How can life sciences organizations transform their content operating models to exceed customer expectations?

While several organizations have started bringing in the right capabilities, talent, and technologies to drive operational transformation, how far have they really come? How well is their content performing from the customer’s standpoint? Why haven’t their content transformation initiatives been able to deliver the impact they should have delivered? And, how can they overcome the barriers that challenge their ability to deliver a superior customer experience?

At the Indegene Digital Summit 2022, Hannah Price, Senior Director of Customer Experience, and Alicia Gionfriddo, Director of Digital Transformation at DT Consulting (an Indegene company), used first-hand data to provide answers to all these questions and shed light on how life sciences organizations can find efficient ways to deliver personalized experience at scale.

What do HCPs really expect from their interactions with life sciences organizations?

As per the Digitally Savvy HCP report, 62% of HCPs are overwhelmed by product-related promotional content pushed by life sciences companies on various digital channels. What they want is a greater share of non-promotional and educational content around real-world evidence, new indication information, and up-to-date clinical data. As far as channel preferences were concerned, the preferences can vary based on the HCPs’ expectations from the engagement. experience and information they seek.

Are life sciences organizations meeting the experience needs of HCPs?

It is well-known that personalization is vital to delivering a superior customer experience. And, while content is not the only component of customer experience, it is a critical factor that helps HCPs perceive the personalization they have received from life sciences companies. Based on the research undertaken by DT consulting, although organizations have built the capabilities to deliver experiences that drive trust and simplicity, they are falling short of their ability to drive personalization.

So, why are life sciences’ content transformation models falling short?

Running content transformation initiatives across the organization is not easy. You require a clear vision, the right mindset, and a robust road map to achieve the goals you have set for yourself.

Listed below are some key reasons why life sciences’ current transformation initiatives have not yielded the best results.

Organization silos - Organizations often tend to run their transformation initiatives in silos. For example, an organization may focus on transforming its commercial operations before its clinical and medical ones. This creates a disparity in digital maturity across functions, resulting in inefficiencies and compromising business outcomes.

Unclear mission -Organizations often forget that content is a vital part of their omnichannel engagement. They fail to define a clear vision and mission around how they want to transform their content operations, develop the right capabilities and technologies, enable a robust global-to-local content supply chain, and establish the right workforce to support these changes. Consequently, this leads to gaps in their transformation initiatives and affects their ability to achieve their goals.

Shiny-thing syndrome - Organizations are always trying to keep up with the latest trends by bringing in new technologies and enablement programs. But they often neglect the inadequate competencies and capabilities of their regional and global teams, which limit their ability to pick up new things and execute them. This can lead to increased reliance on third-party agencies, thereby adding to cost and temporal inefficiencies.

One-person-five changes - While organizations are motivated to move toward omnichannel enablement, they fail to fully comprehend the pressure it puts on their workforce. Poor change management strategies, inadequate training, and development initiatives, and a focus on utilizing the same people to deliver 3x the work, make it difficult for organizations to drive their transformation initiatives in a scalable and efficient fashion.

So, how can life sciences organizations overcome these challenges?

Real handshakes

Vision In Action

Ditch the buzzwords

Break the mold

To sum it up, organizations have made great progress in building the right capabilities, attracting the right talent, and launching innovative programs to take them a step toward their experience transformation goals. From content transformation and channel integration to customer experience management and engagement analytics, life sciences companies are running several new initiatives simultaneously, albeit in an uncoordinated manner. This is not only resulting in disparate levels of maturity across these initiatives but also putting tremendous pressure on its workforce, ultimately culminating in poor business outcomes. To overcome these roadblocks, they need to prioritize getting their basics right. Ensuring that their new capabilities are stepping-stones toward their final goal, enabling their teams to work collaboratively, and focusing more on the tangible aspects of transformation rather than buzzwords, will help them improve their customer experience and drive better business impact.