Cegal ensures that Apotek 1 receives their medicines
Year after year, customers have named Apotek 1 Norway's best pharmacy. One of the reasons why customers are so satisfied is the fast data and information flow between their IT systems. This data stream is provided by Cegal.
For eight consecutive years, customers have named Apotek 1 Norway's best pharmacy, according to the Norwegian Customer Barometer. At the same time, the pharmacy chain, with over 400 stores throughout Norway, has ambitious goals. Apotek 1 has, among other things, opened Norway's first airport pharmacy and opened Norway's largest pharmacy in Sørlandssenteret. These days, Apotek 1 is working to develop a pharmacy of the future that will provide a holistic and consistent customer experience regardless of whether the customers shop online or in physical outlets.
The core of Apotek 1's business is competence and quality. Competence and quality are also the key words for Apotek 1 when having chosen Cegal as an IT partner year after year.
“We use Cegal because they have good developers who work well with our developers”, says IT Development Manager Håkan Nykvist in Apotek 1.
“Apotek 1 uses cegal because they have good developers who work well with our developers”
Håkan Nykvist, Apotek 1
Cegal provides the data
To develop Norway's best customer experience and the pharmacy of the future, Apotek 1 now has one solution that merges the physical and digital channels into a seamless value chain – from ordering at a wholesaler until the customer receives the products. Data and information flow between business systems, cash register solutions and various IT services is crucial if Apotek 1 is to succeed with the investment. This data flow enables customers to get their, in many cases vital, medicines in store or online. cegal provides this critical flow of information.
Cegal has had knowledgeable consultants at Apotek 1 for almost 15 years. The consultants have mainly been part of the integration team and worked with Apotek 1's own consultants to make data and information available in a secure, fast and efficient way.
“If a system crashes, it could mean that you cannot buy medicines or that prescriptions are unavailable. Being a system guard for Apotek 1 is therefore an important and socially critical task”
Denis Velagic, Cegal
Socially critical system guard
One of the most recent major projects has been to migrate to a new version of the integration platform. Here, Cegal contributes with two people, who work together with five of Apotek 1's own consultants. The tasks are mainly integrations, automation, monitoring and troubleshooting.
The Cegal consultants are also part of the on-call scheme at Apotek 1. The on-call scheme is responsible for ensuring that all systems that go via the integration platform function as they should always, every day of the year.
“If a system goes down, it could mean that you cannot buy medicines or that prescriptions are unavailable. Being a system guard for Apotek 1 is therefore an important and socially critical task”, says Chief Consultant Denis Velagic at cegal, who works for Apotek 1.
“Cegal developers generally have good expertise, and they can use the Cegal network for help when needed”
IT Development Manager Håkan Nykvist in Apotek 1.
Mr. Murphy
That Cegal developers are competent is illustrated by this story:
Denis Velagic loves debugging and often experiences that he makes things fail, where others do not experience bugs.
“When it fails, I learn a lot of things. If it works on the first try, you learn nothing. I call myself Mr. Murphy”, says Velagic and explains about Murphy time:
“That's when I have to kill that bug”.
This is also noticed at Apotek 1 in a positive way, that the problems are solved when Velagic gets going
Apotek 1 is Norway's leading pharmacy chain with over 400 outlets throughout Norway and over 3,500 employees. Apotek 1 is owned by the German PHOENIX group.
Cegal has provided skilled consultants to Apotek 1 for a number of years, mainly to the integration team where the Cegal consultants work closely with Apotek 1's own consultants.
