When I went to the car lot to buy a car, the salesman asked me what I wanted in my car. Obviously I wanted something that could get me from Point A to Point B. I needed an engine, seats, a gearbox and locks. So when I went to buy a car these were obviously all items I looked for in order to have a fully functional car. When I gave him this answer, the salesman looked at me with a – “Duh, of course you want that in a car”.
It was true though – I didn’t need four different packages, one each for the engine, gearbox, seats and locks. I just needed all the basics to be integrated to simply work together to make the car work and get me from A to B.
This got me thinking….
This concept of simplicity is exactly what many businesses are missing now. Companies, specifically in the Life Sciences industry are developing life saving medicines using a range of collaboration tools.
On one extreme some of them only use SharePoint sites or document management systems and sometimes just through email and shared drives. That’s like trying to make a car run with only seats and a steering wheel – how does it actually run?
At the other extreme, companies have individual systems for everything. There is a system for clinical trial information and a system for document management and a separate system for the document workflow and yet another for project management. All of these fragmented systems overcomplicate the development process and often result in unnecessary rework. Just like a car delivered in four different packages.
The business world needs a simple, integrated and consistent vehicle to drive successful and efficient launches. Companies need to start thinking about how this process is done currently and if there could be a simpler or more efficient way to accomplish what they do now. Let’s face it; there are enough x factors that get thrown our way during launches. Why complicate things even more?
We need to start looking for solutions that can get us from Point A to Point B with all of the necessities and none of the complexities. An ideal system would streamline the development process and bring together document management, project management, and workflow tailored to support each function in accomplishing their goals.
The current fragmented way of doing things does get us to our goal. If you buy a car with no engine, you can still use it to get to where you want to go but you have to push it there and realistically, you would never have purchased that car in the first place. So why do we purchase tools that give us ad hoc processes to get to where we want to go? We need to start looking for the simple and most effective solutions; especially when it comes to launch success.
Digital Campaigns are not only newly chartered territory for Pharmaceutical companies but there also seems to be little guidance on the FDA front. The lack of FDA guidance on Digital Marketing adds complexity to creating a Digital Campaign. How do known you if your content is compliant? This is another reason why digital marketing project teams should align on when each team member should be involved in the digital marketing campaign process. Picture yourself in the following situation (hopefully you haven’t already been here):
