'Manufacturing has moved offshore to take the benefits of a lower cost base'

Dr Bob Hillhouse, Managing Director, LabWare discusses the LIMS market, growth areas, Indian market scenario and company strategies, in conversation with Arshiya Khan

How has been LabWare’s growth?

Excellent. For almost two decades now, Lab Ware's primary focus has been Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS). Last year our European growth exceeded 35 percent and all territories are profitable and growing worldwide. This includes India also, which is a part of EU operation. Since our inception in 1988 LabWare has had no debt and consistently reinvested back into the business in terms of R&D, product, people and geographical presence.

This year we celebrated our 20th anniversary and LabWare LIMS has by far, the highest sales of any commercial LIMS product worldwide.

LabWare has achieved a consistent growth demonstrated by its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27.5 percent since 2000. LabWare's research has suggested that the LIMS market has been growing at an annual growth rate of seven percent whereas LabWare has demonstrated a worldwide annual growth rate of 28.73 percent for the fiscal year 2007.

Where are the growth areas?

In today's world the global economy is all important. Consequently, a major part of our growth has been in enterprise level systems. The rise of technology has enabled this process and now the economies of many newly industrialised countries continue to grow at a fast rate.

Manufacturing has moved offshore to take the benefits of a lower cost base in India, China, Russia, Africa and other emerging industrial nations. This in turn has fuelled the need for increased production in metals, oil, gas and minerals that has in turn seen increased industrial activity in many remote locations worldwide. Oilfields in Kazakhstan, Oilfields off shore, copper mines in Brazil, gold and platinum mines in Africa and gas in the Middle East.

Global organisations want to standardise operations to increase quality, control costs and centralise strategic decision making. At the same time, companies are increasingly aware of the impact of technology on the environment and global systems play a key part in monitoring environmental impacts and local cultural issues. It is an exciting time to be involved in LIMS and world commerce.

In which industrial sectors are LabWare growing and where do you see LabWare developing in the future?

LabWare have solutions across a wide range of industries and all are growing strongly. LabWare LIMS is a single product technology and there are over 300 software modules that deliver specific application solutions.

Some areas of particularly strong growth are pharmaceutical manufacturing, R&D, biorepositories, clinical trials and clinical research. LabWare is a new breed of LIMS supplier that provides solutions in the traditional industrial sector and the LIS healthcare sector.

Pharma companies want to reduce the number of software products that they need to support and consequently are very receptive to this approach. A similar situation has evolved in the ERP sector where SAP and Oracle have taken a dominant market share. We see our position evolving in a similar manner in the laboratory and associated application areas. Scientific and technical computing has specific demands and skills and that is why LabWare has grown in these areas.

How does LabWare view the India operation?

Back in 2003 LabWare decided to build local infrastructure in India rather than use third party distributors. This decision was based on my previous 20 years experience of creating another LIMS company that was sold onto another US corporation in the early 1990s. My experience has shown me that it is important to take a long term view and build local resources that are dedicated and passionate about developing the LIMS market.

So the Indian chapter started unfurling with its first office in Kolkata with a team of two. Since then it is quiet a exciting story with the office shifting to a 6000 sq ft new office with modern amenities at the heart of Kolkata's software hub Saltlake City with number of employee increased by ten times. This tells the success story and the commitment of LabWare to Indian market.

During the last few years LabWare has reached a critical mass and the business is really starting to thrive. As in other parts of the world LabWare have gained a reputation for technically advanced, robust and reliable software backed up by a dedicated team of LIMS professionals.

Indian operation has a multidimensional role where implementation is not the only key area we also have—web development, documentation testing and global support. India team is an integral part of our global web development and V6 [LabWare LIMS Version6] release.

We have a nice blend of young and mature professionals in LabWare India and we are committed to building this team further. Good people always attract new talented people into the team and we have a good basis and philosophy to achieve our goals. It is always important to take a long term view and focus on providing customers with value rather than just making money.

How does LabWare view the Indian market?

Since India joined the WTO in 2005, the Indian pharma industry has experienced strong growth and regulatory requirements have become a concern from both market access and company liability perspective. LIMS is proven technology that has become essential enterprise software that enables companies to address these regulatory and GLP/GMP requirements. So we expect a big growth potential of LIMS in pharma and also expect the same in other regulated industry areas. Also considering India becoming the destination point for the CRO industry, LabWare's LIMS can play a very important role in giving the global standard software support for these CRO's. Last but not the least; we expect the oil and petrochemical area to be an interesting space to expand our business and our success saga in Middle East will obviously help.

How has your Indian team integrated into the worldwide business?

At LabWare we operate in a non-hierarchical manner. Each team member has their designated job but people are actively encouraged to participate in adjacent areas of business. We have also invested in extensive training and Indian team members regularly attend global LabWare meetings in many regions of the world. They are integrated into product development, support and global account management.

A number of Indian team members have worked in Middle East and European projects both on-shore and off-shore.

How should a customer select a LIMS?

Engage with the software editor and get to know the people and their capabilities. Ask for a workshop to really get to know the product and challenge the vendor to change the system configuration during the workshop. This is important because business changes constantly in the modern world and system requirements can change even within an initial implementation cycle. In fact, this is the most common experience because customer's knowledge and ideas are evolving all the time. The most successful LIMS installations are created in environments where the vendor and customer continually challenge each other. This requires highly configurable software and people with in depth knowledge of the software LIMS product.

Do not write a huge specification and expect to choose a vendor from written responses. Engage the vendor and get the maximum value from the selection process. The selection process should generate value and accelerate the implementation process.

What is Web 2.0, and how will it affect the world of Lab Informatics and LIMS?

Web 2.0 is the general term used for a new generation of applications and web solutions that provide the same kind of interactivity and user experience as non-web applications, such as those that run directly on Microsoft Windows. In particular, Web 2.0 applications accomplish this without using so-called client-side elements, such as plug-ins and applets. If a web solution can run on virtually any browser, on virtually any hardware or device, then it is probably a zero-footprint solution. This is an important distinction, because very few web applications are zero-footprint, especially in the world of LIMS.

You mention that not all web applications are zero-footprint solutions? What does this mean in real-world terms?

By using a zero-footprint WebLIMS solution, the application is available to any authorised user on practically any device running a browser, including simpler devices like mobile phones. Even when using a normal computer, most IT departments do not want any client-side elements to be uploaded, as these can be incompatible with existing software on these machines. For example, if a web application heavily utilises technology such as Microsoft .Net, then these applications can usually only run on specific computer configurations, such as ones running a specific version of Microsoft Internet Explorer. If another application on the same computer requires the use of .Net as well, then these two applications may not be compatible with each other.

LabWare has decided to provide a single software solution that works the same on both Windows and over the Web. How does this decision benefit your current and future customers?

For our existing customers, who originally purchased and implemented our Windows software, they will be able to easily upgrade to the WebLIMS solution, with no additional costs or re-implementation requirements. For future customers, they get the benefit of a well-established and powerful LIMS solution while running it on the latest devices. Since we actually support mixed clients (Windows and Web) on the same live system, our customers can even choose to slower move to the WebLIMS solution, without any retraining costs.

Does LabWare see the use of mobile devices as an increasingly popular way of interacting with LIMS?

Absolutely! Most mobile phones include simple browsers, and the latest generation of devices (like Apple's iPhone) include Wi-Fi support for faster connections to the Internet. Users will no longer need to use ordinary computers to get access to any features of their LabWare

LIMS. Imagine getting information about some batches while you are sitting in a meeting, or creating samples and entering data while you are on the road.

How does the growing interest in Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELN) and Electronic Content Management (ECM) fit into the LIMS landscape?

The ELN and ECM message has created some confusion in the general LIMS market, but we feel that this is a good thing, as in encourages the adoption of computing technology within a Lab environment. Most of our customers feel that their existing LabWare LIMS solutions can handle their ELN and ECM needs, but future customers are not certain where ELN/ECM meets LIMS. We are working hard to clarify this message, so that customers use the right products for their specific needs.

LabWare has been recently active in the Biobanking and Biorepository world. What are the reasons for this move?

LabWare has provided LIMS solutions for these highly regulated areas for many years and so we were a natural fit for the changes in Biobanks. We created software elements that are of great use to Biobanks, such as the Storage Location Manager element of LabWare LIMS.

Where to you see LIMS going into the future?

LIMS is now accepted as a vital business solution, at the same level as other types of systems like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Now the challenge is to make LIMS products more usable from the very first day. In LabWare's case, we are supplying our customers with industry template solutions, which are pre-configured elements that are common within the customers' industry, such as petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals. Another direction that LIMS is going in is to address other aspects of lab automation, such as ELN.

It is all about delivering more value to the customer at lowering cost and faster. Time is money and writing more custom code increase both initial implementation times and ongoing support costs.

No LabWare customer has ever had to re-engineer or retire a LIMS because a new release of software is not compatible with a previous version. Our early LIMS adopters can still upgrade to the new WebLIMS versions and retain their system configuration and value.

arshiya.khan@expressindia.com