In 2015, Johnson & Johnson formed a strategic partnership with Pagero to increase the number of digital business documents exchanged with the Nordic healthcare sector. Below, Frederik Madsen, CLS Nordic Logistic & eCapability Manager, Johnson & Johnson AB, tells more about the partnership with Pagero.
E-commerce – challenges and vision
“When I started working at Johnson & Johnson five years ago, we began to look into how we could work with e-commerce in a more structured way. We had a service provider, but it was all about point-to-point connections. Furthermore, we did not have a proper team within our organisation that was responsible for managing our e-commerce business, which meant that people at our various international subsidiaries handled it separately from each other, so the knowledge was very scattered.”
“We wanted to streamline our operations and centralise our processes. We also wanted to increase our e-commerce handling and use not only e-invoicing but also e-ordering, for which we saw an increased demand. However, we realised that we could not do this ourselves. We needed to find someone who could help us. We first turned to our current supplier, but they did not understand what I was asking for. They thought that we already had a good setup. I told them that I wanted a complete solution, and they asked what I meant with that.”
“Pagero has a stable platform and it is a great tool, but it is the people behind it that are the most important assets.”
Selecting a supplier
“We were just about to start a tender process to find a new supplier, when our IT manager invited me to an event on e-commerce that he was going to attend. It was Pagero who organised the event, and that is how the discussions started. We said that we needed a partner, not a supplier, that could take care of all of this for us. We are very good at what we do when it comes to our products and our systems. We are not so good at what is outside of that. We do not have the technical know-how to manage connections and the administration associated with them, so we want someone else who knows all that and who handles it for us. That is how we wanted to work.”
“We have been able to streamline our internal processes, thanks to the partnership with Pagero.”
Changing internal operations
“At first, we did some preparations internally by changing our organisational structure. We turned e-commerce and logistics into one single area of responsibility, because we found that they are very closely connected. Thanks to this, we have been able to streamline our supply chain and achieve full traceability from order to delivery. Another thing we did was to centralise all e-commerce handling, which means that all our companies throughout the Nordic region are organised in the same way and have the same ERP setup. This has saved us much time, that our staff can now use to focus on internal processes, such as master data and structure. Also, we have been able to streamline our internal processes, thanks to the partnership with Pagero who now manages parts that we took care of ourselves before.”
“We have a very close cooperation on a professional level. A partnership, which is exactly what we wanted.”
The partnership with Pagero
“We have grown incredibly in the Nordic region, and we have been able to streamline our internal processes thanks to this setup. At the same time, I have to say that it is not just about technology. It is also about the people behind the technology, and that is where we see the benefits. Pagero has a stable platform and it is a great tool, but it is the people behind it that are the most important assets. It means so much to be able to just pick up the phone and get the help we need and to have a partner who listens to us and understands our company and who truly wants to grow with us. We have a really great and very tight partnership with Pagero; our team and Pagero’s team are almost as colleagues. Our partnership works very well, and Pagero acts as Johnson & Johnson’s extended arm in regards to these matters.”
“We are very happy with our partnership! We really are. We have been able to accomplish things no one else has been able to achieve, in a very short time. Our internal structure works very well now, thanks to the fact that we no longer have to manage a system built around point-to-point connections that required constant monitoring and caused much worry for us. We do not have to worry anymore. Knowledge, structure and people are the three keywords I want to emphasise. We have a very close cooperation on a professional level. A partnership, which is exactly what we wanted.”