Madaus – Dynamic approach to SAP infrastructure management cuts costs

The customer

Founded in 1919, and headquartered in Cologne, Germany, Madaus is a pharmaceutical company with a long and successful track record. With around 1,500 employees and a global presence, it focuses on the development and production of plant-based medicines, with particular expertise in urology. Madaus has production plants both in Germany and abroad. In addition to making conventional drugs, the company also manufactures phyto­pharmaceutical agents and formulations

The challenge

Madaus has emplemented SAP software to manage business data, and to control production and logistics processes, for a number of years. However, T-Systems proposed a new, innovative approach to operate the company’s SAP environment. With its Dynamic Services for SAP Solutions, the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary enables customers to use IT infrastructures more efficiently and flexibly – increasing performance and lowering costs. SAP systems have a direct impact on Madaus’ manufacturing operations, they must comply with strict German, European and US legislation, and require validation. All actions and changes must be fully documented, without exception. Once a year, an in-depth independent audit is conducted on all processes, including the underlying IT systems.

The T-Systems solution

In the past, each SAP application at Madaus required its own dedicated server. As new apps were added, the IT landscape grew accordingly. But the pharmaceuticals player has put an end to this inefficient practice – with the help of T-Systems. Now, the infrastructure required to run the company’s SAP solutions is delivered on-demand via a T-Systems data center. Madaus no longer invests in its own application servers - it simply accesses the corresponding resources over the network.

These highly efficient SAP-related services are provided via a certified, high-security data center in Frankfurt am Main. Thanks to virtualization, resources are fully scalable, and independent of the limits of the individual physical hardware devices. The load generated by SAP applications and data during day-to-day operations is spread across multiple servers and other components. Thanks to dynamic partitioning, customers can take full advantage of the capacity available within the shared infrastructure. Instead of a fixed price, companies only pay for the services they actually use. Customers are charged on a pay-per-use basis, and have complete cost transparency. And there is no need for dedicated, customer-specific servers, storage systems or networks.

Customer benefits

This pooling model results in economies of scale that T-Systems is able to pass on in the form of attractive prices. Madaus, for example, is enjoying savings of up to 20 percent for day-to-day systems operations. Customers no longer require their own infrastructure, with capacity based on peak load. Instead, resources are available on tap, in line with fluctuating demand. And instead of contracts with rigid timeframes and prices, customers are offered flexible terms and conditions. Application outsourcing has seen T-Systems assume responsibility for Madaus hardware, infrastructure, databases, and the operation of SAP release 4.6C.

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