As life sciences companies grapple with complex therapeutics and evolving market pressures, it is a pivotal moment for evaluating customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and omnichannel approaches. The industry is at a crossroads: life sciences companies need to decide on future CRM platforms while simultaneously innovating to deliver personalized engagement. To navigate this, a standardized data foundation is becoming a requirement for aligning AI with business goals and ensuring continuous improvement.
The Challenges of Complexity and Personalization
One of the most significant challenges companies face is the increasing complexity of therapeutics, which demands more sophisticated targeting and nuanced engagement strategies. At the same time, the pressure to maximize ROI on every engagement has never been higher, driving the need for a balance between field and digital engagement.
Physicians now expect personalized experiences, meaning that content and communication strategies must be highly individualized. These expectations don’t allow for slow, incremental change—life sciences companies must meet them now. This places considerable pressure on IT and marketing technology (MarTech) leaders, to find solutions that address today’s business needs and are also flexible and future-proof.
Navigating Disjointed Systems
A common scenario in the industry involves the use of multiple platforms: you might be leveraging data lakes hosted on AWS, employing in-house data science teams for analytics, using Veeva as your CRM, and relying on Salesforce Marketing Cloud or Adobe Experience Manager for marketing and digital automation. However, while these systems are powerful on their own, they are often poorly coordinated. This lack of orchestration can lead to missed opportunities in delivering cohesive, personalized omnichannel experiences.
To successfully coordinate field, digital, and medical channels—and do it intelligently and at scale—you need to consider solutions that integrate strategy, orchestration, intelligence, automation, and engagement amplification. But with this complexity comes the need for a flexible data foundation that ensures your technology stack can adapt as your business evolves.
Why a Standardized Data Foundation is Necessary
This is where a standardized data foundation becomes indispensable. It allows data to be shared, integrated, and accessed across various systems in a uniform and open way. This framework is designed for interoperability and flexibility, enabling life sciences companies to manage and utilize their data efficiently across multiple use cases.
The key benefits of a standardized data foundation include:
- Portable data utilization: Better leverage your data across systems for more informed decision-making.
- Improved decision-making: A unified data structure leads to more accurate insights.
- Cost and resource efficiency: A flexible data foundation reduces the need for costly system overhauls down the road.
In an industry where standardized data management and integration are fundamental for maintaining a competitive edge, the need for an open, future-proofed data foundation is indisputable.
Introducing Aktana’s Omnichannel Data Interface (ODI)
Aktana’s Omnichannel Data Interface (ODI) is a technology layer designed to address the challenges of disjointed data systems and evolving CRM needs. It is built with flexibility and future-proofing at its core, ensuring that life sciences companies can adapt to new technologies and strategies without being locked into a single ecosystem.
ODI’s four key components include:
- Data Schema Layer: This abstracts the source data structure, ensuring that Aktana will work regardless of what CRM you use.
- Data Integration Framework: Supporting multiple integration methods, ODI enables seamless transitions and real-time omnichannel use cases.
- CRM Agnosticism: Whether you’re in the midst of CRM migration or still deciding, ODI ensures continuity and flexibility.
- Orchestration Hub: ODI serves as a central hub for orchestrating data flow between different sources and destinations, ensuring consistency and efficiency.
Keeping Your Migration Options Open
One of the standout features of ODI is its CRM agnostic approach. It allows your organization to operate smoothly, even if you are in the process of migrating or evaluating different CRM platforms. By decoupling data management from a specific CRM, Aktana ensures that you can pivot when necessary without disrupting operations or losing engagement efficiency.
ODI also supports cutting-edge integration methods, such as zero-copy integration, which allows companies to manage data in their own infrastructure using tools like Iceberg tables. This reduces operational costs and enhances data control, keeping your infrastructure adaptable to emerging technologies and industry standards.
Driving Real-Time Omnichannel Engagement
As omnichannel engagement becomes a higher priority, real-time integration with customer data platforms (CDPs) like Salesforce Data Cloud and Adobe CDP is imperative. ODI supports real-time data utilization, enabling life sciences companies to launch personalized marketing campaigns based on up-to-date healthcare provider (HCP) data. By synchronizing HCP interactions across all digital touchpoints, organizations can deliver targeted messaging that aligns with physician preferences and behaviors.
Building for the Future
In a rapidly evolving landscape, life sciences companies can no longer afford to rely on rigid, siloed systems that limit the ability to adapt to new technologies and engagement strategies. A standard data foundation, exemplified by Aktana’s Omnichannel Data Interface, offers the flexibility, interoperability, portability, and scalability needed to thrive in today’s environment. By laying the groundwork for seamless data integration and CRM agility, companies can address today’s challenges while ensuring they are prepared for whatever the future brings.
Learn more about future-proofing your foundation by watching our webinar with Derek Choy, Aktana’s Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Mark Coyle, Aktana VP of Product Management, and Brad Wheat, Aktana Director of Sales Engineering: “An Open Data Foundation: Ready for Omnichannel Today and Tomorrow”