Just imagine this scenario: your company is being sold by its parent organization, and that means no IT infrastructure or any technology systems or platforms will remain.

You’re a tech leader without any technology infrastructure and yet business must not only continue as smooth as possible, but, as an independent entity, efficiency and saving costs are more crucial than ever to business survival.

A nightmare in the making at the very best, but that’s what one laboratory organization faced a year ago and was forced to build and develop its own enterprise resource planning system. Daunting and challenging to say the least. But the silver lining was that it had an opportunity to use better technology and increase efficiencies more than ever.

IT leadership at the Canadian testing services provider, which handled over 50 million test annually on 10 million patients, chose IBM Global Business Services to spearhead the effort for several reasons: IBM’s deep knowledge and experience in ERP programs (IBM had played an integral role when the former parent company consolidated disparate platforms and processes to the Oracle E-Business Suite), and the fact that IBM hardware is built to create dynamic Oracle environments. The company also selected IBM Application Management Services for managing the ERP engine.

As the CIO related, the effort was not only about rebuilding capabilities lost in disengagement from its parent company, but reforming an IT department and developing a brand-new infrastructure.

Initially it hoped to gain the benefits it had prior with the former parent company’s IT systems and maybe further efficiencies given new hardware innovations.

It never expected it would decrease total cost of ERP ownership by 30 percent and gain 25 percent savings in its accounts payable invoice processing. It also shaved lots of time in data entry work and resulted in improved internal customer satisfaction that reached as high at 90 percent.

A smaller business can be more nimble and the beauty of Oracle is that it provides the technology for any size enterprise. Certain Oracle modules are more suitable for the large complex environment so the lab was able to reduce prior complexities in management and administration. For example it was able to link the ERP more closely to back office functions. That move was responsible for cutting cost of ownership of the ERP system by 30 percent.

The IBM project team also configured Oracle modules to allow the testing lab to conduct perpetual inventory, which lets the company assess availability and location of necessary supplies in real time. That means tighter control inventory and less procurement costs, a double savings action.

It was also able to introduce an electronic data interchange (EDI) system in the areas of accounts payable and purchasing, which reduced data entry time and sped up payment processes.

IBM’s expertise with Oracle provided the capability to review processes and discover new ways the database software could provide more help in the ERP system.

After the infrastructure and Oracle system was in place, the lab created an internal steering committee to identify opportunities to further leverage Oracle functionality and tighten business processes.

As tech leaders relate IBM’s role as a services partner was not just about software deployment and integration, but about making the technology work best for the business by solving business issues.

What could have been a continuing nightmare ended up providing a more robust, dynamic and responsive data system that not only cut costs and streamlined processes but put the lab in the driver’s seat for better business operations going forward.