Poised for exponential growth, Vietnam’s pharmaceutical industry is brimming with opportunities fueled by a large and aging population, rising living standards, and favorable macro-economic conditions. New-generation free trade agreements are further propelling growth, enabling Vietnamese pharmaceutical companies to expand their export markets and introduce high-quality products to new frontiers.

To capture the immense opportunities that lie ahead, digital transformation has emerged as a critical imperative for Vietnamese pharmaceutical companies. This transformative journey not only empowers businesses to streamline costs, mitigate risks, optimize resources, and enhance operational efficiency, but also facilitates seamless and swift customer engagement. It presents a golden opportunity to establish agile business models that align with the evolving technological landscape. Moreover, digital transformation serves as a robust foundation for augmenting workforce productivity, fostering innovation, enabling automation, and ensuring a robust domestic supply chain for pharmaceutical products.

Recognizing the transformative potential of digital transformation, Imexpharm has consistently embraced innovation, particularly in the realm of digital initiatives. As a testament to its commitment to digital excellence, Imexpharm stands as the first Vietnamese pharmaceutical company to implement SAP S/4HANA, a cutting-edge enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. This strategic move empowers Imexpharm to elevate operational efficiency, delivering exceptional service to customers and partners alike.

Imexpharm has embarked on a significant digital transformation project in collaboration with Deloitte Vietnam. Leveraging Deloitte Vietnam’s extensive experience of over 33 years in the country, in-depth expertise, and vast network of specialists, the project aims to assist Imexpharm in achieving its goal of upgrading to the new SAP S/4HANA solution. This upgrade will bring about substantial improvements in data security, scalability, and user-friendliness. In contrast to the legacy ECC system, S/4HANA utilizes an in-memory database, which significantly enhances transaction processing and data retrieval speeds by thousands of times while also minimizing IT expenses.

Deloitte Vietnam has outlined the scope of the SAP upgrade project from ECC to S/4HANA, focusing on technical and hardware infrastructure enhancements. Throughout the upgrade process, Deloitte Vietnam’s experts will evaluate, analyze, and provide recommendations for replacing or reprogramming outdated system programs and functionalities. The list of SAP ECC update points and replacement functionalities will be finalized during the project’s design phase.

Imexpharm is not only upgrading to SAP S/4HANA but is also the first pharmaceutical company to implement a strategy for transitioning to the IFRS international accounting standard, with Deloitte Vietnam’s guidance and support. This is one of Deloitte Vietnam’s core strengths, as its specialists have assisted numerous partners in bridging the gap between domestic and international financial reporting languages through VAS/IFRS analysis, system, data, and process readiness assessment, IFRS accounting handbook development, the establishment of the IFRS statement of financial position preparation and approval process, and IFRS knowledge training.

Imexpharm embraces digital transformation to fuel growth and international expansion

At the project launch for the SAP S/4HANA upgrade on July 3, Mr. Nguyen An Duy, CFO of Imexpharm, said that as a quality leader with the largest EU-GMP factory chain in Vietnam, Imexpharm has set ambitious growth targets and aims to expand into international markets. Investing in technology infrastructure and digital transformation has always been a top priority for the company to achieve its growth objectives, better serve its customers and partners, and deliver superior value. Mr. Duy expressed confidence that with Deloitte’s implementation experience and Imexpharm’s strong IT team’s expertise, the project will be successful.

“With a six-month timeframe for the upgrade and implementation of IFRS, Deloitte is confident that its deep expertise and diverse experience will support Imexpharm in implementing the enhanced features on the new system, ensuring compliance with IFRS accounting standards, thereby leading to project success,” said Mr. Pankaj Rathi from Deloitte.

In addition to pioneering the SAP S/4HANA upgrade and IFRS adoption, Imexpharm also operates according to the highest international standards and has applied SHE (safety, health, environment) and MRO (maintenance, repair, operation) standards to its manufacturing processes. Going further, it has also implemented new warehouse management software to improve and standardize the drug storage process at its factories.

The digital transformation strategy implemented over the years is helping Imexpharm reach out to customers, optimize customer interactions, and significantly expand its customer base. In addition, strong investment in technology under international standards also increases the company’s transparency in the eyes of investors, partners, and customers. Business administration has recorded positive results thanks to the shortening of document processing time, as well as information security through digital transformation.

After recording record-breaking business results since its listing in 2023, with total revenue increasing by 26 per cent compared year-on-year to reach VND2.113 trillion ($82.6 million), Imexpharm has also set a target for 2024 of raising gross revenue by 24 per cent. To do so, it is researching the possibility of distributing its products to Southeast Asian markets, and at the same time will diversify its product portfolio, especially the production of generic drugs for the treatment of non-communicable and chronic diseases.

In order to realize such goals, Imexpharm continues to invest heavily in technology infrastructure and digital transformation. Planned projects include an electronic Quality Management System (eQMS) and Electronic Batch Record (EBR). Digitization in quality management will help improve efficiency by automating manual tasks and minimizing human error. At the same time, it also helps improve quality management efficiency by providing organizations with a more comprehensive view of Imexpharm’s quality processes.