Expert System and Sanofi co-chaired a lively Roundtable discussion during the recent Pharma CI Conference 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal. Our topic, “Being First”, generated several key insights into how competitive intelligence (CI) team members can leverage data repositories, link knowledge threads and produce timely, actionable intelligence for decision making across the pharma teams. Participants noted the CI professional must “earn the trust of their customers” since CI is cross functional and must synthesize data from R&D, commercialization, clinical trials and regulatory/news teams.
In these cases, being the first to know can jump start the process and bring increased value, as well as legitimacy. Barbara Inglese, Principal Competitive Analyst at Sanofi, identified certain common barriers and challenges to being first:
- Multiple Sources & Languages
- Multiple Tools & Terminologies
- Data Duplication
- Data Integration
- Data Analysis
- Primary Intelligence
- Internal Information Silos
- Proactive and On-demand Dissemination
- Shifting Corporate Priorities
- Re-organization/Re-structuring
- Acceptance/Adoption of New Tools/Technologies
Participants also noted that in some cases new technology can be so disruptive to previous work patterns and established relationships with outside consultants, many CI teams do not adopt new solutions, and continue working with point solutions that do not analyze, link and normalize various data repositories.
In addition to being first, Barbara also described how CI analysts can bring additional value by quickly augmenting data with their commentaries and then disseminating to stakeholders for informed decision making. The added value of CI professionals is to disseminate enriched information to stakeholders proactively even before stakeholders know that they want to see it.
Roundtable discussion co-chair Archna Bhandari, Vice President, Data and Analytics of Expert System, also spoke to the challenges of repository monitoring and used our team’s recent Biopharma Navigator integration of European Post Marketing Studies as a case study. She also noted that data augmentation and on-demand dissemination with raw data alone is not useful without the use of discovery and curation tools, like the Biopharma Navigator to get a comprehensive CI landscape. All participants agreed that the digital avalanche of content requires 24/7 monitoring and constant oversight so that the CI teams can serve their “customers” across the pharma enterprise.
Post written by Archna Bhandari, Vice President, Data and Analytics of Expert System
