And Now for the ROI
Holbrook says that the smart card project's ROI is hard to pin down precisely. Pfizer IT has worked with its vendors to drive down the cost of the badges, from about $US30 at the start to about $US13. (At the beginning of the project, Holbrook points out, no one knew how to price the card because it didn't exist. Also, some R&D costs were loaded into pricing and the vendors didn't know what to expect in terms of volume.)
Pfizer estimates the cost of one "wet signature" at $US30 (including time to track down the signer, plus storage and scanning cost; some analysts put the cost as high as $US125.) Today, one smart card, with its unlimited number of digital signatures, costs $US13, plus $US70 for a three-year licence for the high-assurance PKI credential. Pfizer uses a Microsoft digital certificate authority for some in-house signatures, but for signatures subject to outside scrutiny, it partners with Citibank to license the SAFE high-assurance PKI credential. (SAFE — "signatures and access for everyone" — is a pharmaceutical industry consortium.) Anecdotally, Pfizer's use of FedEx to ship documents for signatures has also dropped, Potter says.
Innovation Ahead
Pfizer plans to take the technology to new places, Potter says, including biometric applications recently installed at some Pfizer facilities. The smart card stores the user's thumbprint, which is matched by a reader at the door. One benefit of this system, Holbrook says, is that Pfizer doesn't need to maintain a big database of the thumbprints — a serious privacy concern, especially in Europe, where governmental privacy regulations are quite strict.
"There's plenty of room to innovate on this platform," Potter says.
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services. Zones provide focussed content from CIO and leading technology partners.- White PaperJoin industry expert Martin Tuip to discover best practice strategy for the archival and removal of .PST files using email archiving. Learn how to ensure long-term email records are there when needed, and reduce the risk to your business and clients.
- White PaperJoin Lee Benjamin, a Microsoft Exchange MVP and Ryan Shipkowski, network administrator for Matthews, to discuss the process and ROI of implementing an email archiving solution, with emphasis on a case study from Matthews International.
- White PaperLearn to tie virtualized computing to virtualized storage, to offer a dynamic set of capabilities within the data centre and create improved performance and system reliability. Discover how best to utilize EMC Celerra in a VMware ESX environment.
Discover how SOA can create smarter outcomes for your business.
Attend and learn:
- How SOA is helping leading companies to become more agile
- Where you should be applying SOA processes in your company
- The top SOA implementation mistakes to avoid
Click here for more information.
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Data grids and service-oriented architecture
When choosing an SOA strategy, corporations must ensure data availability, reliability, performance and scalability. A data grid infrastructure, built with clustered caching provides a framework for improved data access that can create a competitive edge and sustain customer loyalty. Read on to discover how this can be created within your organisation.
