Taking Control of Your Events
As life science professionals know, events are a critical way to engage and educate healthcare professionals.
Events such as educational summits, medical advisory boards, lunch and learns, dinner meetings and trainings are crucial for increasing product adoption. New digital channels are also giving rise to virtual events including those with a combination of in-person and remote attendees.
Events Organisation and Logistics: The Challenges
Events are an essential outreach tool, yet we hear from many companies that they struggle with fragmented event management processes that can impact the end-to-end visibility, execution and success of an event. Traditionally, marketers have collected and stored data, such as opinion leader preferences and profiles, in numerous sources – including Excel spreadsheets and disparate systems.
In this climate, maintaining up-to-date and consistent information is challenging and can result in greater marketing spend and incurred costs. Event marketers also face difficulties when it comes to integrating third party logistics providers into the event management process.
For life science events, logistics can include everything from printing badges to booking hotels, restaurants and transportation. A disjointed logistics ecosystem, with as many as a dozen supplier systems tracking partners in different regions, results in inefficiencies, duplication and inconsistent data.
Then there’s compliance: an essential consideration of events management in the life sciences industry. In the Asia Pacific region, compliance regulations are increasing. In the last few years, Australia has strengthened compliance reporting, while Korea’s Sunshine Act came into play last year. In India, the ICPMP is in discussions about introducing further regulations, guidelines and stipulations about marketing spend in life sciences.
If marketers don’t have a clear view of marketing spend, or streamlined systems for managing their marketing budgets, they risk over-spending and subsequent non-compliance. This makes it hard for sales teams to plan out a series of events.
How Digital Technology Enhances Event Planning and Execution
Within the life sciences industry, digital advancements and cloud solutions offer a more coordinated, compliant event management process. The concept of an ‘events master’ is one example of how digital technology is helping life science marketers eliminate many frustrating event management processes and centralise activity.
An events master, such as Veeva CRM Events Management, enables marketers and sales teams to manage speakers, attendees, activities and spend in a single application. An events master can also integrate all specialised products and services needed to create a life science event, such as speaker management, logistics services, and compliance systems.
With one central repository, marketers spend less time managing systems and can focus their efforts more on strategic planning and event execution.
In the life sciences industry, cloud software offers many opportunities for marketers and sales teams to improve inefficiencies and move away from traditionally fragmented processes to create better, more streamlined end-to-end events management.
Learn more about how Veeva CRM Events Management can help you at the 2018 Veeva Asia Pacific Commercial Summit
The annual Veeva APAC Commercial Summits are dedicated to commercial professionals in the life sciences industry. Join us to hear what’s new in the industry, experience the latest technology trends, and share best practices.
If you are in sales/commercial operations, brand management, marketing, medical affairs, regulatory or compliance, data management, IT, or pre-commercial launch, then this is the event for you.
The Veeva APAC Commercial Summits will take place on Thursday, 6 September in Singapore and Wednesday, 12 September in Sydney, Australia.
This is a complimentary event for Veeva customers and selected invited guests. Register now to reserve your seat! Any questions about registration, contact us at apac_summit@veeva.com.