Roche

One app dashboard

Project in a Nutshell

Overcoming transformation hurdles. The international pharmaceutical group Roche has reached the next level of digital maturity – with an app dashboard that greatly simplifies the use, integration and operation of new software, relieves the burden on IT and unleashes untapped digitization potential.

The Customer Need

All innovations at one location. In hardly any other industry is digitization happening as rapidly as in medicine. The speed of innovation at Roche is correspondingly high: For the dozens of apps that the group makes available internally every year, they wanted a central solution that would provide access to new applications, but at the same time would control them. Subject matter experts with programming skills should be able to share solutions to problems more easily without having cumbersome app deployment processes on the intranet constantly slowing them down. The highly secure operating environment required for this also had to be technology neutral.

Challenges & Extra Miles

User acceptance and legacy IT. Digital transformation has less to do with technologies than you would think. Change that is to lead to real progress always requires a change in the corporate culture. Therefore, achieving global acceptance for the solution among Roche's four user groups and adapting existing IT systems to modern requirements were equally important priorities.

Digital Strategy

Development based on the user. Whether user, IT administrator, app manager or software developer, the requirements for a central dashboard at Roche were highly diverse. A digital road map set the course for success:

1
Requirements workshop: Who are the user groups, what do they need?
2
Drafting of a road map: Based on user interviews, potential for improvement can be identified to ensure high user satisfaction.
3
User-centric design of the dashboard.

Process Innovation

Roche AppZone This app dashboard not only creates a single source of trust, where business users can access apps via self-service and have a direct exchange with Roche developers. The AppZone also embodies the technological modernization of outdated core processes and the establishment of new digital business models at Roche. A good and important side effect: Roche opens up the intranet to the solutions of subject matter experts, enabling a democratization of its IT. This releases previously untapped digitization potential.

Technical Solution

Innovation without reinventing the wheel The app dashboard builds on existing solutions and focuses on integration and expansion. The foundation for this is the Kubernetes software, which securely enables the use of containers in production. The release and deployment processes, on the other hand, require neither special Kubernetes knowledge nor the authorization to manage the infrastructure. The app dashboard, which is fully integrated into the company's processes, makes work easier for all user groups. Apps can now be developed with any programming language and built with any process. As long as the end result is a Docker container with a web app, deployment in the dashboard is no longer a problem at Roche.

Technical Simplification

The app dashboard solves what often presents less experienced developers with insurmountable hurdles:

Connection to SSO systems
Deployment of the app with its own domain name
Restricting app access to certain groups of users
Deployment of a testing and productive environment with a release workflow for going live
Access to logs and monitoring data at app level
For experienced developers: deployment of new apps via an API with existing external processes (CI/CD)

Big

Wins

Aiming for the hundred. Why not think big? Roche can now do the same in the field of app development and delivery. Up to 100 apps per year are planned for deployment in the near future with a special focus on GDPR and cyber security. Due to the nature of the industry, Roche has to deal with highly sensitive study and patient data. Within the app dashboard and thanks to the experience of blu BEYOND's solution architects, security concerns are now one worry less.

Small Victories

1
Internal IT relieved Digital self-service for users, full control of access rights and a modernization of legacy systems now saves Roche's IT professionals valuable time.
2
Digitization accelerated globally The digital transformation can be measured in speed: Roche is now in the fast lane when it comes to internal process efficiency.
3
Improved decision-making in business divisions Those who can test prototypes more quickly can better assess economic potential and risks and thus make the right decisions.
4
Data lakes understood Analyses and forecasts are now also easier and quicker to implement with self-developed apps at Roche.
5
Deployment of 3 weeks reduced to 10 minutes And simply demonstrated with an example that the speed of innovation in digitization makes a real difference.
6
Hurdles for app deployment lowered Because the app dashboard handles tricky IT issues, subject matter experts can get involved without having to acquire IT expertise.

"To meet the increasing internal demand for digital solutions, we needed to find a way to simplify and speed up app development and deployment. With AppZone, which is based on blu BEYOND's app dashboard bluprint, our developers, system managers as well as IT teams now use a platform that democratizes the app deployment process while managing governance in a targeted way. AppZone is an important solution that allows us to easily deliver new digital tools that have been co-created with our users."
Dr. Frank Zettl, Head of Datalab PTDE bei Roche

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