By Amy Matthews, Vice President, Digital Strategy
This month, I had the opportunity to speak at the Pharma Omnichannel Excellence conference in London; a fantastic day in which 24 leaders in pharma shared their experience and some practical insights into delivering successful omnichannel strategies. It was incredibly rewarding to hear the other speakers echo our views at Evoke Kyne.
There were several key takeaways and learnings from the day which I believe will resonate with many of us in the industry:
1: Collaboration… How?
We all understand that cross functional collaboration within an organisation is important in delivering omnichannel (every playbook tells us this!), however we can’t simply tell people to collaborate and expect it to work. It requires real change.
We must review how we reward people by making sure KPIs are intrinsically linked to the heart of omnichannel strategies – improving customer experiences
It requires us to all be aligned under a customer experience-based common goal
We should leave our ego at the door and encourage open, honest & transparent feedback
2: Data really is KING (and it wasn’t just us saying this!)
Data is the driving force of omnichannel strategies; it powers creative that can cut through the noise and help reach and engage with your key audiences. It enables you to adopt a ‘test and learn’ mindset, allowing you to make smart and informed decisions.
Often, we are stuck looking at data with light touch analytics due to the sheer volume of data and dashboards we have access to, which makes identifying tangible insights more difficult. We must ask ourselves; do we have strength in data analysis, do we have the right people looking at the data, and do we have the right skills and capabilities to execute this properly and consistently?
But even if we do have the right skills to deliver this, how confident are we that data is accurate? The accuracy of data relies on everyone within the organisation, from customer facing colleagues to content producers through meta-tagging. If our data isn’t accurate, we could back the wrong horse!
3: Mindset shift
Omnichannel is a strategy which can only be adopted in its “truest sense” when there is a shift in mindset. Whilst many understand this, it has to happen throughout the organisation and this isn’t always the case. To be truly agile, organisations need to rip up the rule book and approach everything with a customer-first mindset. It’s necessary to shift from the old mindset of annual planning cycles to an “always on” approach. Teams working in siloes should be moved towards more collaborative and cross-functional teams. At Evoke Kyne, we’ve been helping many clients navigate this complexity.
4: AI vs getting the basics right
Another interesting topic was the potential of AI tools in supporting content development in the future. Tools are adapting and machine learning can help anticipate content needs, moving beyond modular content to become truly personalised. However, the overall feeling and sense from the room was that as an industry we are still miles away from this. The omnichannel expectation is huge and can be transformative in the way we speak to our customers, but we are currently at the infancy of this journey and companies need help understanding the basics and proving omnichannel works to shift the company wide perspective.
These themes are certainly interesting and mirror a lot of what we are seeing on a daily basis. Our focus as an agency is to work with global and local teams to really drive Omnichannel adoption and the change management needed to for this be successful. If any of the above resonates with you, please feel free to reach out, we have tried and tested approaches to help accelerate the impact of Omnichannel on a global scale and would be happy to discuss how we can help you.