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DeVeLOPMeNt
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How do phm nd h nci i pn wih uviv,l lon hiv, in h wold of modn hlhc wh
diupiv chn h bcom h onl conn?
as ans o 1980s lms may know, Ferris
Bueller amously said: Lie moves prettyast. I you dont stop and look round
once in a while you could miss it. Well lie is
moving aster than ever beore: we are in the
middle o a huge upheaval across the globe
where everything we currently know about
the pharmaceutical industry and the agencies
that support them will be turned on its head.
Welcome to the world o modern healthcare: a
state o continuous disruptive change.
This fux is a major challenge or all
stakeholders involved in the delivery
o healthcare including pharmaceutical
companies and the agencies they partner
with. Competition is exponentially increasing
at the same time that prots are being
squeezed and the cost o resources isonly increasing. Expectations or what is
needed to get to market and then to deliver
in market are higher than ever and therestrictions on what can be done are ever
more stringent. It is like being in a searing
hot desert and every day you are asked to
run urther and given less ood and water.
The question is not just can we survive but
how are we going to thrive? I we cant win
the game in the present world, how are we
going to change the rules to win the game in
the uture world? In order to drive rather than
react to the changing landscape, we must look
into the uture o our industry, its direction o
travel and its potential destination.
As an embryonic business in 2010 we wanted
really to understand this uture world or our
own success and or the success o our clients.
So we undertook a comprehensive researchproject to explore healthcare in 2025, the
drivers o change and some potential answers
to the challenges we ace.First up, some historical context: we have
achieved an astonishing amount as the human
race in the 20th century and the potential to
achieve even more in the 21st century is all
around us but it depends on how we respond
to its challenges.
Achievements in healthcare have saved,
extended and bettered billions o lives. For
example, in the UK, average lie expectancy
rose rom the age o 49 in 1900 to 79 in the
year 2000 and the percentage o GDP spent
on health rose rom 1 per cent to 9 per cent
over the same period. These are amazing
statistics and similar trends have been seen
globally. This success also has a consequence
because or the rst time in the history othe westernised world there will be more
strategy
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Disruptivechange -whatsthe fallout?
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strategy
DeVeLOPMeNt
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th hlhc wold i chnin f hn v bfo. Ou ch idnifidk div of hlhc chn oupd ino fou k coi
applinc of cinc
Science and technology is fuelling a greaterunderstanding o the medical prole o theindividual and its impact on their health
Communications and integration across IT platformsare becoming the norm. The day o the centralisedelectronic health record is just around the corner
Wireless technology and miniaturisation are drivingthis integration
Nanotechnology and DNA-based processors willcontinue the exponential growth o what technologyis capable o
Indu quz
The bar is being set higher for the industry onall levels: regulatory approval, demonstration oclinical cost eectiveness and requirements ortrust and transparency
Pharmaceutical companies are having toconsolidate resources and reduce headcount tomake themselves more ecient
Patent expiries and a lack of pipeline moleculesare reducing prots
Emergence of new therapeutic options, such as,stem cell technology and gene therapy threatenthe business model o the pharmaceutical industry
Nw wold od
The growth of populations and income in emergingmarkets is increasing economic power but alsoincreasing issues o resource sustainability
Emerging markets have an economy of scale thatthe western world cannot compete with
Emerging markets will adopt the internet in wayswe cannot imagine, as they are not hampered bythe heritage and inrastructure o the west
Emerging markets produce more top-levelgraduates than all the graduates in the US at anylevel. Imagine what all those intelligent educatedindividuals are going to achieve
Wlh o budn of hlh
The advances of the 20th century are leadingto real (not uture) issues now in care or theelderly, and management and prevention ochronic disease
Increasing levels of obesity in the youngerpopulation are driving the development o chronicconditions in ever younger individuals andpushing up lietime costs
There are a limited number of healthcareproessionals in a sector that requires an everincreasing level o knowledge to be procient
people over 60 than there are under 20.
However these advances have also brought
issues o their own as 20th century structures
struggle to deal with 21st century problems:
populations who are living longer, with chronic
conditions and with higher expectations or
their health. To add to that challenge, the
healthcare world is changing aster than ever
beore. Our research identied key driverso healthcare change grouped into our key
categories (see chart below).
aDVersIty BreeDs OPPOrtUNItIesBased on these drivers we painted a potential
healthcare world or 2025. Within it there
are many real challenges but it is not without
its opportunities. In terms o brand building
and communications this is a world where
everyone will be walking around with their
own personal integrated communication
channel and a world in which people share
more inormation about themselves than
ever beore. This is a world where you can
truly understand the customer and have an
engaging dialogue with them.
The pharmaceutical industry is going to
outsource increasing amounts o the work thatit would have done in-house as it will not have
enough people internally to do it all. I you
are innovating and leading your industry you
are going to be who it chooses to work with.
Agencies have an advantage: because o the
nature o the business they are more fexible
in their structure and less hierarchical in how
they operate, so they can adapt and respond
aster to change. Innovative pharmaceutical
companies will look to harness this capability
to bring greater value to their own work.
The pharmaceutical industry will need to
move to a more integrated outcomes ocused
industry model from the current product-
based mindset o the industry. This means it
will need to build longer term relationships
with customers and ocus on lietime value
rather than the blockbuster model o the past.It will be an industry that ocuses on
lots o small successes rather than one
that ocuses on the 1 in 100,000 jackpot
win that bankrolls the business model. I
we are smart we will work out how to
generate revenue beyond the product.
This is a good thing or pharma
companies and healthcare agencies alike
because engaging and building lietime
value relies on some key actors:
Recognition much like when you see a
riend across the street you immediately
recognise them and are engaged to
communicate with them. The visual identities
o the uture will need to achieve this with
customers and they will also need to beenduring while evolving with wider trends in
the external environment o the customer
Dialogue continuous engagement relies
on a two-way communication which means
that communications agencies need to
work out how to listen eectively and how
to respond on behal o their clients
Sharing and adding value knowledge
is the new black and the need to stay
5
Fast track
We are in the middle of a huge upheaval across the globe where everything we
cunl know will b und on i hd
Pharma and its agencies will need to become adept at shaping their future by
dvlopin n innl quionin culu
Lifetime value will become the rule not the exception with opportunities for
innoviv nci o pn wih phm o c nw lvl of nmn
We must look into the future of our industry, help drive its direction of travel and
dvlop nw poduc nd vic now
A new integrated response across media types, platforms and disciplines will be key
o compiiv diffniion in h fuu hlhc lndcp
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strategy
DeVeLOPMeNt
the directory of advertising, branding, creative and digital agencies in healthcare 37www.pmlive.com/thedirectory_digitaledition6
David Coleiro and Michael White
are partners at Strategic North.They can be contacted at
+44(0)7932 006858 and michael.
+44 (0)7528 949905
respectively.
aLWays tHINK INtegratIONFOr greatNess
The uture is about integration on three levels.
The first is integration across media
types, so the ability to deliver coherent
communications that integrate text, video,audio and visual images.
The next integration level isacross
platforms, so whether someone chooses to
use sotware by Microsot, Apple, Google or
Linux your communications work. The other
element of cross-platform integration is that
your communications work across mobile
platorms like smartphone and tablets, and
across PCs and Macs, as well as translating
to hard-copy media.
At this level you also need integration
between standalone content and the wider
internet presence that will need to surround
the brand, and the communications that
seek to build and support it. This type o
integration will revolutionise healthcare.In a world ocused increasingly on health
and wellbeing and packages o care the
experience o healthcare will be more
important than ever.
The third level of integrationis across
disciplines, so whether that is multi-agency
or full-service agency integration across
the disciplines or digital and creative,
communications will be core to eective
implementation o uture communications
programmes. Parties will need to develop
long-standing working relationships to
ensure consistency o personality or all
communications.
So dont just sit there, take Ferris Buellers
advice; get out there and start to shake thingsup in pharma. One thing we can guarantee
is that your uture depends on it. What will
generate value or you in the uture are the
innovations you explore and invest in now.
current is a burden that we have all taken
on in society. Because o the speed at which
technology changes you only have two
choices: either to keep up or be let behind
and i you are let behind your knowledge
quickly becomes irrelevant. Companies will
need to be sharing their knowledge andhelping their customers to keep current and
to understand the value o what they oer.
This means a change or the relationship
between pharma companies and agencies
that we have already started to see happen.
This is a move rom discreet project work
to an ongoing relationship that can provide
the continuity and understanding needed
to meet the evolving communications
expectations o their customers.
Be DIsrUPtIVe IN yOUr WOrLDSo how should we respond to these new rules?
First, learn a lesson rom the human heart. It
has evolved over tens o thousands o years
to cope with the continuous challenge o theenvironment, where we may at any minute
need to take fight and run or we may be
injured and our bodies need to ght to survive.
How it does this is to be always in a state on
the edge o chaos. We think o our heart as an
organ that beats regularly and consistently.
Nothing could be further from the truth. On a
minute level every beat o our heart fuctuates
because the easiest way to respond to the
change is never to be in a steady state.
The easiest way to cope with change is to
actively drive it. Other industries are ar more
adept at shaping the uture. We have even
seen recent initiatives rom Microsot, Google
and IBM on the uture o healthcare. You
can spot the market leaders o tomorrowin an industry by those who are envisioning
and shaping that uture today. Ask yoursel
Where are the voices shaping the uture o our
industry? What role are we playing in that?
To cope with a disruptive changing
environment we need to develop a disruptive
changing culture because it is easier to
change and respond i you are always
changing anyway. You can react aster and be
urther ahead o your competition because
you can anticipate what is going to happen.
Look at your business and ask yoursel, Are
we comortable or are we continuously
looking to change. Do we challenge the
way things are all the time? The rst step
to driving continuous change is to build aquestioning culture.
How do you achieve this? Give people the
time and the remit to explore. Free your
teams to realise the potential they have and
you will have sustainable value that clients
and customers will perceive the value o and,
increasingly, choose to work with. Google
amously runs a policy called Innovation
Time O, where its engineers are encouraged
to spend 20 per cent o their work time
on projects that interest them. Some o
Googles core services originated rom these
independent endeavours.
The environment o continuous change is a
great place to ast prototype ideas and learn
rom putting ideas out in the real world. Fastprototyping will become core to the uture
o how the industry evolves. There is the
opportunity both now and in the uture to
get eedback and insight aster than ever
beore and in a world where communication
is one constant fow i something doesnt
stick it is gone. There is the opportunity tomove rom getting it right rst time to getting
it really right during the process by putting
lots out there and seeing what sticks. The
pharmaceutical industry will have to respond
to this world as well and change antiquated
approval procedures. In a world where
acceptable response time is measured in
minutes you cant wait for six sign-offs.
DIg DeeP INtO tHe DataThe uture is about data. We now generate
more data per day than ever beore and it is
exponentially increasing. Consider this: in the
western world over 75 per cent o people have
access to the internet but globally less that 25
per cent o the human population can accessthe internet. Now imagine how that will change
over the next 15 years and the impact that will
have on communications.
Get out there, capture data and understand
it. Whether you are a creative, branding or
communications agency, or a pharmaceutical
company, you need to understand what
healthcare customers and consumers are
doing with their time and what motivates them.
Create platorms that generate this insight
or you and start to establish channels or
the uture. The other advantage o this new
world is that the upront costs o this type o
approach are minimal compared to what they
would have been even 10 years ago.
If you really want to future-proof yourbusiness you should be running initiatives
in emerging markets, not because you
necessarily want to be a global business but
it is a lot cheaper to learn and make mistakes
in those markets and to bring the successul
initiatives back to developed markets once you
have made them work. Think this is a crazy
idea? Well healthcare providers in the US are
looking at India to understand
how to do cardiac surgery
better and more eciently
because a process that
could cost $50-60,000
in the US can be done
for $5-7,000 in India
with comparableoutcomes.
Inion now nd omoow
There are already some good examples of media integration:
Virgin media is exploring what is possible with its iPad magazine Project whichintegrates text, video, touch screen unctionality and wider online content
Aweditorium is another iPad application that seeks to integrate music rom new
artists with video and wider inormation aggregated rom the internet to create a
discovery experience out o nding new music
Google Health is on its way: a personal health inormation centralisation service
aimed at helping users manage and share their health inormation online, set
personal health goals and track progress against them
auho
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