- Cost Reduction
- 28%
- Articles Managed
- 500K+
- Time to Access
- Instant
Background
Merck is a leading global biopharmaceutical company with a vast research operation that depends on timely access to scholarly literature across numerous therapeutic areas.
The organization had grown through acquisitions and expansions, resulting in a fragmented landscape of journal subscriptions managed independently by different departments and research sites.
Challenge
Merck's decentralized approach to content access had created significant inefficiencies that were difficult to quantify and even harder to resolve without a unified system.
Fragmented Subscriptions
Multiple departments maintained their own subscription agreements, often with overlapping coverage that led to redundant spending.
Duplicate Purchases
Without a centralized view, researchers frequently purchased articles that had already been acquired by colleagues in other divisions.
Budget Opacity
Finance teams had no consolidated view of total content spend, making it impossible to negotiate better terms or identify optimization opportunities.
Researcher Friction
Scientists experienced inconsistent access depending on their department, leading to frustration and workarounds that bypassed approved channels.
Solution
Merck partnered with Research Solutions to deploy Article Galaxy as a unified content access layer across the entire organization. The platform consolidated all subscription data, purchase history, and access entitlements into a single system of record.
By routing all article requests through Article Galaxy's intelligent access engine, Merck gained immediate visibility into spending patterns and eliminated the duplicate purchases that had been silently eroding their budget.
“We had no visibility into what our teams were purchasing. Duplicate orders were eating into our budget without anyone realizing it.”
Phase 1. Consolidation
The initial phase focused on ingesting all existing subscription data and purchase history into Article Galaxy, creating a complete picture of the organization's content portfolio.
- Migrated subscription data from multiple vendors into a unified holdings database.
- Established deduplication rules that checked incoming requests against the full organizational library.
- Configured department-level budget controls and approval workflows.
Phase 2. Optimization
With full visibility established, Merck began actively optimizing their content spend based on real usage data.
- Identified subscriptions with low utilization and renegotiated or cancelled where appropriate.
- Shifted high-volume individual purchases to subscription agreements where cost-per-article was lower.
- Implemented automated reporting for quarterly business reviews with publishers.
Results
28% Cost Reduction
By eliminating duplicates and optimizing access paths, Merck reduced total article spend by 28% in the first full year.
Complete Visibility
For the first time, leadership had a single dashboard showing all content spend across departments, enabling data-driven budget allocation.
Faster Access
Researchers experienced near-instant delivery for subscribed content, with automated routing eliminating manual request processing entirely.
About Merck
Merck is a leading global biopharmaceutical company that has been inventing for life, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases.
With operations in more than 140 countries, Merck delivers innovative health solutions through its prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, and animal health products.
