As the pace of evolution in healthcare continues to increase, the dynamics between external decision makers, sales and marketing is becoming more challenging. Across companies, a common denominator is the obligation to share accurate results. While there may be a glut of data, too frequently the real challenge boils down to providing relevant and timely data, in a digestible format, to individuals across the organization. The question is: “How do I actually operationalize the data?”
Data fragmentation is part of the root problem. Rapidly changing requirements, resourcing models and relevancy also make the list of ongoing issues to address. Though best practice examples exist, Gartner reports that greater than 33% of Business Intelligence projects fail to deliver.1 The ability to deliver one version of the truth is just as critical as ensuring end users can interact with the information on any device. With so many nuances and Key Performance Indicators to measure, creating reports that end users have little confidence in is a waste of time.
However, solutions that are granular enough for individuals and detailed enough for managers—while also remaining relevant to organizational leaders—require a robust capability. But you can still find a way to operationalize data.
The Data Solution Checklist
Before you can answer the question, “So what can we do with it?” you need to make sure your solution is set up correctly. It should:
- Deliver new insights and opportunities from integrated reporting.
- Optimize resource utilization.
- Provide clear, consistent and impactful reporting.
- Be developed to remain relevant.
- Employ a “Service” not “Project” thinking.
- Allow ad hoc access for analysts.
- Offer inherent flexibility.
- Meet commercial and operational objectives.
- Permit human intervention at the right place in production—balanced with automation.
Companies that use powerful platforms have a competitive edge. An open architecture that accommodates lots of front-end tools delivers real choices. Leveraging this approach has resulted in many companies retiring labor intensive processes, never ending iterations of spreadsheets and disjointed systems.
As an example, aim to have a consistent view of all your sales and marketing data in which you can drill down from the national level to support each individual’s specialized needs. Existing solutions that are prone to error, inflexible or don’t empower leaders to respond quickly to new business opportunities will leave end users frustrated.
To put it simply: Consider who you’re providing insights to, what they need to understand and how to most effectively deliver answers to them. Architect your solution to be relevant to the individual user role wherever they sit within the organization. Select a partner with a combination of pharma industry experience, technical know-how and a strong service orientation.
Finally, to answer the question of “So what can we do with it?” you can resolve the inherent challenge of dealing with dynamic business requirements, successfully manage all the complex sales and marketing data and simplify the ongoing reporting results. The value proposition shifts to leveraging the disparate data you already purchased and correlating business rules with sales results.
References:
