Adaptability of IT in Animal Health Pharma

Gary Fling, CIO at Phibro Animal Health Corporation, is an information management and technology expert with four decades of experience. He held various positions managing companies like Johnson and Johnson, Endo Pharmaceuticals and Atlantic Richfield Company.

Fling specializes in implementing ERP, BI and supply chain systems and has successfully helped companies transition to cloud technology. His visionary strategies and programs helped modernize systems and processes within organizations, resulting in significant revenue growth.

Please give us a glimpse of your professional journey and current role in Phibro Animal Health Corporation. My career journey started when the world transitioned from keypunches to cathode ray tubes. I started as a computer programmer in an oil and gas company and climbed the corporate ladder to become senior director. After working for over two decades in that organization, I switched to Centocor, a biotechnology pharma company later acquired by Johnson and Johnson. I was positioned as the head of the global applications and was responsible for SAP, supply chain, commercial operations, sales, marketing and medical affairs. During my tenure at Centocor, I assisted them in implementing an innovative commercial solution that propelled sales from $350 million to $3.5 billion within three years.

Later, I moved to a pain management firm, Endo Pharmaceuticals, that produces generic and branded products. I held the position of head of information services at this company and focused on rebate processing.

 The universal formula to generate exceptional IT value is to maximize the quality of service and minimize cost and time. 

I finally joined Phibro Animal Health Corporation as CIO and have been working here for 15 years. Over the years, our consistent efforts have significantly increased the company's net worth to an estimated one billion dollars. It has expanded to over 35 countries worldwide with 18 operating plants. We are currently focused on integrating our recent acquisition, which includes six new plants with different levels of process controls. These plants will be equipped with our ERP systems, along with standard application suites like SAP SuccessFactors for HRIS. Further, we envision establishing an advanced IT department, shifting from responsive to engaging IT operations and fostering greater alignment with business objectives. This includes understanding business priorities, seeking digital solutions and driving forward our strategic initiatives.

What were some of the biggest industrial and organizational challenges you faced in animal pharma?

Adapting digital enablement and process excellence poses a greater challenge in a mature industry like animal pharma. Considering the pace of evolving technology, the adaptation speed of the animal pharma sector is significantly slow. The issue lies not in IT teams’ efforts to promote advanced technologies but in functional leadership's inability to see the value in adopting these solutions. The industry needs to realize the value technology advancements bring to the table. When I joined Phibro Animal Health Corporation, it was privately held and traditionally under-invested. However, in 2014, when the company went public, we needed to meet the SOX compliance. Adherence to these compliances required proper segregation of duties and implementation of security protocols, necessitating the adoption of advanced technologies. Phibro Animal Health Corporation today operates in many countries where we deal with multilingual and multicurrency matters, and technology helps us quickly meet all the local regulatory and compliance requirements.

Can you cite some project initiatives you have been part of and how they have profited the organization?

About five years ago, I formulated the company's cloud transformation strategy, which greatly contributed to its success. After three years of dedicated effort, the strategy was fully operational, and today, most of our applications are in the cloud. As a result, our critical operations remained unaffected even when our headquarters experienced a two-hour power outage at a local data center during a hurricane in New Jersey. Two months later, during a meeting with the executive team, the president referred to the power outage as a stroke of luck. I respectfully disagreed, highlighting that our systems were never at risk of disruption or becoming inoperable due to our proactive approach to transitioning all systems to the cloud. Through collaboration with industry leaders such as Microsoft and Oracle, we have attained tier-one enablement and transitioned to a virtual infrastructure. Furthermore, our profitability improvement program has validated the exceptional quality of our IT systems. An independent third-party evaluation has confirmed that our organization’s IT investment falls below the benchmark yet delivers outstanding value to the business.