Pharmaceutical Market Europe • January 2022 • 35
IN ASSOCIATION WITH UPTAKE STRATEGIES
Big ticket items to tackle
in pharma in 2022!
By Melissa Dagless, Chelsea Foxwell, Stephanie Hall,
Kelly McDonald and Maxine Smith
What does 2022 hold for us all in our industry?
The New Year is a great time to reflect on how pharma is evolving and what we need to focus on personally and professionally to succeed in 2022. By success I mean providing new medicines, devices or services for patients to improve any stage of their management journey, ideally scaling across multiple countries and delivering cost savings to already strapped healthcare economies. From a personal perspective, success is often defined in career progression and remuneration, but lately we are redefining it as a sense of contribution to our organisation and an ability to balance work and home commitments in the ‘new normal’.
Scanning industry publications and articles on this subject, there is a lot to digest: use of AI, innovation techniques, digital disruption in emerging healthcare markets, new business models, patient-centred services and tools and of course, patent expiries.
If you’re in a pharmaceutical marketing or business leader role, what can you explore to better facilitate your priorities in 2022? Here are some things to consider:
- How do we take our marketing and sales capabilities, systems and tactics to the next stage in 2022? Different teams and companies are at different stages, but the key is to define what the next phase of growth and innovation will look like
- How do we stay up to date with our customers, patients and decision-makers in such a changeable world? What research, tracking, observation and feedback mechanisms need to be in place to keep up to date?
- How tight is your marketing effectiveness measurement? Do you have clear strategic and operational KPIs for your major programmes and a strong team culture for review and decision-making?
How will teams change in 2022? We anticipate role changes that will challenge individual capabilities and cross-functional team working but ultimately lead to stronger alignment. Successful teams are planning these changes now.
- Will marketing take the lead for omnichannel campaign development? Will it need to engage the full cross-functional team to achieve success and harness input from all functions? How will the iterative learnings be leveraged?
- Will medical be more engaged in strategy development as future customer interactions become more medically led with increasing pressure on real-world evidence to drive usage decisions?
- Will a patient lead be a core part of the XFT to keep the patient voice in all brand team discussions?
Which organisations and teams will be delivering the best customer and patient experiences and engagement during 2022? Omnichannel is a top priority for most organisations after the ‘digital pharma reset of 2020’. Teams that succeed at omnichannel are likely to see their performance, market share and profitability leap ahead of the competition.
What does good omnichannel look like
in 2022 for pharma?
- An up-to-date, rich, insight-driven view of the healthcare professional (HCP), patient and other relevant stakeholders is key to support decisions on content, engagement, channels and priorities
- Systems that can give a single view of a customer and automate and personalise journeys
- Cross-functional teams committed to adapting to new ways of working by engaging with customers and learning new skills across emerging hybrid roles and digital platforms.
What are some of the best enablers for these new ways of working?
- Check your lead indicators: do you have measures in place to help you track future changes in the environment, HCPs’ needs, treatment practices, digital engagement, policy and more?
- Say no to time-consuming internal processes: challenge internal processes or requests and activities that may be outdated and make bold recommendations to streamline the overall approach. Ask your HR business partners to help with a time sheet and work-flow analysis to gain insights and recommendations.
- Get AGILE to solve problems and design innovations quickly with a small team supported by a scrum master and facilitator. Use AGILE principles to identify issues, create new ideas and solutions, communicate, implement and review at a faster pace than ever before.
How can individuals prepare for 2022?
We continue to ask and expect more of our teams and ourselves. We hear a lot about adaptability, resilience, empowerment and empathy, but it’s often unclear how we can practically implement these things. We believe focusing on the following simple mindset and behaviour changes will set individuals, teams and businesses up for success:
Clarity – make the time to discuss what is expected of you and focus on what you need to deliver, checking assumptions and defining what success looks like.
Courage and curiosity – ask why we’re doing things, be brave, challenge and debate, be open to new ideas and share results to increase effectiveness, quality and impact.
Care – ask two simple questions: ‘How are you?’ and ‘How can I help?’. Listen to their answers, commit time to support them and be open to mutual offers of help.
Never has the healthcare industry had such a critical role to play, so let’s make 2022 a supremely successful year. Our time is now.
The team at
Uptake Strategies, led by
Melissa Dagless
Chelsea Foxwell
Stephanie Hall
Kelly McDonald
Maxine Smith