Project Management Services for multiple countries in the APAC region supporting and enabling a smooth integration of a Business Acquisition

While the acquisition expanded Cardinal Health’s presence worldwide, Cordis’ presence in countries outside of Cardinal Health’s existing geographic footprint posed a challenge, as did the complexity of integrating Cordis’ processes and people, spread across five countries in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

To manage their supply chain in the APAC region, Cardinal Health appointed a Master Distributor. The integration process in each country required coordination and negotiation with the Master Distributor as well as local players such as country distributors and country product license holders.

Nexdigm operated the Project Management Office (PMO) for the overall project, executing the following key aspects:

• Developed country-specific integration roadmaps that included identifying optimal operating models and entity/ownership structures while taking into consideration the growth potential of each geography.
• Leveraged our experience of set-ups in highly regulated markets to handhold the client through the maze of procedural requirements to establish its legal presence.
• Acted as a strong guide for Cardinal Health’s regional leadership when making commercial decisions such as selection of distributors, negotiations with logistic service providers and development of business plans.
• Followed agile project management techniques with daily key stakeholder engagement as the project involved managing complex interdependencies.

Some of the crucial challenges encountered were coordination and alignment of critical activities at various functional levels, to enable all functions to move coherently towards the end goal. Nexdigm helped formulate policies, methodologies, tools and templates to efficiently manage multiple projects within the scope of integration and within the defined constraints of resources, quality, time and cost. The efficient management of cross-functional interdependencies, risk anticipation and pre-emptive actions to mitigate those risks ensured a smooth transition of the Cordis business to Cardinal Health in a timely manner.