Week 2-3 Case Study researchers working on GeneChip experiments (out of the 300 employees at the site) were hogging 90% of the company's total computer capacity. Fail Fast, So You Can Succeed Sooner One of the biggest challenges in drug research or in any eld is to let go of ideas that are no longer promising and to move on to brighter prospects that aren't being given enough attention. When new hire Lee Babiss arrived from archrival Glaxo to head preclinical research, he preached a simple message: Fail fast. He knew that the best hope of nding the right new drugs was to spend less time on dead-ends. Screening was needed to sift though the massive number of drugs to nd the few promising drugs that offered the greatest likelihood of success. To solve its screening bottleneck, Roche installed an ultra-high-throughput machine made by Carl Zeiss at a cost of more than $1 million. \"We can test 100,000 compounds a day," says Larnie Myer, the technical robotics expert who runs and maintains the screening machine. Though most of those compounds don't work out, identifying just a few \"hits\" within several weeks of testing can speed up Roche's overall efforts. The Zeiss machine ultimately has led to changes in the entire research process. Change Everything - One Piece at a Time Genomics could dramatically change things at Roche: In Palo Alto, researcher Gary Peltz built a computerized model of the mouse genome that allows him to simulate classical lab studies in a matter of minutes. In Iceland, Roche teamed up with Decode, a company which researches Icelandic genealogical records. Decode used the data it had collected to identify and locate genes that are associated with stroke and schizophrenia. In Nutley, genomic data is being used to size up a drug's side effects before embarking on lengthy animal experiments. Each of these initiatives runs on a different timeline. Some parts of Roche will see dramatic business changes in a year or two, while others will not see changes for much longer \"This isn't just a matter of turning on a light switch," says Klaus Lindpaintner, Roche's global head of genetics research. Discussion Questions 1. How does the business strategy affect information systems and organizational decisions? 2. What generic strategy does Roche appear to be using based on this case? Provide a rationale for your response. 3. How do informaon systems support Roche's business strategy