Overwhelmed with KOL Data
Over the past few years there’s been a significant increase in the number of technology tools and platforms, our included, that Pharma is using to manage every step of the KOL engagement cycle - identifying, profiling, mapping, planning, contracting, implementing, tracking, auditing, transfer of value reporting, ROI measuring, etc.
As a vendor, the resulting impact on efficacy and efficiency that we have seen in our clients is significant. KOL management continues to improve in all directions, with technology firmly as an enabler.
But an unintended consequence of all this is that KOL data often floods and overwhelms users, coming to them from many different angles, from multiple systems and repositories. Each of the systems and repositories that our clients use is, of course, excellent in their own right and provide value to the client because there is no single magical system that can do everything for everyone, all of the time.
Using centralised data lakes and MDM has helped with the assimilation and presentation of this data, but these are significant undertakings and they never extend to the right depth - they never meet the needs of everyone. Likewise, integration between systems and platforms is not necessarily a cost-effective or practical way forward.
An alternative model to system integration is “system inclusion”. The user is presented with a central dashboard on each KOL that includes (proactively) just a few carefully selected, core, top-line KOL data points from all the different client systems and data repositories.
This approach still maintains the integrity and power of each individual system, but presents just the right amount of top-line information to the user from each system - enough for the user to get a rapid overview of the key points, with the ability to deep dive into any individual system if they need further information.
The end result is an approach that harnesses the power of all the different KOL data repositories that the client may have, but presented as a curated, realistic, and relevant view of each KOL without overwhelming the user.
