The promise of digital engagement with stakeholders is alluring – but many worry that removing the personal contact provided by reps could undermine relationship building. One of the leading solutions to this dilemma is to turn traditional reps into multichannel orchestrators. 

Check out this month's 1000 to 1 cartoon.

It is now 10 years since we first began evaluating the digital maturity of life sciences – and as an industry, we have come a long way…and the future appears to be even brighter!
We closed the survey with a very robust sample of 250 top leaders in the life sciences industry – and we already see some interesting results….

Check back here in mid-June to see the results of the leading digital maturity barometers for pharma!

Pharma is generating ever more content, ranging from descriptions about products to patient stories, to webinars, to emails…. But all this is irrelevant if the right physicians don’t see it at the right time. The gap between what HCPs want and what HCPs get – the digital divide – is only growing. 

Check out our new offering, Across Health's 1000 to 1, starting with this cartoon.

This year we have witnessed the rapidly arriving second wave of digital for pharma. Digital marketing budgets are up strongly (20% up from 2016), senior management support is at an all-time high and HCPs are becoming readier than ever to engage with pharma digitally (our brand new Navigator 3.0 continually points in this direction, across all key markets). The next roadblock to the full adoption of omnichannel is becoming clearer: it’s about execution. And that means it is about people.

Fonny Schenck (CEO) and Ruud Kooi (Managing Partner) of Across Health will lead a workshop on Proving Omnichannel Impact on Sales at the 2nd Annual Channel Optimization in Pharma Marketing event.

Fonny Schenck, CEO of Across Health, reflects on the changes which have (not) been happening in the field of customer engagement in pharma.

The results of Across Health’s Multichannel Maturometer 2017 survey have been released. 
Benefit from its insights in 3 steps…

So while I welcome the increased spend, I am also a bit worried that these renewed efforts may not yield any more impact than in the past... leading to even more frustration (and possibly even abandonment). For change to be meaningful, more needs to happen than just upping spend levels. Key weaknesses documented by our Maturometer include (limited) staff skills, (uncertain) channel mix optimization, and (an absence of) channel affinity and impact measurement. We also see and hear that the “burning platform” and a strategy beyond “we need to do more digital” is usually missing: this means that the major/exclusive focus on the multichannel rep will only lead to relatively small incremental gains, but with a large opportunity cost.

For the ninth year running, Across Health conducted the Multichannel Maturometer survey. Results show that these companies are more into digital technologies, but are not realizing the desired benefits from the investments they are making into new projects and programmes.  

In an article in the 2017 Winter edition of the MITSloan Management Review, the authors recommend that companies choose either - but never both - of these digital strategies: a "customer engagement strategy" or a "digitized solutions strategy". 

I was surprised by this recommendation, as I feel companies need to entertain both - and a lot of readers had the same reflection (witness the comments in the Spring edition). In pharma, omnichannel customer engagement efforts can bring big-ticket, short-term, resource optimization savings while enhancing customer loyalty TODAY, while the promise of "digitized solutions" is bound to bring big returns in the medium term (TOMORROW & THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW)…What do you think?

Pharma has been serving the same food, in a very similar way, to the same customers – for a long time. Our industry needs to develop – it is consistently cited as one of the least digitally mature. It’s time for us to become Michelin starred chefs rather than kitchen aids. Across Health co-launched a questionnaire with EyeForPharma to help those in Pharma evaluate where they stand – from relative beginner, to single area specialists, to all around maestro’s .

Multichannel excellence is the ambition for many in pharma – and is becoming the default expectation for many consumers. As PMLive reviews the state of the industry, and the transition from Multichannel to Omnichannel, they use Across Health’s Multichannel Maturometer data to show where there is room for improvement – and how Pharma can grow their ability to create customer-delighting engagements.

Across Health’s omnichannel experts Ruud Kooi, Fonny Schenck and Beverly Smet describe & discuss the highways and byways of the digitally disrupted landscape, as it impacts the pharma industry. Full of actionable insights and clear guidelines, this book will tell you everything you need to know (but were too afraid to ask) to boost and direct your company’s customer engagement. SECOND REVISED PRINT OUT NOW!  

For the eighth year running, Across Health conducted the Multichannel Maturometer, a survey of life sciences to assess their overall digital maturity. The research continues to show that, while life sciences and biotech companies overall still lag in digital maturity, (rapid) change is underway.

The results of Across Health’s Multichannel Maturometer 2016 survey have been released.
Benefit from its insights in 3 steps…

Digital innovations in healthcare are coming our way, and they announce an era of disruptive new realities in the most traditional sector we know. Fonny Schenck, CEO of Across Health, tells Trends Magazine how he recognizes opportunities and pitfalls in the age of digital health, and how the pharmaceutical industry has to reinvent itself to catch up with the new players.

The article "Why 87% of Life Sciences Marketers are Dissatisfied with Digital and What to do About It" published on PM360 Magazine, used the Multichannel Maturometer 2015 data to suggest some actions that brands, department leaders, and senior management can take to improve the situation.

The results of Across Health’s Multichannel Maturometer 2015 survey have been released.
Benefit from its insights in 3 steps…

As our recent Cross-Channel Navigator for GPs shows, physicians are not very excited about pharma’s digital offerings - only 25% rate them 4 or 5/5.

And according to our recent Multichannel Maturometer, pharma marketers are even less satisfied with their own digital offerings – only 13% is (very) satisfied...a similar number as in 2010!

Digital health is fast approaching the tipping point, with the usual suspects Apple, Google, Samsung, ... but also established companies like IBM, Pfizer, Novartis, JnJ, ... placing their bets and jockeying for strategic advantage.

That’s why Across Health wants to give you and 15-20 other innovative healthcare executives the unique opportunity to explore this fast-evolving landscape in person. We are taking you on a whirlwind tour of Silicon Valley and San Diego, where you will meet a select set of disruptive startups and technologies, radical thinkers and visionaries, get acquainted with likeminded peers and learn new insights from the expert tour guides... All of this will give you a solid framework to assess future trends in healthcare - and of the threats and opportunities they pose for your business.

At just under 20% in 2014, satisfaction with digital in pharma is quite low - and not increasing...

We have been asking the (dis)satisfaction question since 2009 in our Multichannel Maturometer (formerly known as Multichannel Barometer), and decided to dig a bit deeper into the root causes for dissatisfaction. The robust sample is close to 350 respondents (satisfied: n=130, dissatisfied: n=314).

For most of us, 2014 is already a distant memory and we are already full of exciting plans for 2015. Our 2015 tagcloud, based on expert predictions, will offer some guidance already as to what other industries and companies have in mind... And what do we see in our crystal ball?

When we recently released a webinar on the Multichannel Rep, we had no idea that the topic was so hot. In less than 5 days, the webinar was accessed by over 160 viewers, and if the trend continues, it will overtake our highest ranking session on “Multichannel Mix Optimization” (February 2013!) in no time.

The results of Across Health’s Multichannel Barometer 2014 survey have been released.
Benefit from its insights in 3 steps…

Digital will have a major impact on healthcare, driven by empowered patients/caregivers, real-time clinical trials, the rise of the EHR & PHR 2.0, mhealth and big data, tight patient-physician connectivity and sophisticated payor programmes to name but a few key trends…but healthcare and pharma have traditionally been moving slowly to reach that potential…hence our metaphor of “the long fuse”.

Early beginning of this year we organized our first webinar on eMedical. Around the same time, we launched a 2-day eMedical workshop in partnership with Celforpharma, both of which were very popular. Interest in this topic is therefore clearly on the rise…but investment in emedical channels has been subdued at best.

Before closing another very busy year, I would like to offer you some food for thought for the festive season. As you may be aware, we recently completed our GP Cross-Channel Navigator (14 markets, 1478 respondents). This multichannel mix dataset offers a wealth of information and actionable insights at the local and international level, but I would like to highlight 2 dimensions here.

The Across Health Digital Barometer 2013 shows a strong growth in rep-centric digitization. Key examples are the continued rise of tablet detailing (standard practice for almost 70% of companies vs 35% in 2011), and the strong growth of erep/remote detailing (which doubled from 10% to 24% in 2013 in Europe). Nevertheless, ROI questions have never been more prominent, and the level of satisfaction with digital is lower than before (16% of participants). So, what’s going wrong?

The results of Across Health’s Multichannel Barometer 2013 survey have been released.
Benefit from its insights in 3 steps…

I am pleased to announce that we have just released the 5th edition of our Digital Barometer, which gives you a 360°view on the status, challenges and future of digital & cross-channel in life sciences across the globe.

With digital marketing everything is measurable, right? Wrong! Of course, digital marketing tools allow for easier tracking of results than traditional marketing channels such as print. But web analytics is still incomplete, and can sometimes lead you to draw incorrect conclusions.

In January 2001, in the midst of the Internet hype, Rosabeth Moss-Kanter published an article in the HBR: “The ten deadly mistakes of wanna-dots” on why organizations fail to capitalize on the digital opportunity, including statements like:

“Mistake 1. Sprinkle Internet responsibilities throughout the company—a little Web site here, a little brochure-ware there. Let them all go forward, as long as they stay small and innocuous.

An early analysis of our Digital Barometer 2013 shows that ROI is now the second most important hurdle to success in digital (after the perennial legal-regulatory concerns). Together with lack of internal skills (4th place) and lack of senior management support (7th), it is the only hurdle that has been rising through the ranks in the last 3 years. And maybe there is even a link between these three? Senior management is looking for quick wins and strong business impact with digital (‘show me the money!) and has not seen these at all and is getting impatient… as a result, the focus on ROI is increasing and the need for skilled “fusion” resources who can make it happen as well…

Which trends will shape fusion marketing & digital in 2013? As the new year kicks off, it is a good time to look to the year ahead and look back to the 2012 predictions.

In the 2012 trends, "mobile first, social second" was the key theme... For pharma, this was half right & half wrong. Indeed, mobile went from strength to strength, but most of the "buzz" was around apps (which are only the little cherry on the big mobile cake) and tablet detailing (boosted by the promise of "true closed-loop marketing at last" and competitor catch-up) and already in 2012 we were seeing the first signs of a rude awakening.

New Study by Across Health China shows Chinese Internal Medicine Specialists have a strong interest in pharma-owned digital channels.

Digital barometer of Across Health in the Pharmaceutical Executive

The results of Across Health's Digital Barometer were quoted in the September issue of the Pharmaceutical Executive, in the article: 'Pharma and social media: time to become better friends' by Peter Housten, Content Director.