immediate effect: by the end of their first full year with the application, Client 3 had approved at least 1200 pieces of material.
Over the next five years, Client 3 expanded dramatically as several outstanding product launches occurred. As a part of this expansion, the number of employees increased, and before long over 125 approval stakeholders were using Zinc MAPS. This represented a 37% increase in the size of the user group from 2004 to 2008, a rapid expansion with which Zinc was able to cope easily.
Alongside this increase in the number of approval stakeholders came an increase in the number of materials to be approved. By 2008, over 3,000 jobs were being approved a year—a 150% increase in what Client 3 was able to achieve without Zinc MAPS.
Four: Accelerated Approval Lead-Time
Challenge:
Research shows that an average approval cycle takes between three and six weeks to complete. In the increasingly competitive life sciences industry, having a slow approval process can hinder a company by preventing them from giving a rapid response to competitive threats. Reasons for a slow approval cycle include:
- Reviewers being out of the office.
- Items being held by reviewers who are unable to complete their review due to other workload pressures.
- Items going missing during the approval process due to tracking problems.
Implementation:
As a web-based application, Zinc MAPS can be accessed from any location. Reviewers can even review off-line if necessary. The application also allows a variety of different workflow modes which enable faster approval cycles, including “Open Access Review”. Open Access Review lets reviewers check out materials on a first-come, first-served basis, which prevents the problem of one team member blocking review by others. This helps to speed up review cycle times, and keeps reviewers happy by letting them carry out their duties when they have time available.
Most importantly of all, Zinc MAPs has a high level of transparency, which ensures that items are never misplaced. This also encourages team members to complete their review efficiently and on-time.
Results:
Zinc Ahead analyses all performance improvements versus baseline during each Zinc MAPS implementation.
The chart below shows the results of the pooled analysis of recent implementations of Zinc MAPS in seven life sciences companies. This data was generated during the initial three-month launch phase of Zinc MAPS.
Overall, Zinc MAPS demonstrates a highly significant (p<0.0001) reduction in approval lead-time of 57% against baseline.
Five: Qualitative Performance Improvements
Challenge:
Clients often report that standard approval processes are frustrating and stressful parts of their job. Improving the simplicity and efficiency of your approval system could transform the attitudes of your stakeholders to approval processes, increasing job satisfaction.
Implementation:
Because Zinc MAPS has been designed specifically for the life sciences industry, all of the functions within the application have been optimised for this sector and developed to be as simple and intuitive as possible. Such additions to the Zinc MAPS interface make the approval process significantly more simple, efficient, and enjoyable.
Results:
Qualitative data gathered from respondents in the same seven Zinc MAPS implementations outlined above illustrate the high level of benefit Zinc MAPS brings to the approval process, when compared to traditional routes of approval.
The diagram below shows the universal preference for Zinc MAPS expressed by users across seven key attributes: tracking, artwork review, cross-referencing, archiving, prioritisation, responsiveness, and compliance.
Six: Direct Cost Savings
Challenge:
Traditional paper-based approval processes are time-consuming, and costly. Not only must printing and consumables be paid for, but also postage and couriers, as well as archiving once approval is complete. Together, these costs can amount to a significant expense for the company.
Client 4 was one such company that found itself spending large amounts on its paper-based material review process. In total, over 90 employees were involved in the paper-based material process, and providing print copies of the material for each approval stakeholder was taking its toll.
Implementation:
Client 4 set up a competitive tender process, and invited Zinc Ahead to participate alongside vendors of non-sector specific promotional compliance systems. They quickly chose Zinc MAPS as their preferred solution, thanks to the excellent fit it provided with the client's requirements.
Results:
Before implementation of Zinc MAPS, the cost of paper-based approval at Client 4 was measured and found to be about £200,000 a year. The breakdown of these costs is summarised in the table below.
| Cost Category | Approximate Annual Costs |
|---|---|
| General Consumables (Paper, etc.) | £5,000 |
| Couriers/Post/Fax | £100,000 |
| Draft Artwork Print | £90,000 |
| Archiving | £5,000 |
Six months after implementation of Zinc MAPS, Client 4 conducted a re-evaluation of the costs of their new approval process. Their analysis showed that costs had been reduced by 70%, making the total implementation cost-saving in year one.
Looking toward the future, Client 4 also projected a total saving of £300,000 versus baseline over the course of the next three years.
Seven: Competitiveness Improvements
Challenge:
Zinc Ahead has been implementing Zinc MAPS projects since 2001. As the business cases outlined in other case studies illustrate, all of our clients gain a wide range of benefits as a result of these implementations. Although these benefits are varied, they can be summed up in a single word: competitiveness.
Increased competitiveness has been a very tangible result of the implementation of Zinc MAPS for Client 5. An up-and-coming life sciences company, Client 5 had a highly successful product in an extremely competitive therapy area. Some important new data relating to their product was being presented at an international medical conference on a different continent. Whilst some key members of the brand team were attending the meeting, other members of the approval team had to remain in the office.
The data had been embargoed prior to presentation, meaning that although the client was able to undertake some preparatory work; final press materials couldn't be prepared until the data was known.
Implementation:
Client 5 was already a user of Zinc MAPS, but had yet to use it under such high-pressure circumstances.
Results:
The new data was presented over a weekend and showed an overwhelming benefit for Client 5's product. Within the space of a few hours, the client was able to create and approve all of the relevant press material, as well as sale-force briefing documents.
Due to the web-based nature of Zinc MAPS, the approval team had been able to work effectively, in some cases from home, over a weekend, to ensure that all of the necessary communication materials were produced and delivered in the shortest time frame possible. This allowed Client 5 to ensure that the maximum possible competitive advantage was gained for their product. After the event, Client 5 fed back positively to Zinc Ahead, commenting, that without the help of Zinc Maps, their competitive edge would not have been possible.
Eight: Pan-Regional Sharing
Challenge:
Many life science companies operate on a global level, with affiliates across the world. Each country typically has its own national regulations for ensuring compliance of promotional materials; however, re-creating material from within each affiliate can be incredibly time-consuming.
Implementation:
The architecture of Zinc MAPS has been developed to enable global life sciences companies to comply effectively with local regulations applicable to each affiliate, as well as to drive synergies between affiliates and headquarters. Not only can team members from different countries collaborate easily on the creation of a document, they can also easily share documents, which can then be tailored to the local market.
Results:
Clients use the country/regional architecture of Zinc MAPs in three basic ways, as shown by the diagram below:
Scenario 1: Corporate to Affiliate Distribution
Template materials produced at global/regional Headquarters can be easily distributed to affiliates for approval, tailored to the requirements of local regulatory agencies. Zinc MAPS also allows the approved reference package used in the corporate/global approval process to be quickly re-used by local affiliates, saving time and improving the quality of materials.
After material-sharing, senior team members at Headquarters have the ability to see whether template materials have been adopted by each affiliate. This helps to ensure consistency of message-delivery across the company.
Scenario 2: Shared Review
Zinc MAPS makes it easy for team members to share reviews, whether they are sitting right next to each other or at opposite ends of the earth. This is particularly useful if international materials are going to be used by local affiliates and must; therefore, comply with local regulations.
Scenario 3: Implementation of Best Practice
In this highly globalised life sciences industry, materials created in an affiliate office can often be useful in other markets. With Zinc MAPS, s users at a corporate/regional level can create pan–regional materials based upon “Best Practice” in a single affiliate. This helps to make sure that every affiliate benefits from materials approved in a single country.
Nine: System Metrics
Challenge:
It is notoriously difficult to generate metrics from traditional approval processes. In many cases, even an analysis of the total volume of materials reviewed in a given period can be troublesome.
Implementation:
Implementation of Zinc MAPS includes a range of reporting tools as part of our standard package. This allows clients to easily generate metrics to measure the efficiency and quality of their promotional compliance systems.
Results:
Some of the standard reporting tools accompanying Zinc MAPS include:
The Standard Audit Report
This displays aggregated data for the approval process across a date range defined by the user. In addition, reports can be filtered by country and by product where required.
The standard audit report includes information on:
- Number of materials raised, reviewed and archived within the audit period.
- Materials raised by product/country.
- Volume of review conducted by team member.
- Average approval time by item category.
- Number of items recalled for reapproval.
Time to Approve Report
The Time to Approve Report provides the user with a detailed analysis of the time taken to approve each item within the pre-defined audit period. Data is also aggregated to show the mean time to approve material by product, as well as a mean figure for all items within each country.
User Responsiveness Report
The User Responsiveness Report shows users the mean time taken for each team member to complete their comments on items reviewed within a pre-defined period.
This report is particularly helpful for identifying where items often get stuck in the material review process. It can be used to create a business case for the provision of additional resources within a review team, or even to set KPIs for approval teams. Without Zinc MAPS, it would be impossible to generate such useful metrics.