I could go on about the virtues of having governance guidance for any global IT system. However, from my experience, it’s a lot easier to explain what happens when we don’t have this. It’s like explaining the importance of oxygen – you will understand immediately when you do not have enough (especially when in an enclosed space).
In this article, I will share 3 main issues that arise from not having any governance for global IT systems:
- Repeating the same mistakes over and over
We all understand the concept of reinventing the wheel. However, I frequently hear that “…we have a unique way here, locally…”. Nevertheless, the truth is, there are hardly any new ideas under the sun that mankind has not yet tried. Most global IT systems already embed the most efficient process (way of working). By not following global governance, we will just be learning by trial and error all over again, repeating continuously the same mistakes that our colleagues have made before us.
- Wasting time looking for information
Not having global governance means that there will not be a standard naming convention in documents and information captured in the system. This becomes a real time-waster when someone (other than the author, even from the same local site) tries to find a particular piece of information. From my experience working across multiple clients and sites, a simple term like “Quality”, can be captured in the following formats – “Quality”, “QA”, “qa”, “Qaul”. The issue compounds when we are searching for a particularly useful piece of information, for example, “Quality release of batch ID 12345678”. The permutation of the different ways of naming the information will truly waste our precious time, in looking for information.
- A lack of compliance
Without global governance guidance, there is no planned adherence to compliance, across sites. Any similarity would be a coincidence. For example, a deviation can be raised, reviewed, and approved by the manufacturing department in site A, while another similar deviation has to be reviewed and approved by the quality department in site B. To an external auditor who has just audited site A, the lack of consistent practice will potentially lead to confusion about how the organisation treats a certain type of deviation.
By having governance in place, you will:
- Achieve the economy of skills
- Achieve the economy of scale
- Allow anyone to get everything better by sharing information and having consolidated learning.
There you have it – I hope you are convinced that we need robust and efficient governance guidance for all global IT systems. Without such guidance, we will clearly have to live with repeating mistakes, wasting time in looking for information and a lack of compliance.
If you have any questions or would like our help in better understanding the need for governance guidance for global IT systems, please do contact us for a discussion at hello@nodeviation.com.
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Fu Chin has over 20 years of a growth themed career, with increasing responsibilities mostly in the Pharmaceuticals/Biotech industry, from an IT Programmer to APAC IT Regional Management role. He has had enriching experiences with MNCs (GSK, Pfizer, Amgen) as well as the supporting vendor ecosystem. He led the manufacturing and lab systems deployment and enabled the data synchronisation within the Enterprise Data Lake at the Amgen greenfield startup in Singapore. Working with various Commercial, Operations, Regulatory, QA and IT teams, Fu Chin has supported and fronted successful regulatory (e.g. FDA, EMA, TGA & HSA) inspections. He is an SME for the Computer Systems Validation area, for both manufacturing plants and commercial offices.
