As someone with extensive experience of delivering transformation and change in both financial services and life sciences, I recognize many parallels in the challenges and opportunities facing both industries. Both markets are heavily regulated and traditionally conservative in their approach to modernization, for example, yet both are being disrupted and are facing pressure to deliver improved productivity, speed of turnaround, and cost efficiency.
Therefore, change is imperative. Banking has come a long way here; what were once long-winded processes around opening a new account or setting up regular payments can now be managed simply, speedily and securely from a handheld device. But the life sciences industry, and indeed many other strictly-regulated markets, could also benefit significantly from equivalent innovation.
Take the current complexities of global product labeling. Why shouldn’t these be reduced to more coordinated, streamlined and automated processes — those that can be tracked and managed via a handheld device — even on the daily commute, in some instances? Right across the label creation process and out to labeling approval and even distribution, including that of electronic/online information for patients, there is enormous scope to do things in new and better ways.
Your 2020 Priority Needs to Be User-Oriented Improvement
If the life sciences industry is serious about delivering a more user-centric experience, not just in look and feel but in teams’ ability to execute their duties more intuitively and easily, a more app-oriented user experience could be a real game-changer. The problem is that true user-centricity remains the exception rather than the rule in many aspects of business, with regulations and internal system requirements more likely to dictate any improvements to the way things are done. In turn, this compromises the potential for impactful transformation.
However, with the right coordination and controls behind the scenes, app-driven labeling management could genuinely empower label creators, approvers and distributors to complete their work far more spontaneously, effectively and immediately. This could include everything from quickly determining precisely which mandatory elements need to appear on a label to instantly calculating how the impact of any changes of circumstance might cascade across global operations — even all the way out to visualizing finished output, assessing exceptions, and processing approvals on the go.
If brands, in no matter what sector, really want to push boundaries, drive progress, and accelerate time to market, with so much now digitally possible, enterprises really ought to make user-oriented improvements a priority in 2020.
The best starting point: being willing to view and do things differently.
