PHARMACY MANAGAMENT

A case study for the TOGAF® 9 Certification Course for People Program

© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2

Challenges ..................................................................................................................................................... 3

Solution Abstract........................................................................................................................................... 5

Solution —Recommended Steps .................................................................................................................. 5

© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
Introduction

PharmaPlus is one of Canada’s leading independent pharmacy and drugstore

retailers. Since their establishment in 1981 as a regional chain, PharmaPlus has
focused on building a national platform of retail outlets designed to provide
customers with exceptional service, products and advice. In 1995, as part of the
national platform, they developed an innovative IT system called PharmaSolution
(PS). PS enabled efficient running of the drug stores. It also provided the
competitive advantage to PharmaPlus by incorporating innovative business ideas
such as patient-relationship management, inventory management, store
management, and insurance management. The efficient IT system helped in cost
saving and revenue generation for PharmaPlus.

The three modules of PS were StoreKeeper, WarehouseKeeper, and HomeKeeper.

 StoreKeeper system was running in every drugstore’s server.

 WarehouseKeeper was running in regional warehouse’s server.

 HomeKeeper was running in head office’s server.

These modules communicated through exchange of files from various locations.

The file exchange supported both automatic exchange through File Transfer
Protocol (FTP), and manual exchange through courier.

© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
Challenges

The top management of PharmaPlus decided to expand into new regions, such as
the south-east of the USA. By the year 2000, they acquired three regional chains
in accordance with their expansion plans. They also planned to acquire a few
more companies over the years. Acquiring three other companies not only
expanded their geographic reach but also added complexity, inconsistency, and
an urgent need to streamline different infrastructure, systems, and processes sed
by these three acquired companies.

By 2002, PharmaSolution was not able to keep up with the growing needs and
requirements of PharmaPlus. The following are some of the problems faced by
PharmaPlus:

● PharmaPlus required regional specializations. For example, different

insurance plans were needed in different regions, and these required
changes to be made in the StoreKeeper module.
● Each of the regional warehouses that had been acquired had different ways
of receiving orders from the retail stores. They also had different
procedures of ordering supplies from the wholesalers. Each of these
differences required changes to be made in the WarehouseKeeper module.

© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
 ● The file exchange approach had worked efficiently when PharmaPlus
consisted of 30 drugstores, one regional warehouse, and one home office.
However, this approach became inefficient and difficult when it had to
coordinate among 200 drugstores, four regional warehouses, two
geographic offices, and one home office. Files were often delivered late, or
not delivered at all. Occasionally, the files were also delivered multiple
times. This made it difficult for the home office to access reliable up-to-
date financial information, especially in the areas of sales and inventory.

It was evident that the PS system needed several enhancements. However,

upgrading this system was difficult for several reasons such as:

● lack of up-to-date documentation about the systems and the file

exchanges.
● the original developers, who worked on these modules left the company
without proper knowledge transfer.
● there was no clear accountability in terms of which module owns which
data and business functions.
● the tight coupling between the modules. All the functions accessed a single
database, and changes to one record definition could affect the system in
an unpredictable manner.
● changing even a single line of code may require to rebuild the entire
multimillion-line module.

© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
 ● installing new systems was hugely disruptive.

IT team was unable to support the growing needs and requirements of the
business. This resulted in division, rift and mistrust between the IT and business
teams, to the extent that IT team was no longer a part of the key decision making
process. The IT team also started building systems with little business inputs
which were eventually abandoned by the business team.

By 2006, PharmaPlus was in crisis. They needed to revamp their technical systems
to make it easier to specialize in regional requirements and business expansions
to rebuild its internal relationships between the business and IT teams.

Solution Abstract

Jessica, the CEO of PharmaPlus, decided to use Enterprise Architecture and

TOGAF to build stronger partnerships between their technical and business teams
and deliver more cost-effective IT systems that enabled business agility.

Jessica asked Nancy, the CIO, to work closely with John, the vice president of
business, and prepare a recommendation on the use of Enterprise Architecture in
PharmaPlus. Jessica announced her decision to create a common Enterprise
Architecture named PM-EA for PharmaPlus. It was expected to solve the team
issues and the need for innovative, easy to use, maintainable, and expandable IT
systems. It also aimed to deliver maximum value to the business from IT

© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
investments. The future of PharmaPlus depended on the success of PM-EA.
Therefore, the CEO declared PM-EA as the flagship program of PharmaPlus.

Solution—Recommended Steps

Assume that you are the TOGAF certified enterprise architecture consultant,
engaged by PharmaPlus to lead PM-EA, and let us follow the recommended steps
to arrive at a possible solution.

S.No Steps Description Lesson Reference

1 Identify the building Identify the organization Architecture

blocks unit, actor, location, business Content
goal, business capability, Framework and
application component, Content
technology component for Metamodel
PharmaPlus scenario.

2 Draft Principles catalog, Choose the principles Preliminary Phase

which is one of the key applicable to PharmaPlus
deliverables of Enterprise Architecture
Preliminary phase program, from the TOGAF
example set. You can also

© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
 create your own principles as
needed.

3 Draft Stakeholder Map, Use the stakeholder map Architecture

which is one of the key template. Vision Phase
artifacts of Architecture
Vision phase

4 Draft Baseline Business You can document baseline Business

Architecture, Target and target business Architecture
business architecture, architecture by using the Phase
and gaps analysis which artifacts given below:
are the key deliverables  Create the Functional
of Business Architecture Decomposition
phase. Diagrams to show
baseline and target
state.
 Create Locations
catalog for baseline and
target state.
 Make necessary
assumptions regarding
© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
 departments, functions,
and capabilities.

5 Draft Data Entities and Make necessary assumptions Data Architecture

Applications matrix for regarding data entities, and Phase
baseline and target applications.
state, which is one of
the key deliverables of
Data Architecture
phase

6 Draft Baseline You can document baseline Application

Application and target application Architecture
Architecture, Target architecture by using below Phase
Application artifacts:
Architecture, and gap  Create Application
analysis, which are the Portfolio catalog for
key deliverables of baseline and target
Application Architecture state
phase
 Create the Application
Communication
Diagrams to show
baseline and target

© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
 state
 Make necessary
assumptions regarding
applications and their
interfaces.

7 Draft Transition You can document Transition Opportunities

architectures which is architectures by using the and Solutions
one of the key artifacts given below: Phase
deliverables of  Create the Application
Opportunities and Communication
Solutions phase. Diagrams to show
transition states, if any
 Make necessary
assumptions regarding
applications and
interfaces.

© Copyright 2015, Simplilearn. All rights reserved. TOGAF® is a registered trademark of The Open Group.