Digital Innovator Transforms Pharmaceutical Supply Chain

Ascent Health & Wellness drives business performance, efficiency, and resilience with Unity EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform with Unity Boost WAN optimization.

When visiting the pharmacy, or chemist, most people expect that the medication their doctor prescribed is available, that the shelves are stocked with vitamins, pain relievers, bandages, and other everyday health and wellness products. That’s because behind the scenes is a complex supply chain to make it happen—a supply chain that, in India, Ascent Health & Wellness Solutions is completely transforming.

Optimizes Cloud Access

Based in Mumbai, Ascent is a fully digital business, automating everything from order to delivery. Ascent pioneered the use of robotic process automation (RPA) to process nearly 40,000 orders daily, fulfilling them to 35,000-plus pharmacies across India in as little as four hours.

Reduces Data 95%

Delivers 100% Uptime During a global pandemic, the company’s digital business model has especially shown its value. Chandresh Dedhia, CIO and head of IT at Ascent, notes,

“Since the lockdown due to COVID-19, Ascent is the only pan-India pharmaceutical distributor still up and running, serving its customers.”

Applying Boost reduced ERP data by up to 95 percent, improving the end-user quality of experience dramatically. Dedhia comments regarding network visibility,

“You would not be able to achieve this with any other product or know which traffic is getting optimized and to what extent. Silver Peak gives us that capability.”

Initially, Ascent used the public internet for connectivity, which could not support the demands of a cloud-first business running RPA, ERP, and other critical business applications. Hence, they shifted towards an all-broadband SD-WAN.

Dedhia consulted with Silver Peak partner, Hararei, and after testing several SD-WAN vendors decided the Silver Peak Unity EdgeConnect™ SD-WAN edge platform was the right solution. A key factor in this decision was the optional unified Unity Boost™ WAN optimization available on the unified EdgeConnect platform.

“With other vendors, WAN optimization is all or nothing,” Dedhia points out. “Boost is very different. It provides application-level acceleration, which gives us the flexibility to choose what traffic to optimize.”

Assured Network Efficiency and Stability

Today, EdgeConnect is deployed at Ascent’s warehouses and head office, each site terminated with dual, bonded broadband circuits and connected to the AWS environment via the AWS virtual private cloud (VPC) transit gateway. A virtual EdgeConnect appliance is also deployed in a perimeter VPC in AWS, enabling a full mesh SD-WAN that facilitates data sharing directly between warehouses and head office.

Hararei played a central role in advising on and configuring the SD-WAN to meet Ascent’s digital business requirements. Mark Snodgrass, managing director at Hararei, remarks,

"In the end, that extra effort resulted in better-performing ingress and egress with AWS, and a sturdier network overall for Ascent.”

With Boost WAN optimization, Ascent has accelerated order processing speed by 10X and significantly improved performance for ERP. Dedhia shares that their remote users commented,

"People accessing the ERP server remotely said the response was as good as if they were on a local network.”

Customer

Ascent Health & Wellness Solutions is a digital healthcare platform for pharmaceutical distribution, transforming the pharmaceutical supply chain in India. It connects all the leading pharmaceutical companies with over 35,000 pharmacies, generating annual gross merchandise volume (GMV) in excess of US $300 million.

Challenge

Ascent relied on public internet connectivity to connect warehouses and head office to the cloud, but frequent link failures caused disruption due to lack of performance, resilience, and stability.

Solution

After consulting with Silver Peak partner Hararei, Ascent deployed the EdgeConnect SD-WAN edge platform at all its warehouses and head office, connected to the AWS cloud via a VPC transit gateway. They utilize Boost WAN optimization to accelerate critical applications such as ERP and order processing.

Results

  • Supports digital-first business, enabling Ascent to maintain essential operations during the global pandemic.
  • Ensures efficient, stable connectivity from remote warehouses to critical business applications running in the AWS cloud.
  • Enabled adoption of robotic process automation, increasing order processing speed 10X.
  • Reduces application data up to 95 percent with Boost, elevating quality of experience for remote users.
  • Delivers 100 percent uptime to ensure availability of critical pharmaceutical distribution processes reaching seven million Indian citizens daily.