The Case for Digital Transformation in Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
Undoubtedly, the pharma industry's enthusiasm for the digital revolution has snowballed in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, has put pharma's digital progress to the test, with the 2020 optimistic survey revealing more pharma companies are now leveraging a wide variety of digital tools to put transformation back on track.
Digital Transformation in the pharmaceutical industry provides a mechanism to revolutionize business models, improve production processes and increase customer responsiveness. Smart sensors, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), cloud computing, mobile communications, advanced analytics, digital marketing, automation, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are the primary innovations that are beginning to transform the pharmaceutical industry by enabling the creation of new and better processes.
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital Transformation refers to integrating digital technology to transform services or businesses by replacing non-digital or manual processes with digital processes. Integrating digital technology into all areas of manufacturing fundamentally changes how you operate and deliver value to customers. Digital Transformation cultivates cultural changes that encourage manufacturers to continually challenge the status quo, experiment, and learn from failures. In a nutshell, Digital Transformation involves replacing older digital technology with newer digital technology to deliver better outcomes.The Importance of Digital Transformation in the Pharma Industry
For pharma companies to overcome common marketplace challenges and realize better business growth, they prioritize adopting ideal digital tools. Some of the immediate benefits that come with Digital Transformation include:Helping Reach Potential Customers Faster
Digital Transformation tools enable the pharma industry players to reach potential customers faster, even with rising government restrictions. A regulated industry, pharma has to contend with complex regulations targeting advertising and regulations. A digital strategy can enable your company to reach your audience without breaking any regulatory law.Transparency in the Efficacy of Treatment
The days when major pharmaceutical companies were the sole sources of information on how their products work are long gone. Recent Digital Transformation enables both patients and other players in the pharma industry to access critical information on the impact of pharmaceutical products on their health. Importantly, current digital trends reveal more patients are looking online for medical information about products and treatments. An ideal digital strategy helps your company satisfy the information requirement of customers.Enables a Better Understanding of Customer Requirements
Digitization enables your company to gain better insights into customer requirements. Digital tools allow you to track online forums, analyze data from health apps and get crucial feedback on patients' needs. All this information helps your company create customized products that meet the market requirements and satisfy customer needs.Helps Track the Performance of a Product
Digitization also helps track online user feedback and data from health apps. This feedback allows you to understand better how your product is performing in terms of safety and efficacy. It also ensures that you become the primary source of authority on the performance of your product.The benefits of Replacing Non-Digital Processes with Digital Processes
Replacing non-digital processes with digital processes lowers operational costs while freeing up team members to work on other projects. Other reasons why you should take a digital move include:- Better data collection- pharma companies typically collect tons of data on customers to optimize them and drive the business forward. Digital transformation helps your company collect the correct data and translate it into insights ideal for various touch-points.
- Better management of resources- digital transformation tools bring all the company resources together into one place. You can use digital transformation to integrate applications, databases, and software into a central repository for business intelligence.
- Benefits from data-driven customer insights- data is crucial for unlocking exceptional customer insights. When you understand your customers and their needs, you can easily create a business strategy that meets those needs. Digital processes allow you to leverage these insights to provide more relevant, agile, and personalized content that drives business growth.
- Helps Achieve better customer experience- in the current highly volatile marketplace, customer expectations are now quite unpredictable thanks to the endless choices, lower prices, and fast delivery that your competitors are offering. Customer experience is now the new battleground, with studies revealing more companies will now be competing on CX.
