Revitalising a Decade-Old Portfolio Platform for a Global Medical Tech Manufacturer
Giving a Global Medical Technology Manufacturer’s Leadership Portfolio Governance that Matches how the Business Works
About our Client
A global medical technology manufacturer, UK-headquartered with product development and IT delivery operations spanning multiple regulated markets, had a long-standing, deeply configured investment in Clarity PPM as its enterprise portfolio management platform.
After more than a decade on the platform, its configuration no longer clearly reflected how the business actually worked. Coordinating one platform across business units meant reconciling different regulatory regimes, including FDA clearance and approval routes and EU MDR technical documentation and post-market surveillance obligations, different product development lifecycles, and different definitions of what counted as a “priority” project across clinical, regulatory, quality and manufacturing stakeholders.
Rather than treat that as a reason to replace the platform, Ignite Technology was engaged to revitalise the existing Clarity PPM investment and reconfigure it to reflect how the organisation actually worked.
Regulatory Portfolio Challenges Facing the Manufacturer's Leadership
For a global manufacturer operating under multiple regulatory regimes, the risk that matters to leadership is whether the portfolio platform still reflects reality, not whether it’s time to buy something new.
- The platform no longer clearly reflected how the business actually worked a decade after its original configuration.
- Business units operated under different regulatory regimes, including FDA clearance and approval routes and EU MDR technical documentation and post-market surveillance obligations.
- Different business units ran different product development lifecycles, with no shared definition of what counted as a “priority” project across clinical, regulatory, quality and manufacturing stakeholders.
- The instinct is often to replace the platform, rather than question whether its configuration, not the platform itself, was the real problem.
Ignite Technology's Approach
Rather than a re-platforming exercise, Ignite Technology focused the engagement on revitalising the organisation’s existing Clarity PPM investment, reconfiguring it to reflect current ways of working and re-proving its fit before any decision to replace it was made.
That meant realigning the platform’s configuration to how the business’s distinct units actually plan and govern work, rather than to the legacy setup choices it had accumulated over a decade, and it was followed by further services engagements rather than treated as a one-off fix.
Benefits and Business Outcomes
By demonstrating the tangible benefits and building a strong relationship, Ignite Technology delivered key outcomes including:
- A configuration realigned to how the business’s distinct units actually plan and govern work, rather than legacy setup choices.
- Clearer portfolio visibility across units operating under different regulatory regimes, reducing the overhead of tracking regulated product-development work in one platform.
- A decade-old Clarity PPM relationship refreshed and extended, rather than replaced, followed by further services engagements.
- Confidence that the existing platform investment could be re-proven fit for purpose before committing to the cost and disruption of replacing it.
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Frequently Asked Questions
By reconfiguring the existing platform to reflect current ways of working, rather than assuming an outdated configuration means it needs replacing. This is the approach Ignite Technology took revitalising a global medical technology manufacturer’s long-standing Clarity PPM investment.
A consultancy questions whether the platform or its configuration is the real problem before recommending a replacement. On this engagement, Ignite Technology re-proved the fit of the client’s existing Clarity PPM investment and reconfigured it around how the business’s units actually plan and govern work, rather than starting a re-platforming project by default.
Yes. Global medical technology manufacturers use Clarity PPM to coordinate product development portfolios across multiple regulated business units, balancing FDA and EU MDR regulatory pathways against commercial delivery timelines, including the UK-headquartered manufacturer behind this case study, which sits within Ignite Technology’s core UK and Ireland client base.
Because a platform whose configuration hasn’t kept pace with the business ends up hiding the same problems a missing platform would, unclear priorities, inconsistent regulatory tracking, and decisions made without a shared view. Realigning the configuration, as Ignite did here, is often what actually fixes that, without the cost and disruption of a full replacement.
Yes. Any organisation that has run an enterprise portfolio platform for a decade or more, especially across business units with different regulatory or operational requirements, risks the same drift between how the platform is configured and how the business actually works. Re-proving fit through reconfiguration, rather than assuming replacement is the only option, is the same consultancy work that applies well beyond this one client.