NEW YORK, June 29, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — For the seventh year running, Across Health conducted a survey of life sciences to assess their overall digital maturity called the Multichannel Maturometer. The research continues to show that these companies are not maturing fast enough. While it’s true that technology is indeed disrupting the healthcare industry in numerous ways overall and customers are increasingly “digital natives”, pharma still lags behind other industries in terms of digital customer engagement.
Digital knowledge remains flat
Fonny Schenck, CEO, Across Health states, “The external “clock” is ticking much faster than the internal one, leading to an increasing gap…and frustration and dissatisfaction among innovation-oriented leaders. Another striking observation is that knowledge of digital has remained flat (and at a low level) for the past 7 years, despite well-intended training efforts and the pervasiveness of digital in everyday life.”
Lack of enterprise-wide digital strategy
This lack of digital maturity could be related to the lack of a strong vision and strategy, as only 1 in 4 respondents stated they felt their company had one. The top bottlenecks include: regulatory issues, no clear digital strategy and not enough internal knowledge. Not uncommon to see regulatory issues topping the list, however, without having a clear digital strategy in place or enough internal knowledge, companies lack the framework to push through cross-channel programs at scale.
Satisfaction of digital initiatives remains very low – and so do budgets
Only 13% of our respondents are satisfied to very satisfied with their digital initiatives, with 42% negative and 40% not sure. Dissatisfaction is even higher than in the past 3 years, dropping to the very low 2010-2011 levels. In addition, 40% of respondents have a poor or very poor understanding of ROI. Not surprising, then, that total budget allocation to digital has remained flat at about 15% for the 4th consecutive year (a low level vs. other industries).
Success factors are clear…and some companies are taking the lead
As Fonny posits, “We believe this creates a ‘catch 22’ situation, satisfaction with digital is low, therefore budgets do not increase, which in turn leads to suboptimal programmes with limited impact and back to lower satisfaction…creating a plateau of low productivity…for 4 years running now.” Success factors are also clear, however; among those that are satisfied with their company’s digital initiatives, they report having a clear companywide vision and strategy, as well as a solid understanding of ROI and effective local and international teams. We are also starting to see a difference in speed in the market – around 14% of companies polled are implementing multichannel very quickly, spending significantly more than the average, and feeling comfortable with impact measurements etc.
About the Multichannel Maturometer
The Multichannel Maturometer (n = 222 for the 2015 edition, with respondents from Europe, US as well as Asia and Latin-America) has been conducted by Across Health since 2008. Originally called the Digital Barometer, it has been tracking attitudes, beliefs and behaviors related to digital maturity in the life sciences and biotech industries. The findings help pharmaceutical and biotech companies understand where they fall along the digital transformation continuum – and how to improve their position. If you’d like more information about the study you can view the presentation in SlideShare or watch a webinar.
About Across Health
Across Health is a trusted advisor to senior leaders of innovative multinational healthcare organizations. With a focus on customer engagement in the digital age, they partner with their clients to design, develop, execute and measure multichannel strategies and companywide digital readiness programs – for the short, mid and long-term. http://www.a-cross.com/health
