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Indian pharmaceutical companies lag behind in their digital journey as compared to their global counterparts, according to a industry report.
Global advisory firm, EY on Wednesday launched its latest report ‘Reinventing pharma sales and marketing through digital in India’, compiled based on discussions with over 15 leading pharmaceutical companies and hospital chains in India.
The report refers to the Digital maturity Index (EYDI), a five-step framework to measure Indian pharma companies on their digital readiness and sales and marketing plans.
The five stages of digital maturity are beginners, conservative, explorers, practitioners and disruptors.
Of the surveyed companies, nearly 53 per cent are still in the ‘beginners’ stage while 40 per cent are in the ‘conservative’ stage, and 7 per cent have moved toward the ‘explorers’ stage.
On the other hand, companies globally are now rapidly moving towards being “digital practitioners.”
Analysis of the data and insights from EYDI, revealed that for 80 per cent of the companies, digital is still not central to their business strategy and 93 per cent are still focussing on standalone efforts that lack strategic context.
“The pharmaceutical industry is currently in a ‘perfect storm’ given pricing pressures and demands, not just from the domestic market but also on the global front, as well as the supply-side pressures,” EY Global Life Sciences Emerging Markets & Generics Leader Sriram Shrinivasan said.
Commenting on the findings, Hitesh Sharma, India Life Sciences Leader and Tax Partner, EY said: “There are several myths among pharma companies in India around digitisation. In reality, the forerunners are using digital effectively to capture untapped and unstructured data, making their decision more agile and robust, while staying within the realms of regulatory boundaries.”
Successful pharmaceutical players are making people their strength, by “selling” the concept to medical representative and involving them early in the digitisation process, added Sriram.
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