Digitalisation - Is It ‘Your’ Need Of The Hour?

There used to be a time in the pharma industry when ‘good ideas’ or ‘big ideas’ took a while to go from the whiteboard to the real board. There were lots of “oh that’s impossible, this may take forever, and we need more manpower for it”, that restricted these ideas from being made a reality. But thanks to digitalization we could challenge the impossible, lengthy and tedious processes and turn many road bumps into achievements.?

Digital solutions have allowed us to significantly integrate supply chains and improve operational processes. We have become quicker, more adaptive, responsive, and better to the market. AI-based platforms are making decisions on their own for in-depth data and analytical calculations thereby reducing human intervention and turnaround time. AI and ML have empowered us to monitor stock outages and plan accordingly. During the pandemic when the entire industry was working with reduced manpower, digitalization gave us the wake-up call to reconsider business decisions and work in a leaner, more flexible, creative, and cost-effective way.?

Pharma needs to pace up with healthcare

If you look at the healthcare world too, it looks remarkably different than it did ten years ago. Patients from rural areas are communicating with medical professionals. Telemedicine has become a thing now. According to an Accenture survey, about 60% of people agreed to get healthcare services virtually. This is an era that focuses closely on patient centricity and their journey – a milestone?that allows us to talk about customised medicines and patient development programs and production. This puts the onus on the pharma sector to match pace with the healthcare industry. And only digitalization can give us?the required competitive edge. The industry is at a stage wherein digitalization is ‘no more a nice-to-have transformation but instead, a fundamental move’.?

Growth or cost??

Many MSMEs and members in this industry are still cautious about adopting the digitalization route. The reason could be cost, implementation process or legal caveats. But business leaders must understand that this caution tends to become a hindrance to any kind of company growth. The wariness on the cost part too will eventually outweigh the disadvantages over the years. Moreover, digitalization is transformation, not disruption. It does not have to mean a complete change or throwing out your baby with bath water. It means building an ecosystem where humans, machines, and resources synchronise leading to improvements in all stages of the operations and value chain – built in such a way so that the focus on quality, new domains and optimum production levels.

The backbone of our success

Digitalization is a complex and mammoth task. But with guidance and a detailed road map, it’s possible. Training and upskilling the workforce at every level, equipping commercial teams to help virtually, setting up a cloud-based architecture, leveraging AI, and upgrading labs are a few steps that made this transformation easy.?

As a legacy brand built by a lean team, we see digitalization as an approach to drive lateral thinking and a sustained model that strikes the right balance between manpower and technological integrations. We do not take it as a ‘one and done shift’; it's a cultural shift that helps in achieving goals and in surviving during volatile situations.?

To us, digitalization is a game of survival of the fittest. Is it a game you’re willing to be part of??