Revitalize Your Pharmaceutical Commercial Operation with Artificial Intelligence (AI)!

by Kimberly Gregorio | Last Updated: March 18, 2024 | 1 min read

When a small group of scientists met at Dartmouth College in 1956 for the first-ever Artificial Intelligence (AI) workshop, they hypothesized that a man-made intelligence similar to the human brain was just around the corner. But as with many futuristic ideas, things sometimes take a few generations to materialize. And although we still haven’t reached artificial sentience, the field of AI seems to have finally found its way. AI now appears to be everywhere.

Today, it's nearly impossible to talk about technology without AI entering into the conversation. This is especially true when it comes to discussions about competitive advantages for pharmaceutical commercial operations. And there is a good reason for this. According to a recent McKinsey & Company survey¹, 74% of respondents agree that AI adoption in marketing and sales has helped to increase business revenue.

The Need for AI in Pharmaceutical Commercial Operations

Understanding Market Pressures and Regulatory Challenges

In the rapidly evolving pharmaceutical sector, commercial operations face significant pressures and regulatory hurdles:

Increasing Competition: The entry of generic and biosimilar products into the market intensifies competition and pressures brand-name drug prices.
Regulatory Compliance: Companies must navigate complex, ever-changing global regulations that govern drug approval and market behavior.
Demand for Personalization: There is a growing demand for personalized medicine, requiring tailored marketing strategies and distribution models.
Cost Constraints: With rising research and development costs, there is a critical need to streamline operations and reduce expenses.

These challenges demand innovative solutions to stay competitive and compliant, making the integration of AI technologies an essential strategy for modern pharmaceutical companies.

How AI Can Address These Challenges

Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands out as a transformative force in pharmaceutical commercial operations, offering numerous benefits:

Enhanced Decision Making: AI algorithms analyze vast datasets to predict market trends and consumer behavior, facilitating more informed decision-making.
Regulatory Compliance: AI can automate the monitoring of regulatory changes and ensure compliance through consistent checks and alerts.
Targeted Marketing: By leveraging AI-driven analytics, companies can create more effective, personalized marketing campaigns that reach the right audience with the right message.
Operational Efficiency: AI tools streamline various processes such as inventory management, demand forecasting, and customer service, significantly reducing costs and improving service delivery.

By embracing AI, pharmaceutical companies can better adapt to market pressures and regulatory challenges, ensuring their commercial operations are both efficient and compliant. This strategic integration not only enhances productivity but also fortifies the industry’s capacity to innovate and grow in a competitive environment.

Key Areas of AI Application in Pharmaceutical Commercial Operations

Data Management and Analysis

In the complex landscape of pharmaceutical commercial operations, managing and analyzing vast amounts of data is crucial. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is pivotal in enhancing data integrity and processing speed. This not only ensures accuracy but also speeds up decision-making, critical in a fast-paced industry.

Data Integrity and Speed: AI systems provide robust frameworks that cleanse, integrate, and secure data. This accuracy and real-time data processing are vital for maintaining compliance and gaining strategic insights.
Real-World AI Applications: For instance, a leading pharmaceutical company implemented AI to analyze clinical trial data across multiple stages. This AI integration enabled them to predict outcomes more accurately and accelerate drug development times significantly.

AI's ability to handle large datasets with precision dramatically transforms how companies approach data-driven challenges, ensuring they can respond swiftly to market changes and regulatory requirements.

Customer Relationship Management

AI's integration into customer relationship management (CRM) systems revolutionizes how pharmaceutical companies interact with their clients and understand their needs.

Enhancing Customer Interactions: AI technologies such as chatbots and personalized communication tools enable companies to provide tailored experiences, improving customer satisfaction and engagement.
Predictive Analytics for Customer Behavior: AI's predictive analytics can anticipate customer needs and preferences, allowing companies to strategically align their marketing efforts. For example, an AI-driven CRM system helped a pharma company to segment its market and customize communications, resulting in a 25% increase in customer engagement.

These AI enhancements not only improve customer interactions but also streamline marketing strategies to be more customer-centric and responsive.

Supply Chain Optimization

Optimizing the supply chain is another critical area where AI can make a substantial impact in pharmaceutical commercial operations.

AI in Logistics and Distribution: AI facilitates more efficient logistics operations by predicting demand fluctuations and optimizing delivery routes and inventory levels.

Through AI, companies achieve greater logistical precision and efficiency, ensuring that products are delivered timely and cost-effectively, enhancing overall operational productivity in pharmaceutical commercial operations.

These applications of AI not only support pharmaceutical companies in overcoming operational challenges but also in striving towards innovation and improved efficiency across all facets of their commercial strategies.

Benefits of Implementing AI in Pharmaceutical Commercial Operations

Operational Efficiencies

Artificial Intelligence (AI) significantly enhances operational efficiencies in pharmaceutical commercial operations. By automating routine tasks, AI frees up staff to focus on more strategic activities, thus increasing productivity. For example, AI-driven systems can manage data entry, process monitoring, and customer queries effortlessly, reducing the need for manual intervention and minimizing errors. This integration leads to smoother, faster processes that can adapt to changing market conditions with greater agility.

Cost Reduction Strategies

AI also plays a crucial role in cost reduction within pharmaceutical commercial operations. By streamlining processes and optimizing resource allocation, AI can significantly lower operational costs. Automated systems improve supply chain logistics, reduce waste through better inventory management, and curtail overhead expenses by identifying unnecessary expenditures. These efficiencies not only cut costs but also enhance service delivery, making operations more economically sustainable.

Improved Compliance and Risk Management

In the realm of compliance and risk management, AI provides robust solutions that help pharmaceutical companies meet regulatory requirements with greater precision. AI systems can monitor and analyze compliance data in real-time, promptly identifying potential breaches and mitigating risks before they escalate. This proactive approach not only safeguards against legal penalties but also strengthens the company’s reputation by ensuring consistent adherence to industry standards and practices.

Enhanced Decision-Making Processes

AI significantly improves decision-making processes in pharmaceutical commercial operations. By processing and analyzing large volumes of data, AI tools offer actionable insights that are not readily apparent through conventional methods. These insights enable managers to make informed decisions about market strategies, product development, and customer engagement. Enhanced decision-making leads to better outcomes, higher efficiency, and a competitive edge in the market.

Implementing AI across pharmaceutical commercial operations not only drives efficiency and cost-effectiveness but also strengthens compliance and strategic decision-making, thereby fostering a more dynamic and resilient business model.

BirdzAI’s Powerful Modules

BirdzAI now comes fully equipped with four powerful new pre-built modules for Master Data Management, Insights & Analytics, Sales Operations, and Marketing Operations. For those that need a complete solution, BirdzAI’s agile and customizable modules can be combined as a single deployment. However, the flexible nature of BirdzAI’s architecture also enables pharmaceutical IT teams to pick and choose modules without incurring unneeded technical debt. But no matter what configuration teams choose, BirdzAI is all about making the most of data.

BirdzAI’s next-generation ecosystem was designed to power pharmaceutical commercial operations with rapid, end-to-end data management capabilities, including the ingestion, storage, processing and analysis of data derived from commonly used sources like first and third-party prescription data, specialty pharmacy data feeds, CRM systems, marketing interactions reports and more. By bringing all commercial data together into a state-of-the-art master data management ecosystem, the powerful solution creates a single source of truth for the entire enterprise. That’s what helps the platform’s algorithms turn enterprise-wide data into insights for real-time sales and marketing operations decision-making, including forecasting, brand propensity analysis, next best action insights, customer alignment, customer, territory planning and sizing, and incentive compensation strategy, and much more. And that’s the power of BirdzAI’s Insights & Analytics Module.

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Better Call Planning, Segmentation and Forecasting

Not only does BirdzAI’s Insights & Analytics Module enable process automations, it also delivers data-driven predictive insights that can dramatically change how executives make strategic decisions and manage financial performance across all commercial areas. And while the level of investment varies amongst companies, BirdzAI’s Insights & Analytics Module was designed to help all organizations, regardless of size, take their analytics and insights even further.

One of the ways BirdzAI does this is by providing powerful, pre-built machine learning models that enable real-time decision-making derived from deep insights compiled from a wide variety of proprietary and tertiary datasets. And this significantly enhances activities like call planning, segmentation and forecasting.

Call planning & optimization. The BirdzAI platform offers unique functionality for companies launching new drugs into the marketplace. Key features and tested processes include customer alignment, territory planning and sizing, call planning, incentive compensation strategy and payout, roster management, and field and management reporting.
Sales segmentation, optimization & forecasting. BirdzAI helps companies eliminate the guesswork often associated with sales operations by providing insights including sales forecasting, churn prediction, brand propensity analysis, next best action insights, and more. For example, BirdzAI’s innovative capabilities can show, in real-time, which brands a specific physician is prescribing, and which ones they might be stepping away from.

To see BirdzAI’s full list of capabilities, visit P360.com/BirdzAI.

References:

1. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/business functions/mckinsey digital/our insights/the top trends in tech 2022/mckinsey-tech-trends-outlook-2022-full-report.pdf

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