How a Clinical Research Leader Modernized BCM for 600+ Teams and Replaced VOC

Sheila Middleton, Senior Manager of Business Continuity Management @ IQVIA

600+ users
supported globally across departments
2,000+ plans centralized
for continuity and disaster recovery
$24K annual
cost target achieved
“We’ve moved from static Word templates to real-time, connected planning across 300+ sites. SmartSuite gave us the tools to finally modernize our continuity program.”
Sheila Middleton, Senior Manager of Business Continuity Management @ IQVIA

Problem

Rebuilding Continuity in a Remote-First World

A global leader in health information technology and clinical research, faced challenges coordinating complex data and analytics workflows across its expansive, innovation-driven operations. With over 100,000 employees worldwide, the company’s business continuity program was under immense strain.

Their existing vendor, VOC, provided only static Word-based templates—digital replicas that lacked critical planning elements such as system dependencies, vendor relationships, and impact metrics. This led to a fragmented, facility-based approach to continuity planning, with hundreds of outdated or irrelevant documents that couldn’t support a modern, remote-first workforce. As physical offices closed during COVID, large segments of the organization were left without plan coverage, creating dangerous continuity gaps.

Leadership faced mounting frustration: no completed business impact assessments (BIAs), no disaster recovery validations, no reporting visibility, and a notification process that was entirely manual. Documentation lived in silos, and despite two years of attempted implementation, VOC remained unusable. Senior Manager of Business Continuity Management inherited the program amid these challenges—tasked with rebuilding it from the ground up under tight time constraints, limited resources, and a strict $24K annual budget cap.

Q1

Solution

Digitizing Continuity Planning with SmartSuite

The company's Senior Manager of Business Continuity Management partnered with SmartSuite to overhaul the business continuity management (BCM) framework, moving from location-based to functionally aligned department-level planning. SmartSuite’s flexible data model allowed for central libraries of facilities, vendors, and applications—pulled in from systems like Workday, Coupa, and CMDB via import or integration.

Key innovations included:

  • BIAs with upstream/downstream dependencies and automated RTO/RPO mapping
  • Crisis management dashboards with geographic filtering and automated alerts
  • Document Designer templates branded per subsidiary, enabling multi-entity use
  • Site-level advisory automation using radius-based incident impact calculations
  • Role-based permissions for plan authors, reviewers, and read-only approvers

SmartSuite's no-code configuration empowered the team to rapidly prototype and iterate solutions. Even the incident advisory process—previously run manually with global alerts—was now digitized, tracked, and integrated with executive notifications.

Q2

Results

From Siloed Templates to Strategic Resilience

Within months, the HealthTech company transitioned from a stalled vendor implementation to an active, data-driven continuity platform tailored to their enterprise needs.

  • 600+ users now engage in plan writing, review, and approval with precise roles
  • 2,000+ plans are standardized, centralized, and tied to real operational dependencies
  • Incident response is now measurable and trackable—down to regional risk zones

SmartSuite met the companies tight $24K budget and enabled phase-based expansion with no loss in functionality. The team now supports crisis management, disaster recovery, and continuity planning from one tool—customized to serve global operations, clinical trials, and regional risk requirements.

SmartSuite’s dashboarding, automated communications, and secure data management gave them the strategic visibility and executional control they were missing. And by aligning on templates, governance, and system integrations, the business continuity program now scales with confidence.

Download Customer Story PDF

Customer Name

IQVIA

Industry

Health & Human Services

Team

IT

Region

North America

Company size

Enterprise

Pain point

Fragmented, outdated continuity planning systems

Products replaced

Microsoft Word, VOC

About the company

A global leader in healthcare analytics and clinical research using real-world data and tech to improve patient outcomes.

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