Nightscout Project<\/a> we highlighted in a previous post, that provides remote monitoring of diabetes patients.<\/p>\nEach of these disruptive forces represents an existential threat in the ways that traditional companies do not. With good profit margins and deep pockets, life sciences companies have traditionally been able to buy their way into continued success, through mergers and acquisitions. But they cannot buy a country, and if a major tech company wants to compete, they will lack the resources to stop it. As for grass roots patient efforts, these play to different motivations than pure economics.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, most life sciences companies recognize that change is necessary, and it needs to happen now. But while there is increasingly general agreement in the life sciences industry that digital transformation is essential, most of the customers we are talking to give us some pretty direct feedback \u2013 they understand they \u201cwhy\u201d of digital transformation, but they are stuck on the \u201chow\u201d. In short, they don\u2019t know how to get there from here.<\/p>\n
Executing true digital transformation (as opposed to opportunistically adopting new technologies) can be hard for any type of organization, but it is particularly challenging for life sciences companies, mainly due to the starting point in the journey. The \u201caverage\u201d life sciences company of today faces technical, regulatory, and cultural barriers that stand in the way of the transformation journey. On the technical side, they have often adopted hundreds or even thousands of different systems, typically chosen as best of breed. Multiple mergers and acquisitions have made the technology architecture even more complex, and many life sciences companies\u2019 IT departments are devoting most of their time to maintaining complex integrations rather than actually adding business value to the company. Add in the complexities of understanding and meeting the needs of the regulators, and getting true value out of technology investments becomes hugely challenging. One of the biggest elephants in the room is the cultural barriers to change. Those difficult to maintain technology architectures? They stem from a cultural need for everyone to have their own \u201cperfect solution\u201d that works locally, versus a good enough solution that works globally, and the natural human instinct to favor the familiar over the new.<\/p>\n
These are difficult challenges, but our own digital transformation as an organization has convinced us that they are not insurmountable. We are partnering with companies across all industries to use new technologies such as cloud based artificial intelligence as the basis for business growth. And we are bringing our own experience of navigating the change to help our customers understand how to approach digital transformation in a comprehensive manner, from empowering employees and engaging customers, to optimizing operations and transforming products. Next month, in the second part of this series, I will discuss some of the key considerations for successful digital transformation in the life sciences industry, and provide examples of where it is proving effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The \u201caverage\u201d life sciences company of today faces technical, regulatory, and cultural barriers that stand in the way of the transformation journey. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":10701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1507,4260],"post_tag":[],"content-type":[1483],"coauthors":[1827],"class_list":["post-2849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthcare","category-life-sciences","content-type-thought-leadership"],"yoast_head":"\n
Digital Transformation in Life Sciences, Part One - Microsoft Industry Blogs<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n