Connected customer data: a golden opportunity for pharma marketers

Data is transforming life sciences, but many organisations are not using its full potential.

Life sciences and the pharmaceutical industry are awash with data. It flows from every direction in torrents to create huge opportunities to address the world’s mounting health issues.

Approximately 30% of global data volume is generated by the healthcare industry and it will continue to expand with a compound annual growth rate predicted to reach 36% by 2025, according to research by RBC Capital Markets.¹

Its ability to accelerate R&D programmes, energise real-time clinical decision making and sharpen connections between pharma organisations and clients is clear and they can combine to positively impact patient outcomes.

But, although the healthcare data gold rush is outstripping sectors such as financial services, consumer goods, manufacturing, and media and entertainment, there is a danger that opportunities are slipping through the grasp of many companies.

Vast reservoirs of data grow cold as they remain hidden in unstructured, disconnected, and siloed states at a time when pharma is being challenged to form new, more focussed relationships with healthcare professionals (HCPs).

Research by Treasure Data, a market leading enterprise customer data platform (CDP), shows that HCPs are increasingly turning to digital to research scientific information, new medications, and brands.

Capturing market share

This is a golden opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to deploy the power of data and digital to laser-focus delivery across its client base, ultimately improving the value of engagements and capturing market share, says Treasure Data founder and CEO Kazuki Ohta.

He believes unifying customer data, insights, security, and activation is a direct route to improved performance for life sciences companies, as well as better patient outcomes.

And he has a unique view of how data and health combine.

Kazuki’s parents were pharmacists who served rural communities and strove to understand the needs of their patients so they could deliver the best service.

Kazuki, a computer science pioneer, founded Treasure Data 11 years ago with the aim of using data to shape the customer experience by connecting it in one smart data platform.

The combination of health and data, he passionately believes, will transform life sciences.

The company has had huge success in delivering success for clients across consumer sectors and it has now established a track record in health by deploying sophisticated software, machine learning, and AI to empower all aspects of pharma company performance.

Better customer experience

“Pharma is a highly regulated industry and that is often why it is slow to adopt new technologies,” says Kazuki. “However, insurance, banking, and financial services are also tightly regulated, so pharma should be able to overcome this potential barrier and provide better outcomes for both providers and patients.

“Everyone wants better customer experiences and unifying data can drive that, while also translating into cost savings and improved company revenue. I believe huge opportunities await organisations that properly leverage their data.”

An illustration of the potential is evident in forecasts that the global healthcare data storage market will grow from $4.17 billion in 2021 to $9.23 billion by 2026, according to research by the Business Research Company.²

The challenge is to unify the data from different sources into one entity that powers deep insights and allows companies to flourish.

“Recently, I was at a meeting with 50 industry leaders where I asked how many of them had their customer data in one place. About half raised their hands. But when I asked how many had access to it, only one raised their hand,” says Kazuki. “If you have to wait to extract meaning from your data then you won’t be competitive enough.

“A big issue around data clarity is that around 80% of technology spend is currently going into legacy systems. The cloud is growing and there is huge potential out there, but companies are spending budget on running and maintaining legacy infrastructure.

“I believe that more companies will realise that they have great opportunities to use their data and will act on it.”

Good things flow

Silicon Valley-based Treasure Data has developed a range of tools that liberate previously siloed data to be unified and utilised so that pharma engagements can be tailored to specific HCP needs that in turn deliver sales and boost brand reputation.

Its advanced technology helps companies understand the types of services and information HCPs engage with and how best to interact with them across a range of touchpoints and channels.

It creates a 360-degree view of the customer, enabling communications to be accurately targeted and unnecessary information suppressed. This dynamic approach can also be used to predict and recommend next-best actions in sales and marketing, while both improving the customer experience and ROI.

“Good things flow from this,” adds Thomas Kurian, Head of New Markets at Treasure Data. “The moral to this isn’t that it just makes a company more efficient and improves the bottom line, but that it gets the right drug to the right person at the right time and allows the HCP to prescribe it to the right person, leading to better adherence and less complications.

“There is a wealth of data to help this, but many companies either don’t know they have generated it, or they are unable to access it because it is siloed or on different platforms. This represents wasted opportunities to improve performance and results.”

• More insights are available in the report, The New Healthcare Provider Journey: How Pharma Brands Can Deliver A Connected Customer Experience.

About Treasure Data

Treasure Data helps enterprises use all of their customer data to improve campaign performance, achieve operational efficiency, and drive business value with connected customer experiences. The Treasure Data Customer Data Cloud, our suite of customer data platform solutions, integrates customer data, connects identities in unified customer profiles, applies privacy, and makes insights and predictions available for Marketing, Service, Sales, and Operations to drive personalised engagement and improve customer acquisition, sales, and retention. To learn more, visit www.treasuredata.com.