Having a laser focus on patient needs is table stakes in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector. Organizations must continually measure and improve their processes for keeping a patient and their community of family and friends informed regarding the patient’s well being. Equally important is giving the patient a voice in their care, including choices about medical options and sharing in decision-making about recovery. 

We at ALULA were recently speaking about patient centricity with a Senior Executive of Patient Advocacy at a major biotechnology company. Here is what we learned.

Companies are eager and ready to invest in digital transformation strategies, but are they achieving results? The numbers so far indicate that the answer may be a resounding “no.”

Several studies report that up to 80% of transformation efforts fail to achieve their intended goals.  Another study polled senior executives and found that 50% feel their company is not successfully executing digital strategies.  What’s causing this?

ALULA recently had the opportunity to participate at The POWER of Professional Women conference in Philadelphia, PA. During the conference we had the opportunity to engage with Millennial panelists, active in the workforce, to find out why they change jobs and what companies can do to retain them. Research shows that 21% of Millennials changed jobs in the past year, and 60% say they are open to new job opportunities.

By 2022, worldwide investments in the digital transformation of business practices, products, and services are expected to reach nearly $2 trillion (Source: International Data Corporation (IDC)). However, research by Forrester indicates only 27% of businesses have a coherent digital transformation strategy in place for creating customer value. Furthermore, in a recent survey conducted by Wipro Digital, out of 400 US companies with an articulated digital transformation strategy, 50% of their executives felt their company was not successfully implementing those strategies.

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We live in a "how-to” world. A quick search of “how to” in Amazon.com yields over 800,000 books and videos with the phrase in the title. The popular For Dummies series has over 2,500 titles and the Idiot’s Guide series has nearly as many. And take a look at your local newsstand and you’ll see covers littered with articles telling you the 5 things you must know, the 3 insider secrets that will guarantee success, or the 7 steps to improved performance.

A marketing exec friend of mine gave me a call the other day to catch up. After swapping stories about families and our current work, he finally asked after years of knowing me, “What exactly is change management anyway?”

The other day I was explaining the results of a change readiness assessment to an executive and shared a piece of news he found disturbing. He believed that everyone wanted the change that he was leading because when he spoke with others in the organization about it, they all told him it was a great idea.

Emperor . . . you have no clothes, I explained.

Pharmaceutical companies have been talking about patient-centricity for years.
Yet, many pharma companies find it challenging to make patient-first thinking a pervasive trait throughout their organization. 

In its simplest terms, creating a patient-centric culture is about being authentic and open in communicating to patients, taking care to understand their needs, and giving them a voice in the management of their care. Patient-centricity simply requires putting the patient first or being empathetic to their story. 

Are you searching for ways to get better results from your sales team? Here’s a chance to look back at some of the top articles and tips from 2018. As we shift into the new year, you’ll have a valuable perspective on how to get the most out of your sales team.

The health care industry has made strides to involve the patient across the entire value chain, from research and development to differentiating the needs of patients, to ensuring efficient ways for access to medication.

There is a movement towards patient-centricity, typically defined as more than just feeling empathy and a connection to patients. More and more, patient-centricity is about creating the intersection between a positive patient outcome and a business benefit.

Pharma sales teams can leverage and form this value-based intersection of patient outcome and business benefit by creating a patient-centric approach in their daily work. If you can increase the pharma sales team effectiveness in creating a patient-centric culture, it likely equates to more sales, more lives saved, and a greater impact on the community.