Laboratorios Bagó, an Argentine pharmaceutical company with 87 years of history, more than 480 products in 40 therapeutic lines, and a presence in more than 20 countries, chose SAP Concur as part of its digitalization strategy for processes, which goes hand in hand with a strong commitment to sustainability.
Laboratorios Bagó started by looking for an efficient solution that fitted in with the organization’s ethos.
Pablo Guida, CIO, Laboratorios Bagó, said: “The selection process was specific. We already had SAP as an ERP, and we were looking for an easy-to-integrate tool that would streamline our expense management and reporting processes. Concur was perfect; it ticked all the boxes.
“We have implemented the expenses, travel and request modules directly with the support of the SAP team and the subscription we pay is for the volume of surrenders and not for licenses.
“Since the adoption of SAP Concur where we integrate processes and platforms, we have been able to greatly simplify certain processes, such as expense reporting or travel management, mainly for the salesforce, which includes more than 250 employees who are moving all over the world and the country, assisting and accompanying the community of professionals from medical institutions.”
SAP Concur is also an important part of the paperless program that the laboratory has conducted for years.
Although the usual users of SAP Concur belong to the commercial workforce of Laboratorios Bagó, the solution is open to all the company’s employees.
“SAP Concur, as part of the digitalization strategy process and the search for sustainability that we have at Laboratorios Bagó, among other things, involves adding the best practices regarding the paperless office, and it is a tool that fits perfectly with our objectives and has achieved almost immediate adoption by employees, especially by the salesforce, which the team uses daily,” said Guida.
Laboratorios Bagó optimizes its processes
“Before implementing Concur in the company, we used Excel spreadsheets and the AMEX travel platform to purchase tickets and expenses reports. In the SAP solution, we centralized all travel and expense processes,” said Guida.
“Previously, the users had to gather all the vouchers and invoices to render them, complete a form manually, send the report for approval and once approved, send to the finance department to be uploaded to the SAP ERP and finally the payment to the user would be generated.”
This process could consume up to three weeks. Today, thanks to the facilities for recording expenses, the native integration with the SAP Backoffice, and the automated workflows, the validation, registration and payment generation processes are almost immediate.
On the other hand, the integration with the AMEX platform allows for the extension of the functionalities of SAP Concur, enabling the reservation of tickets and hotels from the same tool.
Guida estimates that the deployment process for the modules (Expenses, Travel and Request) took five to six months, but once they were up and running, they were quickly adopted.
“The process of managing expenses used to take up many man-hours and today all this is done in a fraction of that time, it can even be done online and in real time from a smartphone,” said Guida.
One year after its deployment, Guida acknowledges that portability (the ability to do everything from the mobile app) was a key factor in the rapid adoption of SAP Concur.
“The internal deployment started around May 2020, and the implementation took about six months. In addition, the native integration made the process easier, allowing us to gain speed and simplicity in daily management,” he said. “Trips stopped at the beginning of the pandemic, so we had to wait a bit to release the travel module, but when they resumed, we started it without substantial problems.”
Ready for the future
Another advantage of the SAP Concur solution is mobility. Guida said: “Portability was a crucial factor in the rapid adoption of SAP Concur. The tool allows expenses to be recorded quickly and provides an enormous advantage when it comes to optimizing and simplifying processes and times.”
Since 1934 the purpose of the laboratories remains unchanged: To build a pharmaceutical company demonstrating excellence in the health sector.
Laboratorios Bagó maintains and promotes a solid commitment to research and development, which materializes in the systematic search for original molecules, the association of drugs and new pharmaceutical forms, the evaluation of the pharmacological profile and its analytical-pharmaceutical development.
Products in more than 50 countries, 11 production plants in the world, 148 patents obtained in 28 countries for their own research and development, and more than 480 products that cover 46 therapeutic lines are some of the achievements that distinguish the history of this laboratory from Argentina.
That kind of commitment boosts the organizational efforts to reach new business and achievements in the pharmaceutical field. The existence of the global market explains how important it is to have a world class solution such as SAP Concur to solve present and future needs.
Guida said: “We believe in incorporating technology and software products as essential for business development. Today more than ever, we understand that the contribution of IT goes beyond the role of traditional support or service provider.
“We see ourselves as business partners, co-creating and adding value, transforming and simplifying operations. This solution falls into that sentiment. It is part of the digitization strategy, with sustainability at the center”.
