Untangling the Master Data Conundrum

For many biopharma companies, data management is the Achilles heel of their digital engagement strategy. Harmonizing and controlling data sources is particularly difficult when data is sourced and managed across multiple departments, markets, and therapeutic areas.

The consequences of poor data quality due to fragmented data sources are pervasive, with a mere three percent of companies meeting standards¹ and some losing millions annually from manual integrations². More importantly, poor data quality can lead to disconnected customer experiences, compliance challenges, and increased operational costs due to inefficiencies and redundancies.

Here are my perspectives on how to untangle this conundrum and work toward more harmonized datasets.

1. Start with customer master data

Commercial teams manage master data across various domains, such as customers, products, payers, and patients. Maintaining customer master data is crucial, as customers are at the core of biopharma companies’ strategies, yet it’s often the most complex data to get right.

Healthcare professionals (HCPs) often wear multiple hats — prescribers, key opinion leaders (KOLs), or trial investigators. Their interactions span various channels, including field team meetings, email exchanges, receiving samples, web portals, and call centers. When data sources are fragmented, commercial teams cannot capture consistent information that allows for a single customer view.

2. Harmonize customer data sources for a single customer view

Ideally, a harmonized customer master data set across clinical, medical, and commercial would help biopharma companies gain a single customer view for personalized engagement. However, this idea seems like a long way off today because of how most biopharma companies operate.

Customer reference data integrated with software, such as your master data management (MDM) and your CRM, helps achieve this unified customer view.

Harmonizing master data does not have to be as complicated as it sounds. Here are three steps to get started:

• Understand: Assess your current sources of customer data, MDM system, and commercial function connections. Identify what isn’t working.
• Design: Determine how to standardize customer data sourcing, build your single source of truth, and provide data to all who need it.
• Plan: Develop a strategy to transition from your current state to your desired future state of data harmonization.

Once you have a good overview of how to proceed, implementing is straightforward and can cause zero disruptions to the business if done correctly with the right partner.

3. Build from a strong customer data foundation and replicate

When you get customer master data right, all the other pieces will fall into place. You have a solid foundation for undertaking other strategic initiatives, such as segmentation or advanced analytics projects.

For instance, one small biopharma company launched a potential blockbuster using a combination of Veeva and publicly sourced data sets to identify distinct HCP segments and their respective preferences. The company identified 20% new targets, of which 75% they engaged, leading to up to 15% new patient starts. Having harmonized data helped the company achieve these results faster.

A single customer view also allows for more tailored HCP engagement that can translate into business results. HCPs who are satisfied with their prescription journey and interactions with biopharma are twice as likely to prescribe a drug than dissatisfied HCPs.

Finally, harmonized customer master data enables you to replicate the same data model globally to help your company scale and achieve maximum impact.

Learn more about how a connected data and software approach can benefit your organization.