Breaking Down Software-as-a-Barrier to Digital Transformation
When software doesn’t work, it makes routine tasks and processes more difficult. Here’s how to turn technology from a barrier to an enabler of your digital business.
We’re living in a software world. As consumers, we expect it to just work. Songs download. A video call is seamless. Food and transportation arrive with a click. In the early days, we tolerated bugs and a less-than-perfect software experience. Not anymore.
So why lower expectations in the office?
The words “enterprise software” often conjure thoughts of complex systems that are clunky, slow, and difficult to use. Instead of the software working for the business, users often work around the software. Multiply that experience across many software applications and the headache can get substantially bigger.
Research shows a consistent majority of business users have significant issues with enterprise software, from insufficient capabilities to applications that don’t meet business requirements.1 In other words, software-as-a-barrier (SaaB) has become a common model in enterprise software.
SaaB makes routine business tasks and processes more difficult because of technology that doesn’t work well together. It complicates, rather than simplifies. SaaB is in many corners of the enterprise, from human resources to accounting and financial systems to enterprise resource planning.
When software doesn’t work as intended, the business rejects it and people don’t use it. It’s why so many life sciences organizations still resort to spreadsheets to track content, quality changes, regulatory information, and clinical trial data.
Remove SaaB and Help People Focus on the Business
When SaaB is removed, people become empowered. Take the dreaded expense report. Typically, hunting down receipts to create and submit an expense report is burdensome. Expensify changes the entire expense management process with cloud software that automatically tracks expenses in real time. Every time a credit card or debit transaction is made, it shows up in Expensify. No more attaching paper receipts to a hardcopy expense report or struggling to remember which credit card was used. The routine task of creating expense reports is now fully automated and simple.
Veeva is taking a similar approach with many mission critical processes in life sciences. For example, the simple task of email is one of the most effective ways for pharma field reps to reach physicians. Yet, sending personalized emails was nearly impossible and reps were not taking advantage of this otherwise standard way of communicating. So we created Veeva CRM Approved Email to make email a reality in life sciences. We tied multiple technology systems together in the cloud to enable sending an approved, compliant email as simple as, well, sending an email.
In these examples, software is no longer a barrier, but simplifying core tasks and, consequently, giving people time back to focus on important things for the business. Arguably, removing SaaB is much more critical in life sciences than other industries, considering the importance of getting the right information to doctors and speeding the right treatments to the right patients. Many organizations are starting to remove SaaB to take advantage of new digital opportunities. For example, commercial operations are using digital to gain better intelligence of market dynamics, holistically manage commercial content globally to stay compliant, and create closer connections with customers.
The word of the decade will be “digital,” a recurring theme we heard from many customers at Veeva Commercial Summit last summer. In life sciences, breaking down software-as-a-barrier presents a significant opportunity, for example, to transform engagement and collaboration with healthcare professionals and create a more efficient digital supply chain.
Digital Transformation is Possible if SaaB Disappears
Digital is disrupting every industry. In a survey of almost 1,200 C-suite decision makers, 90% agree that their business needs to evolve to thrive in a digital world, while 98% say their business or organization has already been disrupted.2
In life sciences, the commercial business model is still pre-internet and has yet to be disrupted. Companies approach digital channels differently, they’re often disconnected, or they’re use is limited. This severely impacts doctors’ experiences with pharmaceutical companies, especially in relation to how they interact with companies in other industries.
Consequently, it’s difficult for busy healthcare providers to get the new drug or product information they need, when and where they want it. We all know that engagement is becoming more digital, but software-as-a-barrier is preventing life sciences from making the transition to running a digital business.
The changing expectations of healthcare providers and their patients will drive transformation. With more drug innovations, life sciences organizations will need to create more targeted and flexible content that better informs physicians and patients. Additionally, healthcare providers will want to connect and engage with life sciences companies through digital channels for the information they want, when and how they want it. These dynamics are prompting many companies to change quickly and replace SaaB.
Steps to Break Down SaaB and Enable Digital Transformation
It is clear that software will drive innovation in commercial and enable the new digital business in life sciences. But in order for that to happen, companies need to remove software as a barrier to innovation. Here are a few steps you can take now.
Get More Efficient in the Cloud
Start by modernizing your operations in the cloud. By 2020, 67% of all enterprise IT infrastructure and software spending will be for cloud-based offerings.3 Additionally, the use of industry-specific cloud applications is expected to increase, with half of the respondents of the Future of Cloud Computer Survey indicating they are or will use an industry cloud offering within the next 24 months.4 For life sciences, that means applications that are fine-tuned to your business will become more commonplace.
As companies revamp their internal operations to streamline sales and marketing in life sciences, the natural place to start will be legacy, standalone, on-premise systems that require point-to-point integrations and too many user workarounds. Focus on areas that are most strategic to your business and that have the most opportunity to provide a competitive advantage, such as customer-facing applications or content management systems. If these systems are creating complications today, it’s an area ripe to take out SaaB and move to the cloud.
Streamline Processes Across Your Digital Supply Chain
The use of digital media and content is rising in life sciences. As companies transition to operate in a digital marketplace, commercial organizations face the daunting task of creating, reviewing, approving, distributing, and withdrawing commercial content at internet speed.
Typically, the root cause of an ineffective digital supply chain is too many fragmented processes and systems. As a result, the wheel is reinvented in many areas – every brand across the company figures out and implements its own website or digital engagement strategy. Everyone pays for this inefficiency.
Removing SaaB can transform how brands operate and drive new, repeatable processes across the digital supply chain. When the digital ecosystem is simplified, a significant amount of time, cost, effort, and compliance risk can be reduced when getting content to market and, ultimately, help the business capitalize on new market opportunities.
Create a Partnership with IT
Fundamentally, the proliferation of SaaB happens when people with competing priorities make decisions that impact the purchasing process. The end result is software that doesn’t work for anyone. So partnership between the business and IT is critical.
Many CIOs now have a cloud first mandate in the life sciences industry and their role is shifting to leading their organization’s digital transformation. The opportunity for commercial teams is to align on priorities with IT and identify technology limitations where SaaB is holding the business back.
2017 Will Bring New Purpose in Eliminating SaaB
We’re living in a software world and the consumerization of technology has set high expectations for it to work. The opportunity to reinvent commercial operations and break down software-as-a-barrier will pave the way for digital transformation for many life sciences companies to get more drugs and treatments to market faster globally with greater speed and precision. Companies will eventually be shown an easier, more efficient path, and they’ll take it. And the cloud will be at the epicenter in driving new efficiencies and levels of engagement. Embrace what’s coming and watch the digital transformation happen.
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Learn more:
Blog: Making the Move from Software as a Barrier
News: New Veeva CRM Engage Meeting to Transform Digital Engagement
Article: Veeva CRM Engage Named Top Innovation of 2016
1Enterprise Apps Customers Have Issues (Paul D. Hamerman), February 26, 2010
2Fit for Digital: Co-creation in the Age of Disruption (Censuswide), September 2016
3IDC FutureScape Web Conferences Will Present 2017 Predictions – Dawn of the Digital DX Economy: New Rules, Roles & Requirements (Frank Gens); September 2016
4 Future of Cloud Computing Survey (North Bridge and Wikibon); December 2016