What is your Strategy for Mobility?

The driver for this new blog post came as a result of my recent trip to the SAP Sapphire conference in Orlando. I have an interest in technology and focus on the #mHealth (mobile health) aspects of Healthcare. It was during several discussions with key executives that you realize that few companies are prepared to handle the shift in the industry around ‘mobility’ more specifically the use of smart phones. Many IT organizations drive a strict policy around the use of smartphones. When I joined my company there was no strict policy. It is left up to the user to decide what his or her needs are and make their choice.

I previously wrote about a solution back on June 15^th, 2010 entitled: Aligning Life Sciences and Healthcare IT. Part 2 A Practical Mobility Solution for Doctors and Nurses. We delivered a system that met the needs of a client for one specific problem using one form of technology. Last year this was a great example of the use of smartphones to improve the productivity and communications between nursed and doctors in providing ‘improved’ healthcare. When I reflect back on this if the client decided to change smartphone technology what would this do to the current process in place? One statistic that highlights the acceleration of smartphones is that by 2013 that there will be 6 billion devices!

In many organizations IT can be a deterrent in today’s rapidly changing world of mobility. There are a few things IT cannot change or control:

• You have a ‘fixed’ budget
• No control over changes in ‘compliance’
• No way to expect your user’s increasing expectations

Evolving Technology versus your Fixed Budget

Users are looking to manage their time by finding ways to be more productive. As the pace of smartphones increases I believe there needs to a strategy that is ‘agnostic’ to the end device (whether you use an iPhone or an Android device). I recently ‘tweeted’ the following message: “David Mosher talks about how tablets are changing #medicine http://bit.ly/jsgDF0 RT @ONHealthcare: #mobility #healthit “ New apps are being released that can greatly improve various facets of healthcare. I am convinced technology is accelerating faster than IT policies.

Another example of how technology is changing the way IT provides support to their users. Google recently announced their “Chromebook.” In short these are laptops with no applications installed on the end-user device. Everything is running off of cloud services. So how can I lower my costs and allow for security, and at the same time give the users flexibility of using technology their most comfortable with….

• There are several companies looking to offer their own “apps” store. This allows users to easily download company specific and widely used applications.
• Deploy a mobility strategy… at the Sapphire conference I’ve seen solutions that allow IT to give access to key business processes

The SAP mobility strategy may be one choice that allows IT the ability to ‘connect’ key processes and make them on any device. This also includes the relevant data that can be used to make key business decisions. As more and more workers look to collaborate the mechanism to manage all this is ‘how fast can IT push this data out’ and into the hands of their workers to make key decisions.

IT groups must now see how they can balance the enterprise with mobility to create the ‘mobile enterprise.’ Over the next few months there is a concerted effort to prove this in the market. By providing a roadmap and tool kit to help organizations set up this mobile enterprise. Some of these components are here today and others are still being developed, and to reach this potential your mobile strategy should have the following attributes:

• Device independent
• Deliver and Enterprise – ready security solution
• Provide integration to ERP/CRM

This strategy will eventually evolve to include Business Intelligence as well as governance, risk and compliance later in the year. What I will be focusing on is the ability to help Life Sciences companies fulfill this ‘mobile strategy’ through a series of investments and proof-of-concepts. As this proceeds I will offer a future blog post to cover this story.

I’ll conclude this blog post with a reference to an interesting article found in Computerworld May 23^rd, 2011, Opinion: Halamka: Facing down VUCA, and doing the right thing.

The author, John Halamka, describes how IT leaders deal with ‘unpredictable demands; ever-changing technologies; and all on a fixed budget.’ These leaders must embrace VUCA and ultimately move from the left to the right. With the world exploding with data and businesses looking to compete in the new world the article pretty much sums up how to prepare yourself to meet this challenge and turn it into an opportunity for your business.

Volatility                      ->                                        Vision

Uncertainty                       ->                              Understanding

Complexity                ->                                       Clarity

Ambiguity                ->                                     Agility

Thanks,

Jim

 

Is It Time for “ERP for RandD?”

Admittedly this is not a new concept. When enterprise resource planning (ERP) was first introduced the focus was on integrating finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service. ERP provided the means for ‘integrating; the business processes within an organization. So why raise the topic of “ERP for R&D?” Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices develop new products in an environment that is driven more by science than a ‘business process.’ Scientists will suggest that forcing a business process into R&D limits their creativity. Today we are well aware of the problems facing R&D: lack of new products, reduced productivity, significant capital cost with diminishing results in terms of new products.

In my last blog post “Improving the Business of RandD” the focus was on the impact that cloud computing could have on R&D. Platform as a service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are alternatives that can help IT supplement their existing business process. Today contract / clinical research organizations (CRO) are being used to supplement R&D in the area of clinical development. Basic research and clinical manufacturing (in some organizations) are also being ‘outsourced.’ Given this quilt of organizations and separate business processes I’ve concluded the need for “ERP for R&D.”

 

Ultimately change will occur. I read an interesting article “Pharmaceutical Innovation Hits the Wall: How Open Innovation Can Help” by Henry Chesbrough. He writes about the need for changes to the industry’s innovation process. You may already know about the industry’s focus on ‘blockbuster’ drugs where the business is using science to find that next billion dollar product. Which comes at the price of research in seeking medications for smaller patient populations, so I contend that the business processes with R&D need to be ‘integrated’ with visibility to the data across the organization. I do agree with the point that Henry makes in his blog post that ‘there needs to a change in the innovation process.’

I have begun this journey to offer ERP for R&D as several of my customers have asked our company to give end-to-end services. I would like to see the industry focus more on new treatment and medication innovation and leave the IT to systems integrators (SI). Unlike software development companies SIs is pretty much agnostic to the software solution and more about how to drive out cost and improve IT performance.

Thanks,

Jim

 

Improving the Business of RandD

A lot has been written about Cloud Computing. In “Tech Giants look forward to Cloudy Days” this speaks to the competition between Apple, Google and others that want you to store your files on their technology. In “Here’s Why Cloud Computing Is So Hot Right Now” talks about the shift from client-server to ‘shared’ hardware located away from the corporate offices. In a earlier blog I wrote called “Managing my data…”I detailed my experiences with my data after my laptop was damaged. Learning to use and apply cloud computing is the focus of this blog post with an emphasis on Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices R&D.

Lately I’ve been working in the R&D area and specifically on the business processes that extend from Basic Research through New Drug Application (NDA). Most of you have heard about the impending loss of revenue due to patent expires of branded pharmaceuticals. The question is what can be done to “Improve the Business of R&D.” For starters most companies have realized that IT is not their core business. IT is just an enabler of the business processes within a company, and most executives I know want to focus on the core business of creating new medicines and treatments. Then there is the high amount of effort needed to make sure ‘compliance’ is maintained to the local regulations, when it comes to making these products. Add to this situation if IT develops a ‘homegrown’ solutions within R&D.

In the past information technology (IT) was used to serve the needs of the R&D. Today there is a need to see how IT can accelerate the business within R&D. The example that comes to mind is how kids use technology (cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc.). They just use it to do whatever it is they are looking to do. Make it simple and the user will consume more of this technology. Today we’ve come to the conclusion that IT is not keeping up with the demands of R&D. So how can we improve this?

Cloud computing offers the ability to expand IT capacity in an ‘on demand’ fashion. We’ve begun to take this concept one step further. What if IT services providers created an infrastructure or platform ‘on demand?’ Google Mail (Gmail) is an extreme example of this where users can get access to their email through cloud computing. As more users go to Gmail capacity expands to meet the needs of the users. I say this is an extreme because the cost model for Gmail is different from a R&D model.

Imagine a day when you can ‘rent’ a process – add database capacity – replicate existing IT landscapes in the cloud. We refer to this as process-as-a-service (PaaS) where you can use any given process via the cloud. Allowing you to add new users to a business process on an as needed basis. We can also provide infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). We’ve had clients ask if we can offer the servers organized in a specific fashion to support their business process. Companies can leverage these services and get out o the IT business of maintaining and supporting these systems.

Is this a novel idea? Not really – other industries have enacted similar PaaS and IaaS solutions. What makes this different is that within Life Sciences (especially Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices) you have to discuss the regulatory aspects of your IT systems. And ‘yes’ we can support a cloud computing environment that is compliant to the FDA regulations. IT services providers would have to offer this in order for Life Sciences customers to use these solutions.

What is exciting to me is that we have the opportunity to apply cloud computing for the industry and create a fully ‘integrated’ process which, I believe, will improve the business of R&D.

Thanks,

Jim

 

Drug shortages will impact Healthcare…

Supply chain

Most of us are excited about the changes occurring in healthcare around mobile applications, electronic health records and the advent of social media just to name a few examples. Yet there is a mounting concern with the rise of drug shortages now reported at “178 a 3x rise since 2005!” A look at the FDA web site for drug shortages shows a list of both generics and branded products with the reasons for the shortages (including manufacturing delays, increase in demand, etc.). We’ll look at the background of the industry, the traditional view of supply chain, current factors facing the industry, and what companies can do to ‘improve’ their operations. Recognizing the need to convert your improve your existing operations will be good business and the consequences will directly impact you and I.

Key facts about the industry

According to IMS Health pharmaceuticals sales in 2011 is expected to reach 880 to 890Billion USD, which is a growth of 5 to 7%, and is 1% higher than the 2010 expectations. The current view of the supply chain includes:

• In the US market the top 10 pharmaceutical companies give some 60% of the total US sales.
• As products come off patent Generics control the prices of these products.
• The wholesalers may also negotiate prices between the manufacturers and the Pharmacies.

The traditional view of the supply chain

The driver for any supply chain is to offer:

• Product at a ‘reduced’ cost
• Faster to market
• Delivered at a high quality

Apply this to the previous diagram and you can see the challenges that face healthcare. As the view of the patient and pricing for these products are disconnected. This diagram gives you the full view of the Healthcare supply chain:    

 

 

 

The Healthcare Supply Chain

 

Current factors influencing the industry and the Healthcare supply chain

The following factors have influenced the market:

• Mergers and Acquisitions – have reduced the number of manufacturers as companies have consolidated to make up for the loss in patent expiry and look to increase market share (Merck and Shering Plough, Pfizer and Wyeth, and Teva and Barr Labs are just a few examples)
• Regulatory issues – it is harder for manufacturing sites to recover from an FDA violation. This delay can lead to drug delivery delays.
• Government control over pricing – as the cost of healthcare rises many governments are dictating the price of drugs (Spain, Canada, Turkey and Greece). This puts the supplier at a disadvantage to be able to deliver products at these ‘reduced’ prices given the cost for raw materials.
• Globalization – in response to some of these factors many companies have already moved their operations to off-shore locations. India for API manufacturing.
• Risk Management – having the ability to ‘view’ any of these problems can lead to drug shortages. Supply chain operations must therefore give this visibility so the right changes can be made.

Taking these factors into account and with a view of the ‘future’ of the healthcare supply chain from Gartner:

How can I ‘improve’ my operations?

I now work with a variety of companies that look for solutions to ‘improve’ their processes. We began his discussion trying to understand why there are so many drug shortages, and I would suggest the following as a means of enhancing your supply chain operations:

• Refocus business growth and performance across the entire healthcare supply chain. This includes both the patient as providers of healthcare with a C level sponsor that understands that the aspects of healthcare lie outside of your companies boundaries.
• Collaboration. Look to improve demand from both your suppliers as well as your customers. Provide visibility and metrics that you can mutually share.
• Leverage IT as an enabler to meet the first two points. Make investments that promote organizational visibility. Specifically analytics solutions that provides management with a view the business as a result of this investment.
• Governance. This process does not happen overnight. Change management is an ongoing process and you will need leadership and support to sustain these processes as they evolve over time.
• Invest in skills and talent within your organization. I’m in the IT services business and you would think this takes away from my opportunities. There is a tendency to think that these processes can be solved through off-shore support capability. While this is true I am taking about the need to enhance your folk’s ability to understand the entire healthcare supply chain.

I am convinced healthcare can improve yet the threat of drug shortages can impact any course of treatment if the right products are not available. What I hope to do with this blog post is a summary of the problem and possible solution. I welcome your suggestions or comments to improving this blog post.

Thanks,

Jim

 

Managing my data…

Can we trust our health record information to software vendors?

We are not at a point where we can effectively: total, safely protect, easily transport and access our health data. I read a great article by Margalit Gur-Arie entitled, “Trust your life records to an unnamed chain of software vendors” she uses an analogy of our current banking system to emphasize how far away we are from gaining the trust around our health records data. Great article and highly recommended. This got me thinking about how we manage our data today?

The current focus on the use of smartphones and tablets are mainly for the physicians and nurses. We have yet to discuss the needs of the patients? My personal experience in daily work routines, writing my blogs and using smartphones indicates we are still evolving. There are some models of storing data that could promote greater adoption of data management that would help accelerate the use of technology for managing healthcare data.

Unintended consequences
A few weeks ago I had accidentally dropped my laptop. You know those moments when you’re traveling for business and just happened to let your device slip from your hands. This damaged the LCD display rendering my laptop useless as I was not able to use my data. For the next week I struggled to work effectively, and yes I do keep up a back-up of my data. So I had to cart around my portable drive with my files to a desktop with Internet access, and rely more heavily on my smartphone.

Bottom line from this experience is that smartphones are still not the answer to managing my data. I still rely on apps to do my daily work routines. There needs to be alternatives to managing apps and data across several devices.

Managing your health records
My brother is a kidney transplant recipient. In my earlier blog “Fresh start in 2011” I mentioned how thankful I am for his life. Those of you that have a relative who has undergone these kinds of operations you know that there is a daily regimen of medications to keep the body from rejecting the foreign organ. Have you seen the amount of ‘paper’ data from all the specialists and physicians it takes to keep this all in balance? Even with a dedicated intern whose job it is to check and analyze this data still takes a few hours just to make a ‘minor’ medication adjustment!

Paper records

There are some apps on the market that address specific medical data: heart monitoring, diabetes tracking, etc. I would be very interested in a personal health record (PHR) that can sum the data from multiple sources?

Smartphones and Tablets – we’re still developing
iPhone versus Android. The iPad versus the latest set of tablets. Earlier this week I posed several questions at the 2011 mHealth Trends (HIMSS Preview) webinar with Brian Dolan (@mobilehealth) and John Moore (@john_chilmark). These devices are still evolving in the market and while it is getting easier to check health data via individual apps we are not addressing the issue of managing the complete portfolio (or checkbook) of your health data?

iPhone and iPad

Later this year the iPhone 5 will be out on the market. As well as an update to the popular iPad tablet. The market is evolving with devices that are easier to use and much more powerful. We have come a long way since the bag phone and netbooks.

 

 

How can we digest all of these changes – what is still missing?
There are ways to manage your data on multiple devices. Mobileme (www.apple.com/mobileme/) from Apple is a good example of how their devices can have data synched via the Internet for email, contacts and files. There are apps like SimpleNote (www.simplenoteapp.com) that allows you to support ideas using any smartphone and allow you to reach these ideas, in my case, via the laptop. The idea is that with a little effort I can avoid the unintended consequences of the loss on one device leveraging cloud computing as the repository for my data.

We are still not there when it comes to health records. Since the sources of the data come from a variety of sources. Physicians will soon be using electronic health records. Now the challenge will be how do patients aggregate this data? Can’t say I have a good answer for this based on some of the personal health records I’ve tested.

I would be interested if someone has found a ‘true’ personal health record that can be maintained on multiple devices and allow me to summarize my results data. Once this is in place we can then address the issues of security and portability. In the meantime my daily work is in helping Life Sciences companies’ leverage how an individual can use, analyze and get this data via a variety of devices. I am optimistic that we will see a day when software vendors in the healthcare space act like banks and financial institutes. Though I can’t see how the ATMs fit in all this…..who knows?

Thanks,

Jim

 

Fresh start in 2011

By now everyone has gotten past their New Year’s resolutions and is picking up where they left off last year. So thinking about my

Fast start...

 first blog post for 2011 I would like to cover the following areas:

• A look back at 2010
• Maintaining momentum in 2011
• The focus for the year

Reviewing 2010

The nice thing about blogging is that you can go back and see how you’ve progressed throughout the year. In last year’s blog post: Upgrading for 2010 I had worked on a business plan to startup a new Life Sciences practice for an IT services company. I covered the five focus areas last year by writing about the following topics:

• Social Media – from the use of these tools to deriving ‘value’
• Cloud Computing – producing a white paper for my employer
• Drug Development
• A three-part series on Aligning Life Sciences and IT – covering how to leverage information technology; Mobility and Innovation and the Business Process
• Innovation and Outsourcing
• A book review on ‘selling’
• Patent Expiry

Unfortunately the business plan was not approved, and I moved to another opportunity to do business development for an IT services company. This challenging role now has me advising clients on the best use of IT within Life Sciences and Healthcare. This opportunity came by way of my network, and for that I can thank Robert.

Maintaining Momentum in 2011

I continue to focus on the use of social media tools. So I am thankful for my LinkedIn network and my followers on Twitter. I have come across lots of folks with the same interests and challenges for the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry. There are tons of creative people with new ideas for solving today’s business problems. In 2011 I want to carry the momentum started in 2010.

Karl Rove and Jim, 14Dec2010

 

I am also very grateful for my co-workers, coaches and mentors who have helped me transition into my new business development role. Towards the end of 2010 I started to see success in driving new opportunities for my company by aligning IT to improve businesses. Along the way I’ve met many interesting people. I had the chance to attend an industry meeting for Medical Devices and speak to Karl Rove the former aide to President Bush. Politics and Healthcare are very intertwined and for 2011 there continues to be changes.

 

The Focus for this year

I plan to enter 2011 by expanding on last year’s topics. How do I combine my interests with the tasks of being a business development executive? Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1. Leveraging Twitter to cover the following areas:
   #pharma – how is clinical development, social media, and regulations impacting this segment of Life Sciences?
   #mHealth and #mobility – the use of mobile devices will impact healthcare throughout the world.
   #hcsm – how to best leverage healthcare social media?
   #healthit and #it – what is the impact of IT on the organization?
   #personalizedmedicine and #genomics – will genomics have an impact on healthcare in our lifetime? (I’m currently waiting on results of my own genomics that has to do with ancestry.)
2. Business process improvements in the areas of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM); Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM).
3. Clinical Development and Analytics
4. Cloud computing
5. Mobility
6. Mergers & Acquisitions
7. Globalization

In case I forget to add Marketing and the use of Social Media to further drive IT services opportunities. I will be more involved in our website and the use of the social media tools.

I continue to have a personal interest in the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry. Last year I saw the impact of ‘personal health records’ for my brother who is a kidney transplant survivor. I’ve have friends succumb to diabetes, and parents who are aging. How will technology help to improve the lives of these people? Will this be something I will see in my lifetime?

 

January Snowstorm for Newtown, Pennsylvania, USA

So like the snow storms on the East coast of the US. As of January 2011 there are more storms this year than last year. We are starting 2011 with a lot of momentum.

Thanks,

Jim

 

Happy Holidays….

To my followers on Twitter and LinkedIn,

I want to wish you and your families a happy holidays, and have a great New Years’s. Thank you for all your support and collaboration. Looking forward to a great 2011!

 Warm regards,

Jim

 

5 Steps for IT to meet the Challenges of Patent Expiry

We have heard a lot about the ‘patent expiry’ problem within the industry. Here are 5 +1 steps your IT team can take to help improve a company’s position to meet this challenge. As revenues decline as a result of ‘patent expiry’ there is an associated ‘cost reduction’ that is taking place. This is not a surprise – especially from a financial perspective. This ‘cause and effect’ is now challenging IT to see how well they are supporting their organization.

 

The problem

The current IT landscape within Life Sciences can be described as being ‘best-of-breed.’ There are many reasons why these systems have evolved into ‘silos’ of technology. Today there is an acute interest in the high cost of healthcare that is now ‘pushing’ the industry to act like other industry segments, and what comes to mind is the Consumer Products and High Tech segments. How products are consumed and delivered?

Over the past few years as significant dollars continue to be spent in R&D we have little in terms of new products being introduced into the market. These are products with significant revenue to help cushion the blow of patent expiry. This is why you will continue to see consolidation take place as companies are buying each other for their pipeline. As the industry prepares for the ‘patent expiry’ problem costs are being addressed in many ways :

• AZ not done with cost cuts article
• Drugmaker’s Acquisitions to Weigh on Credit Ratings article
• Galaxo sees more industry consolidation article

What else can be done?

Here are 5 possible solutions that IT can take to help organizations cope with the effects of patent expiry:

• Moving to low-cost options for your OS and database. – Many of today’s applications can also run on the Linux OS platform. You should also consider the maintenance cost of your database. Cost versus performance can help save some money in this area.
• Virtualization – An elegant solution that can help you run your applications on today’s servers. Push your hardware vendors to help give you a roadmap to leverage virtualization for all your applications. If not you may want to find another vendor. You can also seek help from your Infrastructure IT service providers.
• Cloud computing – There are just a few companies within the industry really leveraging this technology. There are lots of vendors who do offer these services. We are aware of the cost savings so I won’t go into that point. The issues of ‘validation’ and FDA compliance will need to be re-evaluated. It can be done ask if your IT service provider has this ability.
• Rationalize you software investments – I mentioned earlier that the current IT landscape is ‘inherited’ based on M&A. Take time to re-evaluate the dollars spent on applications that are seldom used.
• Outsourcing – Aside from the call center, application support; and infrastructure support how much has outsourcing provided in terms of real ‘value’ to the organization. IDC reports that…….

Let’s say you’ve done all these things (here’s the +1).

Then re-evaluate the business process you now support and ask if this really does make a difference to the organization. I’ve been focused on leveraging IT within the industry. With a background in software development and now as an IT service provider. There is no one software solution (transaction system) that can solve these problems. Rather it will take a combination of software applications ‘integrated’ into a business process to support the organization.

Some examples:

• Supply chain versus the value chain – rather than ‘push’ products into the market (now the highest cost savings area) where inventory justifications are based on never ‘running out of product.’ Consider how the Consumer Electronics industry approached their supply chain during the holiday season. Does your supply chain have a focus on the consumer – and the needs of your products?
• Change the way R&D creates new products – too many times I’ve heard that this is how we do things and that the FDA forces us to do it this way. The problem can be solved by combining IT applications into a business process. Re-think how you do portfolio management and clinical trials from a financial perspective.
• What is the value of your IP to your organization – IT service providers should be helping you to check how data is managed within your organization.

A comment on Twitter: a great thing about this social media tool is that it allows you the ability to store important comments made by others across a range of topics. This has helped me do a lot of ‘right-brain’ thinking about how best to push IT service providers to come up with the next advances for the industry. I also see the need to help companies ‘improve’ their processes and help impact the creation of new medicines and treatments for the market.

Thanks,

Jim

 

Aligning Life Sciences and Healthcare IT. Part 3 Innovation and the Business Process

This is the last installment on Aligning Life Sciences and Healthcare IT. I had written two earlier blog posts on Innovation back on 23Nov2009  The time for ‘Process Innovation’ is now and on 8Dec2009 Pharma 2.0 and the need for Process Innovation. I had been inspired to write about this topic due to a recent set of tweets on Innovation, and the lack of Innovation. As well as a recent speech from our company’s CEO and our overall direction for the year. With so many mergers and acquisitions and since the focus of this series is about Life Sciences and Healthcare IT what steps can be taken to ‘improve’ Innovation?

My current focus is on IT services. A few months back our CEO came to do a ‘town hall’ meeting and to give a state of the industry and give us the ‘direction’ for the year. IT services are becoming more commoditized and to truly grow our company we have to focus on the business process within our industry segments. We are a company that can offer expertise across a range of applications. What I got out this presentation was the need for improving the business process. Questioning how we do certain processes. In my experience in software development we always had the concept of ‘best practices.’ These were business processes that were developed for ERP and are used across multiple clients. Best practices examples include order-to-cash; hire-to-retire; etc. and are easy to apply within a company.

Within Life Sciences there is no one software solution that can fully support pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Biotech firms can leverage one set of software solutions as they move from one product to a few products. Generics are not burden with having to develop new products and so R&D is limited and can use one set of software applications. The history within pharmaceuticals and medical devices was that R&D and the business were on separate IT systems. Now with the pressure of healthcare costs rising, the lack of new products, and increasing regulatory requirements these industry segments are looking to leverage technology to ‘innovate’ improvements in these areas.

Healthcare IT systems are also unique from a software application perspective. There are several key vendors with a different set of data standards. How then does IT provide innovation within Life Sciences segments and leverage ways to ‘collaborate’ with Healthcare IT systems? My perspective is to leverage a client’s IT investments and to find ways to ‘innovate’ the business process. With no common applications as an IT service provider we have worked on building up ability in applying different software solutions to improve the business process for our clients. In later blog posts I hope to do a deeper dive into these business processes with more details.

Today I’ve been working in the Life Sciences R&D area. How to improve the business process? I will caution you that I do not claim to be a scientist or medical degree person. Yet what I can do is to find ways to accelerate the use of IT within certain segments of the R&D process. A little on the Research side where we can use IT in basic research, while focusing on the Development side where there are multiple software applications that are not ‘integrated’ together (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and others).

In Can IT bridge the gap? Part1, it explains that there is no one technology within Life Sciences and no common Healthcare IT system. In Part 2 A Practical Mobility Solution for Doctors and Nurses. We showed how mobility can play a key role in providing healthcare workers with technology that improves productivity. Today the move is to improve Innovation and it is not about the advances in technology. I believe we have achieved this in most cases. Yet there is still room to ‘improve’ the business process – enhance productivity: so that new products are developed faster and decisions can be made to accelerate the right products to market.

Thanks,

Jim

 

Book review and Summary: “Never Sell Alone”

Todd Cohen’s book “Never Sell Alone” is for both seasoned sales veterans, and for most of us who support the sales cycle. The book has Todd’s personal view of selling and lessons he learned from his father. While that does influence this book Todd’s systematic approach to the sales cycle speaks volumes to those of us who engage in any aspect of the sales cycle. This is an easy book to read with questions and examples in every chapter.

I’ve recently changed companies, and there is no need to explain the current economic climate. Typically new hires are given up to six months to get ‘on-boarded.’ Yet today’s business environment the pressure to ‘add value’ can be measured in weeks and not months. If you can’t cut it, there are many other ‘qualified’ candidates who can replace you. Sometimes a book comes along at the right time in your career. “Never Sell Alone” is just that book.

Background

I met Todd a few years ago at a networking event. He was the main speaker and his presentation was entitled: “Everyone is in Sales.” His presentation style demonstrated his passion for ‘selling’ and the premise that we are all in sales helped me think about the roles I have had in my past career. Todd took a very practical approach to selling whether you’re selling IT services or managing your job search he demonstrated the practical side of sales.

Key points in the book

• Audience for this book – if you’re in sales this is practical way to understand how to manage and motivate your ‘sales’ team. If you’re new to your company the book provides a guide to check your sales team.
• Organization of this book – it is brilliantly broken down into easily digestible parts that will bring you through the sales cycle. Each chapter includes questions and examples from Todd’s own personal experience.
• Practicality – I personally was struck in the very first section when Todd addressed the need for selling complex IT services and solutions. This book, for me, helps to evaluate my role and I could easily relate to the things I do well, and take advantage of  Todd’s advice to improve on other areas of the sales cycle.

I would strongly recommend this book. It will help you recognize what you  do well and offers a framework (broken do by chapter – with questions – and situational examples) so that you can then concentrate on improving that part of your selling ability. Today’s sales model is evolving with Social Media and the Internet. Customers are finding ways to get relevant product information. I found “Never Sell Alone” a way to review the success of my sales organization, and what areas of the process I do well and where I need to improve.

If you want to learn more about Todd Cohen and order his book check out http://www.toddcohen.com/

Thanks,

Jim