Traditionally, field representatives have been the primary bridge between healthcare professionals (HCPs) and life sciences companies. However, with growing barriers to access and pressures to reduce costs, a new mindset is required that is focused on segment-level journeys and HCP-specific strategies.
While strides have been made in personalizing physician and patient interactions over recent years, omnichannel excellence of the future requires deep AI integration into field and digital workflows. Thereby providing field and medical teams with real-time insights and intelligence to enhance engagement during every interaction, supported by mobile technologies and Generative AI.
Collaboration is the Cornerstone of Success
However, achieving true omnichannel engagement involves more than just technology—it requires seamless collaboration across multiple stakeholders:
- Brand Leaders focus on driving brand affinity, patient outcomes, and sales growth. They need confidence that their strategies are generating the desired impact.
- Commercial Effectiveness Teams ensure the execution and adoption of omnichannel tactics across the organization.
- Analytics Teams operationalize AI outputs, equipping other stakeholders with actionable insights to drive better decision-making.
- Field Sales Teams are the primary point of contact with HCPs, relying on intelligence to make their interactions more relevant and meaningful.
- Medical Affairs Teams lead educational activities for better patient outcomes, especially in complex healthcare environments.
- Marketing Technology Leaders manage the tools, platforms, and processes to ensure scalability and future-proofing across omnichannel initiatives.
4 Critical Capabilities for Effective Omnichannel Engagement
Addressing the needs of these stakeholders is challenging but core to building a high-performing omnichannel ecosystem. In bringing these key players together to meet the demands of today’s dynamic landscape, organizations must master four essential capabilities:
- Strategy Orchestration
This involves ensuring that brand strategies are executed optimally across every channel. Orchestration goes beyond deploying tactics—ensuring that strategies remain aligned, measurable, and continuously optimized.
Questions for Assessing Orchestration Readiness
- How well is your strategy being executed by the field?
- Are your strategies adapting frequently enough to remain relevant?
- Are you using high-ROI channels to engage customers effectively?
- Is your strategy continuously improving target KPIs?
Best-in-class organizations collaborate closely across teams, frequently adjust their strategies, and rely on advanced analytics to optimize channel performance. Continuous tracking provides assurance they consistently meet KPIs and improve over time.
- Automated Intelligence
Sustainable omnichannel engagement requires AI-powered automation. Brand and commercial effectiveness leaders need processes that minimize manual effort while maximizing impact. AI can help accomplish that by generating personalized recommendations that engage HCPs meaningfully.
Questions to Evaluate Automated Intelligence:
- How much time and effort are required to maintain your AI solution?
- Are you fully leveraging available digital channels?
- How engaging and relevant are AI-generated recommendations?
- Are HCP journeys personalized at scale?
Leading companies use AI to streamline workflows, generate dynamic recommendations, and deliver hyper-personalized experiences across all touchpoints.
- Amplified Engagement
Omnichannel success depends on equipping field sales and medical teams with the latest tools and AI-driven insights to amplify their impact. Providing real-time intelligence allows teams to adjust interactions immediately, so they meet HCPs where they are, with what they need.
Questions to Assess Engagement Amplification
- Do you know how well you are amplifying engagement with field users?
- How much of your field’s activity is actually aligned with strategy?
- How effectively is your field using pre-call planning?
- Are your reps logging calls and other insights?
- Unified Data
A future-proof, scalable, and standardized data platform is the foundation of any successful omnichannel effort. As the industry stands at a crossroads, commercial operations and marketing technology leaders must make decisions about their CRM platforms and data ecosystems to ensure long-term growth and flexibility.
Assessing Your Data Readiness:
- How scalable and operationally robust is your connected ecosystem of tools?
- Is your data model purpose-built for omnichannel engagement?
- Can your system deliver real-time personalization for HCPs?
Best-in-class organizations use extensible data models that support any channel, action, or campaign. They achieve real-time personalization at scale, even in complex environments, setting the stage for future innovation.
A Future of Continuous Improvement
Technology plays a key role in enabling omnichannel engagement, but collaboration across brand leaders, analytics and commercial teams is equally important. Orchestrating a strategy that adapts to market changes and uses AI to enhance decision-making is a must to stay competitive.
In addition, by continually assessing performance, tweaking strategies, and aligning cross-functional teams, organizations can make sure their approach feels right for long-term success in a fast-changing landscape.
Ultimately, preparing for the future requires aligning technology, strategy, and people. And by building a future-proof data platform, adopting AI for automation, and empowering the field with real-time insights, life sciences companies can achieve deeper, more meaningful engagements with HCPs and patients alike.
Learn more about preparing your omnichannel investments for the future by watching our webinar with Derek Choy, Aktana’s Co-founder and Chief Product Officer: “Commercial 2030: The Road to True Omnichannel”
