Mistakes made by AstraZeneca
Discuss about the Reasons for the Mistakes of AstraZeneca.
AstraZeneca is considered as one the leading biopharmaceutical companies in the world.The company has a deep focus on the global market and thus provide services to their customers. They have their major research in discovering, developing and commercialization of some of the prescribed medicines in six major areas of health care.
The major mistake that was made by AstraZeneca was that the company had previously signed a seven years agreement of outsourcing with IBM in 2007. The contract had included several services such as hosting of servers and storage services for network communications, supply chain operations and commercials. But due to outcome based specifications, AstraZeneca had decided to exit the contract with IBM in the year 2011. The business strategies of the company were changing and the rules of the contract were not being followed.
AstraZeneca had signed a contract with IBM in 2007 but in 2011, the contract had failed. The business strategies inside the company were changing and the contract could not support the company. The IBM was not able to support the changing systems in the IT systems in the AstraZeneca Company. They were not able to stress upon the rapid actions on the technical related problems based on AstraZeneca. IBM should had been able to meet the requirements that were already set during the procedure of the agreement that was signed in 2007.
Hence, IBM should focus on meeting with the basic requirements of the technical services, which they offer to their vendors. This would help in maintaining a better relationship with their clients and would also maintain the reputation of the company (Alexander, 2013).
After the company AstraZeneca had signed of their agreement with IBM, they had decided to adopt a new model of outsourcing in order to replace the services, which were being provided by IBM. The company has decided to use multiple contracts with other multinational companies. These contracts have covered the major provisions of standard that are named as pricing and SLAs and have also designed a policy for cooperation. These contracts of outsourcing have been designed in such a way that if any urgency occurs within the biopharmaceutical company, then the vendors would be able to provide such services (Willcocks& Cullen, 2013).
AstraZeneca and IBM have been the major leading companies in their respective field of services. Although they had signed a contract between them, due to some major changes in the field of IT services, AstraZeneca had to break the rules of the contract with IBM as they were unable to provide the latest needs of the services.
Mistakes made by IBM
In the recent times, there have been many changes in the IT services related to the field of pharmaceutical companies. They have their needs, which might not have been fulfilled by IBM. They were not been able to fulfil the urgent services required in the field of IT. They might have lacked the manpower coverage or due to some technical faults, there services might have got delayed.
In 2007, AstraZeneca had signed a contract with IBM. According to the contract, IBM was supposed to deliver IT related services based on the needs of AstraZeneca. Although IBM as a reputation of their brand image, yet due to some problems, they were not been able to provide the same services to AstraZeneca. The SLA of 2007 was not doomed to fail. This was an unexpected situation on their part. IBM is the leading service provider of IT services and they have a global reputation in the world market. Hence the fall of the 2007 SLA was not expected to fall from the company. This might have affected the reputation of the company.
As the 2007 SLA had failed due to major issues that were had been possibly been faced by IBM, AstraZeneca had decided to sign off the contract before the expected period of time. They had revised their SLA in the year of 2012. They had decided to work on a new SLA and thus define their own strategy. They have decided to use several contracts with several other companies such as HCL, AT&T, Wipro, Computacenter and many others. AstraZeneca has decided to work with these IT vendors as they have thought that these IT vendors would be able to provide fast actions on the technical related problems under a supportive structure. The provisions in the 2012 SLAs has included 13 principles, which would stipulate the terms of collaboration with the company (Simmon, 2014).
Different parties prefer to choose an arbitrator instead of filing a case in the court as because it would be a longer process to deal with the situations. Moreover, if AstraZeneca had filed a case in the court with IBM, the opposition side could have claimed that AstraZeneca had not set their requirements in the contract. They were demanding extra services, which might not have been included during the signing of the contract. Hence, AstraZeneca had decided to end the agreement midway and thus search for new IT vendors who would be more efficient in providing services.
Outsourcing Contracts
Mobile Commerce Technology is also popularly known as Mobile Commerce (M-Commerce). This kind of technology in commerce helps in the buying and selling of goods and products with the help of wireless devices such as mobile phones, tablets, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and several other devices. M-Commerce is the new and latest technology in the field of E-Commerce applications. This technology enables a user to access the Internet. With the rise in the number of devices, which are getting connected to the services of internet, it has also been seen that different business in M-Commerce have also risen rapidly. The M-Commerce technology has generated great interest among the users and thus has led to the development and design of newer services (Chong, 2013).
The emerging technologies in M-Commerceis basically based on the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Previously, e-commerce had been making a major impact on the business model. The electronic commerce model dealt with trading services and products with the help of internet and other networks of computers and various other electronic systems. The activities include services in the sectors of insurance, banking, warehousing and advertising. Various transactions in the field of transportation would also be completed with the help of e-commerce. In a broader aspect, e-commerce had been conducting the business on the internet.
In the recent times, the increase in the usage of telecommunication devices and mobile phones has led to a great rise in the market of mobile commerce. M-Commerce is an updated version of e-commerce. It could be defined as the use of the e-commerce activities with the help of cellular or mobile devices.
The unique features of m-commerce could be defined as follows:
High Mobility–M-Commerce makes use of portable cellular or mobile devices. The users of M-Commerce business models are not restricted to geographical or physical locations when using commerce. The technology and devices that are used by mobile commerce are available and are easily accessible. Hence the probability of the sale has also become much higher.
Requirement of Electricity – A constant electric connection is required to power the electric devices in order to perform the activities in commerce. The increase in technology has made to implement improved battery systems, which might be a medium of backup for the users.
Convenience, Spontaneity and Comfort – In the recent times, people have their preferences to perform their purchases with the help of their desktop or the laptop computers. They can perform the commerce activities by sitting in their homes or by working at their offices.
Explanation of the fall of the 2007 SLA
Many people also find their convenience to perform their shopping activities on their cellular devices. Hence there is meagre need to rush to homes for using their laptop or personal computers at their homes. With the help of M-Commerce, users need to just use their phones or tablets in order to perform their shopping activities (Niranjanamurthy et al., 2013).
Apart from using M-Commerce to purchase apps, clothes, food it can be also used to purchase ringtones, games and online music. Bookings of various tickets and meter payments of parking could be also be performed with the help of M-Commerce.
The common services and products that are being provided by M-Commerce are:
- Mobile Banking – With the help of M-Commerce applications, it has been made possible for the users to make an inquiry of the bank balance, account management and various transactions made by a particular user.
- Purchasing and Browsing – Nowadays an individual would be able to perform their shopping activities with the help of various applications that would be installed on the mobile devices.
- Mobile ATM – At present, mobile ATM has seen a major rise as compared to the Automated Teller Machines (ATM). Users are now able to perform various transaction activities with the help of their mobile applications.
- Transfer of Money – Nowadays, money can be transferred from one’s bank account to another’s bank account directly with the help of M-Commerce applications.
There are various challenges, which are being faced by M-Commerce applications
Privacy and Security Issues – With the rise in the M-Commerce applications, there have been major security issues. The developers of M-Commerce applications should be motivated to develop such high levels of security in the applications, which would be highly difficult for hackers to penetrate and steal vital information of the customers.
Design Issues of Mobile Website – The application developers of M-Commerceshould ensure that the design of the websites of mobiles should be efficient and user-friendly. They should be able to fit on the small screens of the mobiles and tablets. Hence the developers of these applications should focus their attention on the design of the mobile websites.
Mobile Marketing – This section should be able to cover email marketing and content marketing of mobiles. Different marketers should adopt such strategies in order to gain a high position in the recent market. They should have the potential to attract their customers and also ensure that the experience of the customers should be good (Zhang, Chen & Lee, 2013).
Conclusion
Based on the above discussion on the technology of M-Commerce, it can be concluded that the use of mobile based technology and the access to the mobile internet is growing rapidly. The higher growth rates varies widely across different economic regions. The rate of penetration of mobile phones in the global market has led to a huge rise in the M-Commerce marketing model. The new ways in which different companies are integrating M-Commerce applications in their business model has depended upon several factors. Based on the current scenario of the trends in the mobile commerce applications, it can be foreseen that M-Commerce would be the topmost preference for a wide range of users to satisfy their daily needs.
Based on the current scenario of M-Commerce, it can be understood that the new form of technology is accelerating tremendously. Different connected devices and the IoT have changed the form of business. As customers are much more concerned on the M-Commerce way of marketing, hence it is highly needed to meet the requirements of the customers and thus satisfy their expectations. The developers of such applications should focus on making the applications much more user-friendly. They should be able to understand the intent of the customers and thus deliver better services. A better relation with the customers and continuous improvements would thus enable continuous success in the industry.
References
Alexander, K. (Ed.). (2013). Facilities management: theory and practice. Routledge.
Chong, A. Y. L. (2013). Mobile commerce usage activities: The roles of demographic and motivation variables. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 80(7), 1350-1359.
Niranjanamurthy, M., Kavyashree, N., Jagannath, S., &Chahar, D. (2013). Analysis of e-commerce and m-commerce: advantages, limitations and security issues. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer and Communication Engineering, 2(6).
Simmon, E. (2014). CLOUD SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS Meeting Customer and Provider needs.
Willcocks, L., & Cullen, S. (2013). Intelligent IT outsourcing. Routledge.
Zhang, R., Chen, J. Q., & Lee, C. J. (2013). Mobile commerce and consumer privacy concerns. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 53(4), 31-38.
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