OREANDA-NEWS. Network services to improve the flow of information and help optimise the delivery of medical drugs in 23 countries

 BT, one of the world’s leading providers of communications services and solutions, today announced a five-year contract with PHOENIX group, one of Europe’s leading pharmaceutical traders, to connect locations in 23 countries through its ‘IP Connect’ service.

 PHOENIX group offers a wide range of wholesale pharmaceutical products across Europe. In Germany alone, it supplies up to 10,000 pharmacies every day with a range of more than 100,000 items. Across Europe, PHOENIX operates 155 distribution centres in 23 countries. BT will connect these distribution centres as well as more than 30 additional PHOENIX sites. This will enable around 28,700 employees to communicate and collaborate reliably, and allow the logistics systems to exchange data more effectively.

 “Drug orders are transferred directly from the pharmacies’ Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to our data centres, and they have to be processed within hours,” explains Dr Gьnter Bugert, CIO of PHOENIX group. “A reliable data network is absolutely indispensable for us to secure a continuous and fast supply of pharmaceutical products.”

 The network will also link PHOENIX’s data centres in Nuremberg with its subsidiaries across Europe. In order to increase the reliability of the network, most of the locations will be connected through two independent lines, providing fail-safe duplication.

 Stephan Reiss, General Manager Corporate Sales, BT Germany, said: “I am pleased that our network and expertise will contribute to the reliable provision of medical drugs in Europe. This contract draws on BT’s years of experience and expertise in the pharmaceutical sector and shows how important IT and network services are in all areas of our daily life – even though that may not always be obvious at first glance.”