The CDM system is vital to AstraZeneca Denmark

Mr Poul Madsen, President of IS/IT AstraZeneca Denmark, explains the role of the CDM System in AstraZeneca: “Creating value for our customers depends on good research, sales, and marketing data. That’s exactly what we get with the CDM System. Without it, valuable information would be lost.” Poul Madsen adds: “The CDM System manages all our customer segments, telling us who should receive what. For instance, we know a heart surgeon is not too interested in information about products for respiratory diseases.”

Tailor-Made CRM
The CRM philosophy of CDM is that a CRM-system should be adapted to the customers business and be a support in carrying out daily work processes which is vital to ensure successful adaptation of the system. In AstraZeneca Denmark this philosophy is a part of the successful implementation of the CDM Medical system. Poul Madsen explains: “Furthermore, the system’s flexibility is perfect for a company like ours. It is designed exactly to meet our needs. We especially like the event module that handles everything from invitations, confirmations and practical details to all the follow up activities connected to meetings.”

The CDM System Supports the Daily Work of Sales Representatives
The CDM system is used throughout the Sales Department of AstraZeneca. As Poul Madsen explains: “The CDM System is used by all our pharmaceutical sales representatives, sales managers and secretaries, who register activities in relation to customers and suppliers.” According to Poul Madsen, the reason why the CDM system has been a success among the Sales Representatives, even though this particular group of employees is notorious for not adapting CRM systems, is that: “The sales representatives, working away from the office, also benefit from online system access, which means they can view and update their calendars, and produce status reports via the Internet. It’s both easy and time saving.”

Offline Capability – An Essential Part of a Pharmaceutical CRM-System
Pharmaceutical companies are characterized as having many sales representatives working outside the office. Therefore, AstraZeneca chose CDM's distributed database solution. The distributed database implies that all sales representatives have a copy of the CDM system on their laptops. Thus, they can access all data in the system. During the day, they register all their activities, update their calendars etc., just like they do when they are at the office. At the end of the day, the sales representatives export data from their laptops to the main system and import new data from the main system to their laptops. Transferring data is managed by routines or "jobs" on the queue server. That means that all data are synchronized and always updated.

The CDM Event Manager Supports AstraZeneca’s Marketing Department
In addition to the distributed solution, AstraZeneca has utilized the system's great flexibility and has created a system, which matches the needs of many different user groups and a complex Pharmaceutical industry. The Marketing department, for example, has great use for the Event Management module of the CDM system, which is used for managing different events and ensures that all activities in connection with conferences, seminars and so on are managed efficiently. All information about the events is thus registered and managed in the CDM Medical Event system. Thus, registrations and cancellations, speakers, audio-visual equipment, parking facilities, lodgings, and food are all accounted for. The users may, at any time, get a view of the number of participants in every event, how many are on the waiting list, and whether there are any seats available.

Precise Segmentation
The Marketing department of AstraZeneca Denmark also benefits greatly from the segmentation module, CDM has developed, which automatically categorizes doctors, nurses, hospitals and other contact persons, based on predefined criteria – improving the ability of AstraZeneca Denmark to reach the right doctors with the right messages.

In short, the CDM system is supporting the entire Sales and Marketing function throughout AstraZeneca Denmark

Quick Facts of AstraZeneca Denmark
AstraZeneca is the leading pharmaceutical company in Denmark. In 2003, 285 employees generated   turnover of DKK 1.1 billion.

AstraZeneca is the result of a merger between the Swedish company, Astra, and the British company, Zeneca. In Denmark, AstraZeneca has existed since June 1 1999, whereas Astra and Zeneca were established in 1948 and 1950 respectively.

Quick Facts of CDM A/S
CDM A/S is currently 50 employees and was established in 1986. It has made specialized CRM systems for more than 20 years. CDM A/S has been specialized in Pharmaceutical CRM since 1998 and has an excellent track-record and references with more than 22.000 users of the system worldwide.
CDM A/S is a Strategic Global Microsoft Dynamics CRM ISV Partner and is building an entire CRM suite for the Pharmaceutical Industry on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 platform based upon the extensive experience CDM has with CRM for this particular industry.