Merck, Sharp & Dohme: Digital Transformation in Shared Services and Beyond

In today’s business landscape, organizations face the challenge of reducing costs and improving operational efficiency. This is particularly true for shared services organizations that manage complex tasks and processes. However, achieving these goals can be difficult without a deep understanding of process execution. Traditional methods often fall short due to inherent human bias, incomplete information, and high costs associated with process improvement expertise. This chapter explores our organization’s journey (known as Merck in the US and Canada and MSD elsewhere), which encountered similar challenges but overcame them through the implementation of Process Intelligence. By leveraging process mining technology, we gained transparency, identified bottlenecks, and eliminated waste in our operations. This transformative approach allowed us to achieve significant improvements, leading to the establishment of an Enterprise Process Transformation COE. The chapter also highlights key success factors such as small wins, champion identification, executive sponsorship, cross-functional collaboration, and continuous learning. Looking ahead, our focus is on building an Enterprise Digital Twin and enhancing collaboration with the IT organization to further drive value.