Advancing in Life Sciences

Advancing in Life Sciences

HCL Technologies moves to the cloud.

By John P. Desmond

HCL Technologies, an outsourcing company with some 87,000 employees, is number 36 on the 2013 Software 500, with growth of 33 percent to reach $3.7 billion in software and services revenue.

HCL operates a global network of offices in 31 countries and delivered multiple services in a concentration of five industry verticals—financial services, manufacturing, consumer services, public services, and healthcare. 

According to IDC, IT market researchers, "HCL has emerged as a key player in the healthcare industry, especially in life sciences, and its proven track record in several pharmaceutical functionalities such as R&D, clinical development, manufacturing, supply chain management, as well as sales and marketing, give it an edge."

Additionally, "HCL sees patient support services as a potential growth area over the next five years, especially as these services integrate medical devices, mobile applications, and smartphones into the services lines to start the global drive to regulatory rigor around treatment data, and a consumer-centric approach to disease management and wellness," states IDC, in a report titled Emerging Care Management Models in Developing Countries.

IDC had performed a case study of an online patient support initiative aimed at diabetes management, development by MSD Pharmaceuticals in India, a subsidiary of Merck and Co. HCL was brought on board to build the system and manage the entire suite of patient services, including patient onboarding, care pathways, and program evaluation and analytics. 

Another recognition for HCL Technologies in life sciences came recently from the Everest Group, advisory and research firm, which names HCL a Leader in the life sciences IT outsourcing category. The Everest report assessed 14 IT outsourcing providers in life sciences with a focus on large, multi-year relationships. The service providers were mapped onto the Everest Group’s PEAK Matrix, which ranks performance, experience, ability, and knowledge. 

"The Life Sciences industry is keenly adopting next-generation IT with an eye on enabling strategic initiatives. HCL’s investments in its services portfolio and domain solutions have created success in large, multi-year IT services contracts for license sciences customers," says Jimit Arora, VP, Everest Group.

R Srikrishna, president, infrastructure services and life sciences and healthcare, HCL, adds, "During the last financial year, HCL’s healthcare and life sciences unit posted incremental revenue growth of 45 percent, which is way ahead of other leading players for the same time period." 

Move to CloudThe worldwide move to cloud computing also fuels business growth at HCL. Some 80 to 90 percent of all inquiries to the enterprise services unit of HCL are related to cloud services, according to Steve Cardell, president, enterprise services and diversified industries, HCL, in an interview with Mint, the business newspaper published out of New Delhi, India. 

The move to the cloud is seen by Cardell as a three-part shift—the infrastructure cloud; the software-as-a-service cloud, which companies buy based on use; and the enabling of legacy applications that cannot run on the infrastructure cloud. "The cloud-enabling of legacy apps will be a very big part of the story," says Cardell. "We see a huge opportunity in the migration path from legacy apps on premise to on the cloud modern applications."

HCL is getting less of its revenue from time and materials contracts and more from outcome-based pricing. Customers spend less on enterprise software licenses as they shift to a pay-by-use model, and service providers are getting less revenue for services to implement software products, and more from the integration and data management required to implement the new model. 

"Most of the cloud projects are pilots. People tested to see if the cloud really works. Now there is maturity on that. People are ready. So now we will see growth," says Cardell. 

HCL is re-coining the phrase software-as-a-service, to services as software, as in "life sciences in a box," offering all the applications and infrastructure required to get a new life sciences company up and running in 24 hours. "I think ultimately this is where this journey is going," notes Cardell.

  SW

Jan2014, Software Magazine SWM3000