This blog post is an extension of our recent webinar discussion: “Leveraging Advanced Techniques to Automate NBA: An Introduction to Aktana’s Tactic Genie and Content AI”, part of our 6-part Omnichannel Innovation Webinar Series.

What we see today with many standard NBA deployments

Aktana has deployed over 1000 Next Best Action (NBA) programs around the world, across 350 brands in nearly 50 countries.

What we see today is that many customers put a lot of effort into defining rules that generate suggestions. These suggestions are often ad hoc, in that there may be little or no link to the data that the rules were based on.

We also see many instances of customers generating suggestions by predefined rule-based journeys, sequencing suggestions together to accomplish a goal. 

Both of these approaches are valuable in NBA deployment. However, each takes significant effort to manually develop and maintain, and the suggestions can quickly get stale if the rules and journeys are not continually updated.

What customers need next

We have been conducting ongoing research with our customers in the Life Sciences industry, specifically in leadership roles in Omnichannel Excellence, Customer Experience, and Commercial Effectiveness – asking what do customers need next to deliver on the promise of NBA? 

Three key themes have emerged through our research: 1) that our customers require more sophisticated personalization; 2) our customers want to be able to tie NBA strategies to business objectives; and 3) NBA programs need more real-time responsiveness. 

How can Advanced AI help deliver on top Life Sciences priorities for NBA programs?

Personalized: Sophisticated and contextual

Personalization is the pivotal aspect of Advanced AI for NBA, especially when communicating with highly specialized and knowledgeable groups like healthcare professionals (HCPs), who are often pressed for time. And the complexity compounds when individual preferences of HCPs are factored into the data mix.

Moreover, the necessity for sophisticated AI increases when sales representatives operate in a multilayered environment. They face ever-increasing performance targets, requiring them to be highly productive and impactful. Their movements and decisions, influenced by numerous operational variables and HCP-focused data, must be data-driven yet simple to navigate. If the process is too complex or overwhelming, reps are unlikely to adopt it.

Thus, AI must transcend basic personalization. It should contextualize insights or actions succinctly and understandably. If a suggestion is disregarded, sophisticated AI should learn why and offer more compelling recommendations next time.

Strategic: Connecting Impact to Brand Strategy

In order to maximize impact of a brand strategy, NBA approaches need to be more granular with clearly defined objectives. For example, aspiring to move a specific segment up the adoption ladder by driving awareness or increasing the usage of newly created content. Sophisticated AI is necessary to manage this level of operational complexity.

There is also a growing need to integrate financial and management disciplines into NBA. Similar to how a CFO or CMO handles strategic planning and execution, NBA commercial teams can benefit from the same level of discipline in their planning processes, by tying NBA strategy objectives to clearly defined KPIs, ultimately informing ROI.

Adaptive: Real-time Responsiveness

For NBA to be truly sustainable and effective, it must be adaptive, relying less on manual setup and maintenance, with AI enabling real-time responsiveness. With the right business inputs and constraints, NBA strategies should automatically generate personalized, HCP-specific journeys targeting KPI improvement.

In addition, AI should adapt tactics and journeys frequently and in real-time based on KPI movements. Once strategic objectives are defined, useful AI should continuously present new suggestions based on what is effective and what is not.

Aktana’s Offerings: Tactic Genie and Omnichannel Orchestrator

Aktana Tactic Genie and Aktana Omnichannel Orchestrator are recently released products that directly deliver on the top three customer themes of personalization, strategy connection, and adaptiveness. 

Tactic Genie uses GenAI and powerful Content AI to create HCP-specific journeys that are focused on driving KPI improvement. These journeys consist of sequences of suggestions –  with each suggestion presented with a best time, a best channel, and best content recommendations. 

And in order to make these suggestions compelling and ensure they are acted upon, we have introduced various sources of AI-driven reason text that can be customized and also reviewed by compliance teams, providing reps with the insights behind the recommendations. 

In addition, Omnichannel Orchestrator works with Tactic Genie to help make the right tradeoffs, give visibility to decisions, and make real-time adjustments. Omnichannel Orchestration evaluates each potential action candidate with an AI-driven and economic centered value function to ensure effective brand strategy execution, which is particularly critical with limited rep capacity and financial resources. 

Learn more about our customer research and how Advanced AI can deliver on the promise of NBA in Life Sciences by watching our webinar with Jeremy Flax, Aktana VP of Product Strategy, Pini Ben-or, Aktana Chief Science Officer, and Sam McClain, Aktana Senior Product Manager: “Leveraging Advanced Techniques to Automate NBA: An Introduction to Aktana’s Tactic Genie and Content AI”