How to deal with Pharma Analytics struggles

A short Pharma Analytics guide; how to monitor and optimize sales and marketing strategies using Analytics tools.

Do Pharma industry make the most out of Analytics; have they successfully analyzed their current data? The road is indeed challenging, but the big-data opportunity is now and the results are more than welcoming.

Big Data should be a change of mindset. Applying analytics in Pharma Marketing, specifically in Marketing Optimization can bring great benefits to a Pharma organization.

An integrated and accurate Business Intelligence services provides analytic solutions that help improve overall marketing and sales practices. With these tools it is faster and easier to analyze multi-source data and to quickly uncover hidden opportunities and risks in the field. Data mining helps executives to develop a deeper understanding of their target population, customer behavior and which key messages work better.

An insightful article was released from MIT Sloan Management School regarding common mistakes of Predictive Analytics. The author encourages readers to avoid the traps of Analytics by following 4 rules:

-Focus on the decisions you want to improve.

-Make analytics as broadly usable as you can.

-Start with models you can scale.

-Land and expand, use analytics repeatedly, make them better, and expand into new areas of the business.

Aiming to make this article more Pharma-centric, some additional “traps” will be highlighted. Additionally, the following challenges should be taken into consideration when deploying Pharma-analytics:

Speed & Performance: In the digital age, as business becomes ever more complex and data becomes ever more available and abundant, Pharma executives need to ensure they know how to quickly make decisions based on their analysis of data. But this can only happen when there is deep knowledge of different data sources and executives are having a Pharma business logic. Managed well, the data can be used to unlock new sources of economic value, provide fresh insights into market and play an important role into future decision making. There is essential need of expertize to make sense of Pharma’s proliferating data. The ability of taking advantage of the data and quantify or visualize for specific needs, relies on deep Pharma industry knowledge and expertise.

Visualization & Flexibility: Time saving tools and procedures are a must for today’s Pharma executives. When having to deal with complex internal issues, regular reporting is on top demand. But what kind of reports are actually needed and which needs will be addressed?

Our clients have understood how important data visualization is becoming. Moreover, we give them valuable insights on how to profit from their Big Data. The target is to extract diamonds hidden under mountains of data. But the strategy to fulfil this goal is not yet determined and adjusted. A tailored and flexible analytics strategy will optimize marketing and sales objectives. As data are becoming the new raw material of business, executives are tending to engage more with data mining and receive insights and step by step guidance. This way they can achieve gradually a unique competitive advantage over competitors and broad knowledge of their strategy outcome.

Predictive analytics, or the use of electronic algorithms to forecast future events in real time, makes it possible to harness the power of big data to improve the health of patients and lower the cost of health care. However, this opportunity raises policy, ethical, and legal challenges. The recent report of EFPIA “A vision towards a life sciences strategy for Europe” illustrates the common need of a well-based infrastructure: Whether we are talking about a fundamental shift to the sort of data infrastructure in healthcare systems that would drive genuine value-based approach to management or whether we are redesigning an intellectual property regime that is fit for future science, a sustained collaborative effort is required by all actors in the system.

Pharma executives will finally gain the ability to respond to the dynamic state of their organizations in real-time by leveraging comparative analytics. However, respecting infrastructures and compliance is a matter of high importance.