Interview

India has challenges for Thermofisher Scientific

Heather Valentine, senior vice president, global sales, Thermofisher Scientific, Informatics division, opines on Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) and Thermofisher's approach towards Indian and global market in discussion with Sachin Jagdale

How has Thermofisher defined the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) market in India and on the global front?

The LIMS global market is defined in many different ways. Specifically in India, the primary LIMS market is entire value chain of pharmaceuticals and in particular CROs or (Contract Research Organisations). With our 'Purpose built LIMS' solutions, we serve from Early Drug Discovery Research through in vitro, in vivo, pilot and to production, fulfilling regulatory requirements. We also serve the metals, mining, food safety and petrochemical industries.

What are the demands of the company that seeks LIMS deployment from Thermofisher?

Our clients seek LIMS when the processes are data intensive, regulated with a strict need for validated environments. They usually require process harmonisation across the enterprise. Integration with other enterprise wide applications like enterprise resource planning (ERP), profit impact of market strategy (PIMS) etc, with instruments for seamless data flow is necessary. As such, it is critical that these organisations partner with a company that understands their needs and has personnel with extensive knowledge and experience in their industry along with the challenges that they face now and predict into the future.

What are the stumbling blocks for Thermofisher in Indian market? What are your plans to overcome such hurdles?

Unlike any other E6 markets (E6 is emerging market of six countries- India, China, Brazil, Russia, Turkey and Egypt; some add Eastern Europe and call it E7) around the world, India has challenges that exist for Thermofisher Scientific. On one hand, the greatest amount of growth potential will come from our focus in India and on the other, the difficulty is allocating right amount of resources to address market potential at the right time, trying not to overspend on infrastructure so as to develop a strong foundation to manage growth. Our business in India is actually ahead of other E6 markets in terms of financial success and we are pleased to begin the wave of investment in this key and critical market.

What are the standards that you have set for yourself?

As far as standards are concerned, it is my expectation that the Thermofisher Informatics Global Sales Organisation is known as the best in any industry. We have adopted a culture and guiding principles (as well as the tools) that support the development of a true World Class Sales Organization (WCSO). We have the most experienced personnel across all functional areas of our business unit and in particular our sales organisation is comprised of seasoned software sales executives with deep understanding of the LIMS markets we serve. We hire only the most proven sales executives, with deep domain understanding but also the ability to truly partner and consult with their customers and prospects. All of the company's employees strictly follow what is know as the four I's i.e. integrity, intensity, involvement and innovation.

How do you plan to expand your domestic and global base in future?

We will continue to make investments in our emerging markets, expanding our reach with additional Thermofisher Scientific employees and also strengthen through our Global Partner Alliance (GPA) launched in November 2007. The GPA is comprised of the most experienced consulting and solutions vendors in the markets they serve. Some are focused geographically and others only on certain industries or even a specific product set in some cases. We have and will continue to expand our original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and value added representative (VAR) relationships in 2008.

Do you have any global tie-ups? How will these tie-ups help you?

Thermofisher Scientific has the largest global reach in the industries. We serve with over 7500 sales and services employees serving 350,000 customers across 150 countries. It has taken years (and acquisitions) to build an organisation to this level and we plan to continue to focus on not only the E6 geographic markets but also additional industries and new solutions to complement our vast product and solution portfolio.

What are the benefits that Indian market will get from Thermofisher? Why should Indian customers trust Thermo fisher?

Thermofisher Scientific has a strong history of success in India. Specific to our informatics business, we have the largest market share globally and certainly in the life sciences or pharmaceutical industry. Our products like Watson, Nautilus, Galileo, and sample manager are well proven in the world over for decades. Our Indian customers get not only the proven products but also the experience and expertise of our personnel serving the global giants. Our LIMS solutions provide Indian customers the cutting edge technology, latest regulatory compliance. This translates into having an edge in the fiercely competitive global market- be it an outsourced project for CRO or filing an ANDA or manufacturing drugs for regulated markets.

We also dominate the process industries of metal and mining, as well as petrochemical, proudly claiming the world's largest organisations in each of these industries. Independent analyst groups both in the US and elsewhere in the world rank us as the only ‘Tier One’ vendor in the LIMS market due to strength in four key areas: market positioning and growth, ability to leverage our assets, innovation and performance and lastly, growth strategy.

Finally, we are dedicated to excellence and in particular to growth in India. We will succeed through our continued commitment to customer excellence.

What is the rationale behind the merger of Thermo Scientific and Fisher Scientific?

Thermo was known for its strength in R&D while Fisher Scientific had a vast customer channel. Both had significant brand equity established. Together this provides over 150 years of market and industry experience with the most complete portfolio of the latest technologies to the world of science.

What are the gains of this merger?

The gains of the merger would be an unmatched breadth in portfolio of laboratory solutions with the most global reach in the industry and in serving science today.

What is the range of your products in the LIMS segment?

We cover the value chain of pharma/ biopharma with a suite of 'purpose built solutions.' Our Nautilus LIMS is used in drug discovery for NCE and biologics. Our Watson LIMS is used for in vivo (pre clinical and clinical) and Galileo for HTS, ADME TOX, in vitro applications and Darwin caters to the production. In food safety, chemical, petrochemicals, metals and mining markets we are strongly present with our sample manager LIMS solutions.

Who are your clients in India?

In less than two years of direct operations in India, we have more than ten valuable customers from leading CROs, pharma companies of repute. We also have customers in petroleum refineries and chemical companies using our solutions.

How are your products in the analytical segment different from the products of other companies operating in the same segment?

Our solution strategy is to provide ‘purpose built’ solutions that allow for flexibility in configuration, yet with ‘off the shelf’ functionality pre-built specifically for the types of customers in the market segments we serve. This allows for reduced implementation timeframes, lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and ultimately a happier customer. A recent SDi survey of LIMS vendors resulted in placing Thermo Fisher Scientific Informatics solutions at the top of the lowest TCO.

What is your market share in India and overseas?

A recent Frost and Sullivan (2008) report showed our leadership position at 28.7 percent in the US and we feel we have similar strength throughout the LIMS market globally. However, analysts differ slightly in defining the total LIMS market. We have not seen independent results regarding our market penetration in India, but we feel it would have a similar outcome in terms of our leadership position over the competition.

What are the expectations of your customers from you? Have you able to fulfill those expectations?

Our customers expect us to deliver on what we say and do. Our commitment to doing this is absolute. India, in particular has high standards of quality and we are ensuring that we are always striving to exceed the expectations of our customers in India and across the globe.

sachin.jagdale@expressindia.com