With so many different options for platforms and various approaches to data management, the most difficult challenge of 2016 was getting data to work harder for pharma companies. Understanding and then successfully using technology to create actionable plans, data-driven toolsets, myriad platforms and software and a variety of data interpretations is now a critical component of healthcare marketing. Some best practices have emerged regarding how to be smarter about leveraging data, but because they’re fragmented it can be difficult to get cross-team, -company, or -agency alignment. The key lesson I’ve learned is that defining a core set of principles across a large marketing team goes a long way in setting everyone up for future success. This means getting consensus very early on as to how data will be identified, aligned to business objectives and turned into action. This requires transparency across functions, as well as guidance on implementation.

This content is repurposed from PM360.