Having heard the story too many times, I had to write a note about the vendor / application selection process for ELN. There seems to be a prevailing thought that a monolithic, one vendor approach is the way to go, regardless of business application detail. To understand the pros and cons, let’s briefly examine the foundation of this argument.
One vendor is easier to negotiate with, allowing for greater economies of scale and commonalities in infrastructure and support. With one application, support analysts can be deployed to cover an entire business unit and with the greatly increased scope, realize the benefits of scale. In summary, a one vendor approach is an IT persons dream, right?
Oh - wait, it's not all about IT? You mean without the "Business" there would be no need for IT? Ahhhhh! Well then, that changes things a bit.
Now it's time to start thinking about fit to purpose / fit for use. There is currently no singe ELN vendor that covers all the spaces, though many make the claim. How similar is a process chemistry requirements set to a small molecule biologics work flow? How about GLP vs. Non-GLP? Discovery work flow and the wild west process management has a bit of a different set of needs than a Regulated Bioanalytical group.
In general, ELN purchases must be carefully thought out to match the needs of the users and deployed as a targeted asset, not a generalized commodity application. While it is clear you want to avoid the "one of everything" mentality we sometimes get in large pharma, we need to accept that this space is still a multi vendor play for the foreseeable future.
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