Global Survey Highlights Lack of Commercial Content Management Capabilities Needed for Optimal Speed-to-Market

The need for a single solution that gives visibility across the digital supply chain is a problem the life sciences industry continues to face in this constantly evolving digital environment. Many companies still rely on multiple systems or tools to manage their commercial content, causing their processes to be cumbersome and inefficient. According to a global survey compiled of over 200 regulatory, marketing and medical professionals, commissioned by Veeva Systems and conducted by Fierce Markets, a staggering 89% of companies have determined that they are using two or more tools to manage their commercial content.

Using a multitude of tools to manage commercial content slows speed-to-market, creates compliance challenges, and upsets consistency throughout the stages of the digital supply chain. A majority of respondents reported that they lacked a global digital asset management system and more than half reported that there was no ability for electronic distribution of approved content to multiple channels.

Consequently, many respondents, if not most, are dissatisfied with their system’s speed-to-market, global messaging alignment, and cost reduction capabilities. The largest area of dissatisfaction was with respondents system’s inability to enable global content reuse. Without global visibility and the tools to share and reuse approved content, companies will remain inefficient, effectively wasting millions of dollars each year not being able to share, reuse and control content globally.

Most respondents conveyed limitations in managing their digital content, most notably the majority saying that they are still sharing content via external media, e-mail, external file sharing, local, global or other. A large number of respondents are still manually withdrawing content, making it extremely time consuming and viable to inaccuracies. Additionally, a few of these respondents also reported that their content is not being shared across regions. This industry wide challenge of the inability to share and manage commercial content globally lengthens the review and approval process and creates unnecessary duplication of effort.

However, the survey respondents were able to identify key capabilities they felt were necessary to help increase their speed-to-market, the most desired being automated review and approval. Almost equally as desired was the electronic distribution of approved content to multiple channels.

A large number of survey respondents stated that a commercial content management system would improve speed in getting content to market, also noting that it would improve claim and content management across multiple channels as well as improve global branding and messaging alignment. More than half said it would improve regulatory compliance and reduce cost by enabling global content reuse.

The industry is quickly evolving so the need for a single, commercial content compliance solution that provides complete visibility across the digital supply chain has never been greater.