Discover how UCB Pharmaceuticals transformed its project and portfolio management with Planisware over 15 years. Learn how 6,000 users now manage 9,000 projects, improve data quality, and prepare for predictive analytics to drive innovation and better patient outcomes.
For over 90 years, UCB Pharmaceuticals has been committed to improving the lives of people suffering from severe diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson’s. Today, UCB is a global mid-sized biopharmaceutical company with 10,000 employees, focused on changing its operations through innovation.
Over the past 15 years, Planisware has played a key role in helping UCB optimize its project and portfolio management processes, ensuring they can meet their goals effectively. Jeff Castells, Head of IT Planning and Product Portfolio Management at UCB, and Benoit Soulier, Project Director at Planisware, share their longstanding partnership and how it has prepared UCB for future innovations.
“At UCB, our focus is on improving the lives of patients with severe diseases… but over time, we realized that our project management systems weren’t equipped to support the scale and complexity of our work.” – Jeff Castells
Before adopting Planisware, UCB’s project management environment was separated. Different departments used disconnected systems, making it difficult to get a view of ongoing projects. This fragmentation limited transparency and slowed decision-making, particularly in UCB’s core areas—research and development, manufacturing and supply, and IT.
“Our goal with Planisware was to bring all our systems together into one unified tool,” Jeff shared. “We needed full transparency and visibility across all project data to support better decision-making.”
6,000 Users Managing 9,000 Projects
Benoit, who has worked closely with UCB for many years, provided insight into how this collaboration has evolved. “When UCB first adopted Planisware, they had just 15 users,” Benoit recalled. “Now, they have over 6,000 users managing 9,000 projects.” The scale of UCB’s operations has grown tremendously, but this expansion didn’t come without its challenges.
One of the key factors in UCB’s success has been the flexibility of Planisware. As Jeff explained, “The system supports different governance structures and project management processes across our various functions, from drug development to IT. This flexibility allows teams to adapt the tool to their needs while making sure that everyone is aligned.”
However, with complexity, UCB began to face performance and data quality issues. “We knew we had a lot of customizations and historical data, and we started to suspect that these were causing performance slowdowns,” Jeff said. “Performance is critical for user adoption—if the system is slow, people stop using it.”which is where the Planisware team conducted an audit.
“The audit was incredibly revealing,” Benoit shared. “We analyzed usage, performance, and data quality, and found several areas where improvements could be made. We identified short-term, mid-term, and long-term solutions.”
One of the immediate wins from the audit was improving system startup time by 50% and boosting Gantt chart display speeds by five times. “These performance improvements had a huge impact on user satisfaction,” Jeff said. “But we also realized we needed to address deeper issues around data quality.”
Data Quality, Data Quality & Data Quality
Data quality can’t be underestimated, especially in this industry. “We were amazed to learn how much poor data quality was affecting our system,” Jeff admitted. “If you input bad data, you’re going to get bad results. We had to confront the reality that our data wasn’t as clean as it needed to be.”
One major driver for the focus on data quality was UCB’s ambition to explore predictive analytics. “We ran an experimental project to test predictive analytics, but quickly realized that without accurate data, we couldn’t make reliable predictions,” Jeff explained. “This pushed us to clean up our data across the board.”
Improving data quality also became a trust issue within the organization. “Trust is key—without high-quality data, our entire operation could be at risk, especially in compliance-heavy fields like biopharma,” Jeff said. “We’re making great progress, but there’s still more work to do.”
As UCB continues its mission, the company remains focused on optimizing its use of Planisware. “Our goal is to improve performance and data quality even further,” Jeff noted. “We want to continue increasing user adoption, especially as new departments like marketing and commercial teams are starting to knock on our door.”
UCB’s ultimate vision is to leverage predictive analytics, especially at a time where AI is being explored in every industry, for better resource forecasting, budget predictions, and improved timelines. “We’re laying the foundation to bring in advanced capabilities, but first, we need to ensure our data and processes are rock-solid,” Jeff added.
Future of UCB’s Partnership with Planisware
As UCB continues its journey with Planisware, the focus remains on strengthening the foundations they’ve built over the past 15 years. With performance improvements already underway and a renewed focus on data quality, the company is poised to take advantage of advanced capabilities like predictive analytics.
Jeff and Benoit reflected on what has made their partnership so successful. “We’ve been working together for a long time, and what really stands out is the mutual trust we’ve built,” Benoit said. “It’s not a vendor-client relationship—we’re playing on the same team.”
Jeff agreed, adding that “Transparency has been key. We’ve started listening to each other more, and that’s made all the difference. We’re aligned on the same goals, and that’s why we’ve been able to achieve so much together.”
As UCB looks to the future, Planisware will continue to help UCB in driving innovation, improving project management, and ultimately, delivering better outcomes for patients around the world.
Curious on how Planisware can have an impact on your project management processes? Get in touch with our team.
