
How Will Digital Transformation Revolutionize The Pharma Sector In The Light Of The Covid-19 Pandemic?


By Robert Peterson, Head Of Sales Health and Life Sciences Americas and Asia, BT - Health and Life Sciences
Eight months ago, few in the pharmaceutical industry would’ve predicted they’d be swapping the laboratory for the kitchen table or home-schooling children in between conference calls. Within a few days of the world being plunged into a pandemic countless businesses - in every sector - were thrown into a spin as thousands of their employees began working from home and doing those much more than their daily responsibilities.
In the pharmaceutical sector, the focus turned toward the impact to R&D and clinical trials and how to manage call centers in this new mode. This proved extremely challenging as many of the processes now run partly outside of the laboratory environment, increasing the security risk to intellectual property especially with hackers taking advantage of the pandemic indicated by 60% of malicious email traffic targets home workers in May 2020 as opposed to 12% in March 2020.
As we seek to emerge from the situation in the future, the long-term impacts on the global economy are beginning to be felt. A recent survey revealed 74% of CFOs intend to shift some employees to remote work permanently. We have to ask ourselves, what’s the role of the digital workplace transformation in this new landscape? And how will Pharma and healthcare companies, R&D and regulatory bodies adjust to the new norm?
Quite simply, COVID-19has deleted the ’standard way’ the pharmaceutical industry worked in the past. Everything is different from here on. Much of the workforce is working at home. There’s limited international travel. Is there a need for the same number and size of large, shiny corporate offices/campuses, and the exponential cost of a high-value zip code? What will R&D facilities and innovation of the future look like?
Pharmaceuticals are starting to think about how they can turn the sudden changes they’ve made to their businesses into opportunities. New plans are being written and costs reallocated away from office leases and real estate. They see remote working can truly work and employees can be trusted to manage their time and responsibilities properly and productively with limited slip ups (save for the occasional Pajama Day). Why would they go back to the old way? The critical consideration is weighing the advantages of collaboration and innovation in a physical environment versus a virtual environment.
By deploying technology focused on research, production and distribution, as well as embracing virtual clinical trials, the Pharma and healthcare sector will leverage AI and IoT to build much richer collaborative and intimate ways of working. As a result, they need to enable the entire organization to collaborate across teams and vast distances at scale and speed to enhance knowledge and sharing by connecting the laboratory environment.
They can achieve this by transforming multiple technologies, legacy systems, and varied infrastructure to create a single, seamless, secure global ecosystem that optimizes the entire drug development cycle. These technologies connect smoothly and securely to collaboration applications and any 3rd party platforms they may be considering for big data, AI and digital logistics. It is crucial they protect their network and corporate assets to help secure the lab environments and their connected supply chain.
One of the major keys to success is actively helping their people make the most of collaboration and digital services. Adoption management must make sure each member of the workforce gets the tools they need to be as productive as possible. As research shows, many employees already have 6-8 collaboration tools but fail to understand how to use them with maximum effectiveness. The training needed to use them effectively is incumbent upon the organization.
If Pharma and healthcare corporations tackle those aspects successfully, collaboration across the entire value chain process will allow all companies in the sector to reap the rewards of digital transformation: increased productivity, reduced costs, greater operational agility and more effective use of resources – both material and human while, above all, maintaining the innovation which separates them from the competition.
ON THE DECK
Featured Vendors
Tenthpin: The Trusted Advisor for Data-Driven Patient- Centric Value Chain Management in Life Sciences
Process Stream: Into the Depths: How Process Stream Leverages Experience and Embedded Research to Transform Businesses from the Inside Out
Indegene: Leveraging Technology to Drive Growth and Productivity Investing In Innovation In Operations, Analytics and Clinical Technology
MMIS: Global Compliance Platform Streamlines Processes and Delivers Business Intelligence Enterprise-Wide
Acceliant: Leading with Innovation, Facilitating Collaboration, Standardization and Productivity in Clinical Trial Management
Saama Technologies: New Fluid Analytics Engine from Saama Cost-Effectively and Rapidly Resolves Complex Data Analytics Challenges for Life Sciences
Iris Interactive Corporation: Boosting Collaboration and Decision Making Processes to Bring Products
Techsol Corporation: Offering Domain Rich, Regulatory Compliant, Accelerated and Cloud Enabled Techn
Solea Software Solutions: Offering Business Intelligence, Analytics, and Portal Services for Flouris
Xybion Corporation: Providing Interconnected Technology Enabled Solutions for Life Sciences, and other Highly Regulated Industries
EDITOR'S PICK
Essential Technology Elements Necessary To Enable...
By Leni Kaufman, VP & CIO, Newport News Shipbuilding
Comparative Data Among Physician Peers
By George Evans, CIO, Singing River Health System
Monitoring Technologies Without Human Intervention
By John Kamin, EVP and CIO, Old National Bancorp
Unlocking the Value of Connected Cars
By Elliot Garbus, VP-IoT Solutions Group & GM-Automotive...
Digital Innovation Giving Rise to New Capabilities
By Gregory Morrison, SVP & CIO, Cox Enterprises
Staying Connected to Organizational Priorities is Vital...
By Alberto Ruocco, CIO, American Electric Power
Comprehensible Distribution of Training and Information...
By Sam Lamonica, CIO & VP Information Systems, Rosendin...
The Current Focus is On Comprehensive Solutions
By Sergey Cherkasov, CIO, PhosAgro
Big Data Analytics and Its Impact on the Supply Chain
By Pascal Becotte, MD-Global Supply Chain Practice for the...
Technology's Impact on Field Services
By Stephen Caulfield, Executive Director, Global Field...
Carmax, the Automobile Business with IT at the Core
By Shamim Mohammad, SVP & CIO, CarMax
The CIO's role in rethinking the scope of EPM for...
By Ronald Seymore, Managing Director, Enterprise Performance...
Driving Insurance Agent Productivity with Mobile and Big...
By Brad Bodell, SVP and CIO, CNO Financial Group, Inc.
Transformative Impact On The IT Landscape
By Jim Whitehurst, CEO, Red Hat
Get Ready for an IT Renaissance: Brought to You by Big...
By Clark Golestani, EVP and CIO, Merck
Four Initiatives Driving ECM Innovation
By Scott Craig, Vice President of Product Marketing, Lexmark...
Technology to Leverage and Enable
By Dave Kipe, SVP, Global Operations, Scholastic Inc.
By Meerah Rajavel, CIO, Forcepoint
AI is the New UI-AI + UX + DesignOps
By Amit Bahree, Executive, Global Technology and Innovation,...
Evolving Role of the CIO - Enabling Business Execution...
By Greg Tacchetti, CIO, State Auto Insurance
Read Also
What It Truly Means For IT Security To Bea Business Enabler
Digital Transformation 2 Requires a CIO v2.x
Leverage ChatGPT the Right Way through Well-Designed Prompts
Water Strategies for Climate Adaption
Policy is a Key Solution to Stopping Packaging Waste
Congestion-Driven Basis Risk, A Challenge for the Development of...
