A decade of Digital in Pharma

It will be 10 years since I became a Pharma Digital Marketing Professional and over 15 years since I first stepped into the Pharmaceutical Industry. I have had the good fortune of working with leading pharma companies in India and with some leaders who are the most admired in the Industry today. In some ways these 10 years seems like eons; in others it seems like the blink of an eye. It has been an enriching journey to say the least. In the last 10 years, I have seen many transformations in how digital has evolved in Pharmaceuticals and other Industries. Here is a look back at the last 10 years of my roller-coaster journey in Pharma Digital which everyone talks about but hardly any company has embraced.

Year 2007-10 The Beginning of Digital in Pharma

As we all know, Cipla was one of the front-running company in India to introduce digital detailing at a mass level. I still remember the day, when the visionary leaders of the organization called for a meeting and brainstormed on ideas to make our in-clinic conversations more engaging. The idea to give laptops to the entire field force originated there. We started a pilot with one Division in early 2007. This was named as “Project Switch” That roll-out acted as a catalyst to the organization to introduce digital in full swing. Our passionate marketing teams came up with brilliant ideas to engage customers with innovative and interactive digital tools. Soon after the success of pilot, laptops were rolled out to all field force. This led to setting up an in-house department named “eCell” in late 2007 and I was given opportunity to move from Brand Management to lead the Digital initiatives. We setup an in-house team of 15 people that comprised designers and developers to support marketing to produce digital content. Some of those unique concepts that Cipla’s marketing teams leveraged back in 2007-10, are still unseen in the industry. Some of the brands were launched through one of its kind digital tools. Those were heady days as we made impactful campaigns and marketing folks set new benchmarks every single day. All this with the full involvement of the Sales teams. In fact, some of the initiatives that set industry benchmarks were under the guidance of sales leaders. Sales rep has always been a key stakeholder in the Pharma service chain. To help make our communication through them more frequent and efficient by understanding the market place in real time, we introduced internal websites and an integrated website called “Nalanda”. It has been one of my favorite projects where I learnt training nuances and acquired a deeper understanding of content strategy and project management.

Year 2010-12 Major reform in ways of doing Business in Pharma

In 2010, we started to work on a project to have a unified view of customer. This would help empower the field force with data driven decision making tools and provide invaluable customer insights than mere information. This would help Cipla increase reach and engage with customers through alternate digital channels. We rolled out a pilot of the ePlatform with the HCP knowledge portal “CiplaMed”. That 18-month long project was one of the key projects which transformed me into a digital pharma professional and broadened my thinking towards looking at alternate channels to engage customers. Every day threw a new challenge to my team with ever evolving technologies and expectations of the Marketing team as well as of senior leadership. Soon we created an on-demand library on CiplaMed with over 150 webinars that we had conducted over the previous 2-3 years. We had full thrust on introducing technology and content creation but were lagging desperately on customer experience. There were so many siloed projects that we had to handle which stretched the team thin. Digital became just about websites, digital detailing, webinars and e-training. With experience came ideas and then ambition. I thought of serving more companies than just one and in a few weeks, I was on the other side of table as a consultant. Within a few months of struggle, I realized that unless top management prioritized and expressly endorsed it, pharma would not embrace digital. I decided to resume my corporate life and began to look for Digital Roles in Pharma. Unfortunately, the role was alien to companies and therefore, didn’t exist in any organization.

Year 2012-17 Digital Illiteracy to Preparedness:

A few months after that, I joined Wockhardt and this time it was very exciting as senior leadership was keen to explore opportunities in digital. The first task was to build an internal knowledge platform for the sales team. We built a state-of-the-art learning platform called “WGenie”. This not only offered technical resources online but also tools to measure the ROI of training. We even digitized the classroom training process and focused on a complete solution from the on-boarding of the Sales Rep to his yearly development plan. This was recognized by various organizations to be one of the most comprehensive learning and sharing platform. Thereafter, we conceptualized and built HCP platforms for the Vaccines BU that helped to engage young physicians. This was followed by a comprehensive platform for connecting patients and physicians for the Diabetes BU. It was an inspiring journey of executing digital projects that went beyond mere commercial gains. I was fortunate to work on the digital strategy and platforms for some of the upcoming research products and a group project of IB School in Aurangabad.

In early 2016, I got an opportunity to build the Digital Strategy and Roadmap for GSK India and joined as Head of Multichannel Marketing. After my experience that was limited to the domestic market, it was thrilling to understand the landscape where global and local alignment was key to the success of the enterprise model. Even before I joined, iPads had already been deployed to the entire field force and the first task was to roll-out Veeva to deliver best-in-class engagement through our customer-facing resources. I define my last couple of years at GSK as a phase of preparedness for future where we rolled out multiple pilots, deployed platforms and integrated with other channels. We created some great cases on how Digital could act as a growth lever for the organization and will remain a sustainable model for future. Continuously building Digital capabilities for the organization to deliver best Customer Experience in the digital age. “I certainly believe that today we cannot choose to go digital. The question is how quickly and how well we do it.”

Key Lessons from the last decade:

• Different appetite for different organizations. Don’t just do digital because others are doing it. Do it only if it adds value to your organization.
• There is a difference between Digital & Digitization. Enabling Sales force with tablets is not Digital.
• Strategic and Tactical Mindset, don’t put Technology above Strategy. Identify clear, actionable customer experience improvement opportunities.
• Capability of Marketers on Digital is the key for Digital Transformation.
• Focus on message delivery, not the channel. Deliver consistent message across channels. Enhance the customer experience across all digital communication channels.
• Consistency is the key. Don’t focus on adhoc activities and seek results.
• Don’t use Governance and Regulations as an excuse to not go digital. Technology is customizable and can enable endless possibilities.
• Digital Transformation must be an organizational priority not just of Com-Ex. All stakeholders must align and think of “How to make it happen”. Digital Fluency at Leadership is the key.