Pharmerit Supports Global Pandemic Effort
Based in Bethesda, MD, Pharmerit validates clinical studies to determine the efficacy of drugs and vaccines for 90% of the top pharmaceutical companies. As part of the global effort to stop the pandemic in its tracks, Pharmerit’s teams worked to validate the COVID-19 vaccine.
In addition to working on this validation, Pharmerit purchased Peloton, based in the Netherlands, and then merged with Open Health, based in the UK. Seemingly overnight, this merger changed Pharmerit into an international company. With 700 end users, the company has 15 offices in 5 countries, including the US, UK, the Netherlands, Germany, India and China. Pharmerit needed managed IT services that increased efficiency, improved collaboration and reduced costs as they worked to prove the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Aging Infrastructure Reducing Productivity and Increasing Costs
With the merger of 3 companies came an overlap of IT support services. Three different IT managed service providers were now in charge of help desk support as well as on-premise and remote work devices. Often, end users didn’t know whom to contact when a problem arose, and they had to wait to get their questions answered. COVID-19 made it necessary for workers to work remotely, but only 30% of the company could do so with the aging infrastructure. With outdated versioning protocols and noncompliant devices, what was very time-consuming work now was becoming almost impossible. Pharmerit needed a way to roll out new remote devices to their managed teams and to have a secure cloud-based network that all could access.
Managing IT Solutions for a Global Company
In today’s remote work world, having a cloud-based infrastructure saves companies time and money. Pharmerit’s task was to determine the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine, so they needed a fast, efficient and cost-effective way to collaborate in managed teams while they worked remotely.
Since Pharmerit was a long-time, happy Nortec customer, the IT director asked Nortec for assistance in developing a cloud-based IT solution for the organization. Working closely with Pharmerit, Nortec’s team planned a strategy to consolidate everyone under one umbrella with an Azure cloud-based network.
Rapid employee onboarding
Increasing its workforce from 200 to 700 created many access points for the Pharmerit network. More access points put Pharmerit’s network at risk for cyberattacks. By imaging devices with Autopilot, Nortec helped Pharmerit to scale up the remote work quickly and safely. With a few keystrokes and credentials, the Pharmerit IT team had its workforce safely working from home.
Affordable, all-inclusive IT support
Built on the Microsoft 365 platform, Nortec’s Managed Modern Workplace provides an affordable option for Pharmerit’s IT that includes help desk support, security and strategic IT consulting with in-house IT teams. With Microsoft 365, Teams and Azure, Pharmerit’s remote managed teams were able to collaborate seamlessly in real time with live editing software. When problems arose, Nortec’s help desk answered questions within hours so that employees could get back to work. Besides providing this support, Nortec also offered classes to teach everyone how to use Teams and Microsoft 365, which increased efficiency company-wide. All implementations improved security, increased productivity and reduced costs.
Disaster-proof global network
With everyone working remotely on validating the COVID-19 vaccine, Pharmerit needed a secure network that was backed up and protected if a disaster happened. Since they were working on such a vital new product, they could not afford to lose one moment to an outage or data breach. Nortec
Managed IT Services for a Global Workforce
With Nortec’s strategic guidance, Pharmerit was able to understand that their disparate group of networks and aging infrastructure inhibited their work, while their data backup and recovery left them exposed to potential data loss. With Nortec’s Managed Modern Workplace, Pharmerit is better able to execute their vital mission more efficiently during the height of the global pandemic, ensuring more people access to effective vaccines sooner.