A survey of CEOs, Directors and Senior Executives revealed that digital transformation was their top concern. Yet an article in Harvard Business Review found that 70% of all digital transformation initiatives did not reach their goals and went on to say that of the $1.3 trillion spent on digital transformation, $900 billion of these did not reach their goals.
Part of the problem I see when companies begin their digital transformation journey is that they begin with technology and start looking at different tech options. But it should not start with tech, or even be about tech, it is about making the customer experience and customer journey better while making the company processes better and bringing in more revenue dude to enhanced customer experience and enhanced business processes. So, it is about change and making the process better for both customers and the company.
If you consider healthcare systems attempting a digital transformation, and let’s take the UK NHS as an example. Billions have been spent on tech to modernise the NHS but it is still in the dinosaur age because each trust buys a technology, but none of them speak with each other and each NHS trust does not operate in a vacuum – but from a tech perspective they do because of poor planning and purchase decisions. It is software purchases before considering the bigger picture which is what makes the customer (so the patient) life better, and what makes the system work better for the NHS.
So, if you are going about the business of digital transformation here are a few pointers:
1. Start with objectives
The biggest problem I see is starting with tech options, rather than business objectives. Think about what outcomes you are trying to achieve and how could you serve you customers better?
2. Really understand your customers’ needs to digitize the customer experience
Although not a pharma example, the approach by Burberry is a lovely example of digital transformation. See here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1dEia6bc90 This is perfectly possible to do for pharma as well but of course with difference nuances - but I have yet to see any pharma even vaguely attempt this. Utilizing this kind of approach needs you to look at your customers’ needs, and that includes getting strong customer insight, integrating digital marketing with your product experience and offering personalized omni-channel real time next best action modelling.
3. Digitize your products.
There is so much that can be done to digitize pharma, biotech and medical devices to make them part of a bigger ecosystem. One can literally digitise drugs with the innovations in chip in pill tech already being done, but you could also digitize the delivery device if you are in an area requiring an injectable or inhaled product. Then the products can become connected to the ecosystem. The lowliest of companies are already creating digital experiences around their products for example Sensoria, a sock company has put sensors that are artificial intelligence powered into their socks, which speak with their fitness device to tell you a lot about your running and fitness, and they are also creating some great digital experiences for their customers. Pharma have a much more value add offer than a sock and yet I am not seeing real digital transformation happening with our products. Build an ecosystem around your drug that offers the customer much more value than your drug alone. We have already worked on projects in respiratory wherein we can track asthma events and actually predict asthma events in patients in advance conferring major benefits to the asthma sufferer. Think about your products and their customers, how could digitizing them help your customers more? And while doing this, maybe we need to reconsider the business model also. There are so many new business models and yet pharma stick doggedly to the old paradigm when many new ones could be more valuable to your customers.
4. Digitize your operations.
Every aspect within a pharma company could run more smoothly if it was digitized. Consider transforming the repetitive processes first. There are many processes that humans do but imperfectly. These tend to be the kind of processes that humans make errors on and would be better served by automating with AI and tech. Ensure everything in your organization is customer centric and make sure everything is connected from your product to all your customer touchpoints which are all intelligent and connected, and ensure that everything is device independent. And, be agile!
5. Digitize the organization
So much can be done with a digital organization. We did a consulting project about 10 years ago for a big Japanese pharma about how they could create a virtual pharma company in a new large market without needing more staff than we legally required (2!). The project succeeded and everything was done digitally. One can have digital innovation in most areas but you can also have a virtual workforce, and partner ecosystems that are integrated into your organization.
6. Understand that it is not just a tech change but a complete business change
You cannot just implement a tech approach and assume that that is it. People’s interaction with it has to change, and the way things are done is not business as usual but changing everything. Once you have the objectives you can consider which tech approaches meet these best.
Conclusion
Digital transformation is a much bigger process than simply adding a new technology platform to your business. Understand your customers and your business needs, plan meticulous, have a long term picture that you are working towards, and begin!
In the Eularis membership, we have actually found and interviewed companies that have employed AI to do some serious digital transformation and we look at how they can do it. They discuss what their challenge was and why they turned to an AI solution, what AI vendor they used, how the on-boarding went, how long the project took, any challenges they found along the way, advice to anyone else implementing this kind of solution, how it worked and what the results were, and even in many cases, how much it cost.
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To learn more about how Eularis can help you find the best solutions to the challenges faced by healthcare teams, please drop us a note or email the author at abates@eularis.com.