Though many pharmas have grand plans for digital disruption across their businesses, those plans are being disrupted themselves by monetary constraints, according to a recent report from Graphite Digital.
Based on 100 interviews with pharma executives across the U.S. and Europe, the “Disconnected Pharma” report concluded that limited budgets are the biggest roadblocks to more thorough digital transformation across the industry.
A total of 36% of the senior leaders interviewed cited inadequate internal funding as the most significant barrier to digital adoption, even as the survey found that just over half of pharma companies are planning to bump up their spending on digital in the coming years. But those increases likely won’t be of the dramatic variety: Only 3% are planning to up their digital budgets by more than 25%, with the rest making more modest improvements or staying flat.
Perhaps a major reason for the smaller-than-needed budgets is a disconnect between digital-focused teams and upper management in terms of how success is measured: Almost two-thirds of those surveyed said the digital metrics they’re tracking don’t align with their companies’ larger strategic key performance indicators (KPIs), and almost half said those metrics often focus too much on short-term gains, rather than longer-term success.
Additionally, sometimes KPIs for digital deployments are set too late in the process—as 54% of those surveyed reported—which can result in products that don’t actually serve patients or clinicians well and are therefore written off as a waste of money.
“Securing additional budget often requires senior leaders and project managers to demonstrate return on investment or proof of concept, which means finding ways to quantify success in projects that can often take many years to deliver tangible results,” Graphite CEO Rob Verheul said in a statement. “It is critical to manage expectations for milestones and what success looks like when it comes to long-term digital projects and product development—especially when seeking to build confidence and securing additional funding.”
He added, “Having a clear understanding of the ‘why’ behind all projects from the outset will help to set meaningful objectives and KPIs that can be used to demonstrate value—and make sure that both digital teams and senior stakeholders are on the same page.”
Whatever the size of the budget, the executives surveyed shared several key priorities for how they plan to spend the money to improve their businesses’ digital transformation.
When asked about their top priority for driving digital disruption over the next five years, nearly 40% pointed to the installation of robust data security and privacy measures. Meanwhile, 20% said they plan to prioritize collaboration and partnerships across the industry, and 13% reported hopes of integrating emerging technologies into their businesses.