MARKEN, A MARKET-LEADING CLINICAL SUPPLY CHAIN PROVIDER, DELIVERS COMPANY WIDE AUTOMATION USING SERVICENOW® SOLUTIONS

- 85% of IT requests now being automated -

- 1.4M clinical trial shipments managed in 2021 -

- 8000 requests automated to date -

LONDON, June 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Marken, a global provider of Direct-to-Patient and Direct-from-Patient Logistics Services, has successfully delivered a complex 'automation-first' IT transformation project with the support of leading ServiceNow consultancy, Velocity Consulting.

Using the ServiceNow^® IT Service Management Professional, Integration Hub and ServiceNow^® Customer Success solutions, 85% of IT requests are now automated, with thousands of simple tasks taking minutes to complete rather than hours or even days.

Marken plays a vital role in clinical trials that help bring life-changing, and lifesaving medicines to market. Its worldwide network of logistics hubs handles the highly specialised storage and distribution of products for global pharmaceutical companies. In 2021, 1.4M clinical trial shipments were managed by Marken in 2021, including 140+ COVID-19 vaccine and treatment trials.

When operating at these volumes and the rate of delivery required in this industry, it is crucial for Marken to eliminate as many repetitive, time-consuming, manual IT tasks as possible to help bring lifesaving medicines to market with world class clinical trials logistics.

Working in partnership with Velocity Consulting, Marken needed to maximise the value of automation across all 128 locations in the enterprise to ensure seamless connections with Marken's other core systems and third-party platforms through the ServiceNow^® Integration Hub and Flow Designer, using and extending out-of-the-box integrations.

Commenting on the project, Tony Clarke, VP of Information Security and IT Operations at Marken said, "Velocity provided an independent voice, that kept everyone focussed on the bigger picture and striving for the best possible outcome. This ensured that automation wasn't seen as a project driven solely by the IT team, to make life easier for IT, this was something that would benefit everyone in the business. Taking everyone with us on our ServiceNow journey was the key to the transformation. We wanted everyone to think deeply about their needs, now and in the future, to see the bigger picture and to be ambitious."

The burden on Marken's IT team to manually handle a huge number of routine requests has been lifted, with over 8000 requests being automated to date, and continuing at 2,000 requests per month. This has unlocked valuable time in the IT department to innovate and focus on higher value tasks, and is delivering significant benefits every day right through the organisation - from IT, HR, Finance to Marken's own customers.

Clarke continues, "Automation is a pillar of the businesses strategy – our philosophy is to pursue automation at every opportunity. Teams are now coming to us, seeking our support and we have a pipeline of very exciting automation projects for the rest of the year and beyond, including rolling out Virtual Agent, Performance Analytics, and Predictive Intelligence.

Speaking on the impact effective automation has had on the HR process, Oliver Kelsey, IT Systems Engineer at Marken, explains, "Recruitment decisions are sometimes made very quickly, and highly-skilled people need to get productive very quickly. Previously we worked around a five-day turnaround for a new employee, now everything is completed automatically."

Glen McCarty, Head of Consulting for Velocity Consulting concludes, "The success of this project is in seeing the benefits realised by several other business units outside of IT. So often, digital transformation projects get pigeon-holed as only benefitting the IT department, however the truth is that the business as a whole can benefit if wider adoption is encouraged. This is what we're seeing with Marken."

NOTES TO EDITORS

Marken is part of UPS Healthcare and headquartered in Durham, North Carolina. Marken manages 120,000 temperature-controlled drug product and biological sample shipments every month, in 220 countries and territories.

Marken is a world leader in direct-to-patient and home healthcare services, biological sample shipments, cell and gene supply chain services, and biological kit production.

About Velocity Consulting

Velocity Consulting is a leading ServiceNow Premier Partner working with enterprise clients across Europe. Velocity's TransformNow™ methodology is the first truly outcome-focussed ServiceNow transformation approach that is specifically designed to deliver our customer's business goals by targeting four key enterprise challenges to Enable, Maximise, Tune-Up and Support ServiceNow, to maximise our customer's investment..

About Marken

Marken is a wholly owned subsidiary of UPS and is a critical part of UPS Healthcare. With Polar Speed and Marken included, the UPS Healthcare division staffs 128 locations with 5,500 employees worldwide. Marken offers a state-of-the-art GMP-compliant depot network and logistic hubs for clinical drug product storage and distribution in 61 locations worldwide, while maintaining the leading position for Direct-to-Patient and Home Healthcare services, biological sample shipments and biological kit production.

Marken's dedicated 2,250+ staff members manage 150,000 drug product and biological sample shipments every month at all temperature ranges in more than 220 countries and territories and have orchestrated 14,000+ home healthcare visits. Additional services such as cell and gene supply chain services, ancillary material sourcing, storage and distribution, shipment lane verification and qualifications, as well as GDP, regulatory and compliance consultancy add to Marken's unique position in the pharma and logistics industry.