EN

How Pharma Industry is Redefining Work, Collaboration, and Development with KanBo in the Post-Pandemic Era

For twenty-first-century businesses dealing with fragile and ever-changing conditions in the post-pandemic world, business as usual is no longer an option.

This is especially true for pharmaceutical organizations, which must maintain business continuity and operational efficiency while still being nimble, adaptable, and responsive to changing circumstances. Pharma companies that haven’t been able to respond swiftly are battling to simplify their processes and regain the trust of their stakeholders.

To remain afloat in today’s corporate climate, it’s become more important to develop and execute adaptive and agile methods. To be operationally flexible and responsive, large organizations must build a solid infrastructure that ensures informational transparency, real-time collaboration, work visibility, easy supervision and monitoring, effective feedback and performance review, and, most importantly, secure and timely communication among team members and departments. This creates a slew of problems for pharma businesses that either don’t have a dependable and agile system in place or one that isn’t capable of efficiently managing enormous quantities of work. KanBo software caters to corporate agile needs by enhancing organizational systems’ inherent flexibility, adaptability, and reactivity.

Improving Social Collaboration and Communication with KanBo

As the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted businesses all across the world, the pharma industry now has the responsibility of ensuring business continuity and beating supply chain issues. Moreover, a number of large pharma industry players are also expected to carry out quick research and create vaccines and other medications to cure and manage the potentially fatal viral disease.

These new circumstances require pharma organizations to be more collaborative and agile so they can ensure operational excellence and timely completion of projects. However, today’s digital infrastructure frequently falls short of expectations and is woefully inadequate to meet modern needs. That’s where KanBo software can be a useful commercial and social collaboration tool for individuals and teams that want to pool their resources to develop efficient solutions and make the world a better place. KanBo provides the visibility and openness essential to build a collaborative work environment across several departments.

What is Corporate Collaboration?

We must recognize the magnitude and variety of the operational framework when it comes to communication and collaboration in major corporations, especially pharmaceutical companies. There are several departments, sub-departments, teams, and groups working on various tasks, assignments, and projects at the same time, so bringing them all together and turning them into a collaborative work environment is a huge difficulty. The requirement to be a part of the entire operational infrastructure is one of three dimensions of collaboration.

The practices and rules that enable a variety of teams and individuals to communicate and exchange information in order to achieve common goals are referred to as social collaboration while the engagement between top-level management and the workforce to determine the firm’s course is known as business collaboration. Real-time collaboration happens when individual employees have instant access to all information, aren’t trapped in communication silos, and can connect and communicate with one another.

Sustainability Goals Set by the UN for Pharma Companies

The first and most important difficulty facing any significant pharmaceutical company today is adhering to the UN charter’s principles and policies, which compel businesses to support equitable, sustained, and sustainable economic growth. Aside from that, pharmaceutical companies are obligated to provide full and productive employment as well as acceptable working conditions for all employees.

Pharmaceutical Companies’ Challenges in the Post-Pandemic Environment

Taking a quick glance at the UN’s sustainability objectives and what pharma companies need to do to achieve operational excellence reveals the critical necessity of social and real-time cooperation. Teams and individuals cannot coordinate and cooperate toward common objectives without the cooperation and effective communication. The pharmaceutical sector has a number of issues that may be addressed by assuring social cooperation.

  • Variable Demand for Various Prescription Drugs – For many pharmaceutical companies, the pandemic has created a unique and challenging situation in which they must cope with shifting demand for various treatments. This implies that pharmaceutical companies must have rapid access to data and insights that can be shared across teams in order to keep up with the ever-changing demand.
  • Regulatory Policies and Guidelines Have Been Revised – As drug regulation is a slow-moving process, it has created a problem for pharmaceutical companies, since they must react swiftly to concerns and doubts while still ensuring that their treatments are effective. The significance of social engagement between workers and teams cannot be stressed in this circumstance, as everyone in the firm must be on their toes to ensure they are operating within the boundaries of the most recent legislation.
  • The Expectation that the COVID-19 Pandemic will be Contained – Consumers and the healthcare business have high expectations, which means pharmaceutical companies must continue to perform research in order to develop antiviral medications and vaccinations to control the virus. Expectations are high not just because they want the treatment, but also because they want their lives back.
  • Competition among Pharmaceutical Companies – The COVID-19 era has created a slew of challenges for both individuals and businesses, but it has also presented pharmaceutical companies with an opportunity. Companies that are on the cutting edge of research are more likely to succeed in developing antiviral vaccines and medications for treating and containing COVID-19.
  • Handling Brand Reputation and Raising Consumer Expectations – The latest pandemic has thrust the pharmaceutical industry into the spotlight, and everyone, including healthcare institutions, is turning to them to help them get out of this mess. Because of the increased attention, every element of the product, including cost and effectiveness, is scrutinized. Companies’ brand cache and reputation are at risk due to a variety of obstacles such as shifting demand and supply chain concerns.
  • Dealing with Data Breach and Cyber Security Threats – Pharmaceutical firms are especially susceptible to data breaches and cybersecurity risks. Because consumer data is becoming more valuable, and pharma businesses hold crucial and sensitive information, cybercriminals are increasingly likely to target them. That’s why, for work and business process management, every pharmaceutical company now needs a secure, flexible, and collaborative digital platform.
  • Managing Supply Chain Disruptions – The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed some of the industry’s most serious flaws. It has been discovered that the industry’s lean supply chains aren’t sturdy enough to cope with unexpected demand spikes. Furthermore, the pandemic has produced manufacturing challenges, resulting in extended lead times and unpredictability in supplies. To address these difficulties, all parties must have a well-integrated communication and cooperation infrastructure in place.

Creating a Socially Collaborative Work Environment with KanBo

KanBo is flexible and comprehensive work and business process management platform that allows pharmaceutical businesses to bring together a wide set of teams, talents, experiences, and abilities to create a mutually advantageous working environment. Employees can interact and learn from one another in real-time, rather than being trapped in conventional silos. It creates a socially collaborative setting that may aid in the resolution of the aforementioned issues. Here are some of KanBo’s important features:

Collaboration might be tough when there are projects that are too complex to handle. That’s where KanBo comes in. It enables you to break down large tasks into smaller tasks that can be accomplished and recorded simply, making cooperation and supervision much simpler. The to-dos may be checked off as soon as the work is completed, eliminating the need to send an email to indicate the completion status. Traditional communication tools are no longer required, saving time and increasing efficiency and production.

Going Big on Data and Digital with KanBo

In the post-pandemic environment, the pharmaceutical industry’s overriding load of expectations has reshaped how pharma firms handle commercial strategies while assuring efficient operational excellence. Established pharma businesses have been compelled to change their planning and strategy in order to remain a dominating force in the market, as a slew of new companies with data-and-digitization-backed success attempt to undercut the major rivals. This implies they are in a situation where they must spend resources in order to go big on data and digital.

Large pharma companies are increasingly taking digitalization and big data seriously, but they also recognize that they will not be able to reach their goals until they overcome a range of obstacles, bottlenecks, and roadblocks. The digitization of a large-scale corporation requires complete information transparency, work visibility, security, and agility, all of which are difficult to achieve. This is where KanBo comes in with a complete solution for pharma businesses looking to digitally convert and digitize.

Recognizing Digital

When we say ‘digital,’ we typically mean everything that has to do with computers. However, in the context of the business sector and huge organizations, the phrase has diverse meanings and views. When a company is claimed to be going or adopting “digital,” there are three main components to consider.

Sustainability Goals Set by the UN for Pharma Companies

One of the most compelling motivations for major businesses, particularly pharma firms, to go digital is to achieve their sustainability objectives. As we recognize the critical need for transitioning commercial operations into sustainable processes, we will need to devote more resources, attention, and energy to reduce the effect of what we do on the globe.

  • Developing infrastructure that is both sustainable and resilient
  • Promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization
  • Improving small-scale enterprise access
  • Improving resource efficiency and using clean technologies
  • Promoting scientific research and innovation

Modern Pharmaceutical Company’s Big Data and Digitization Goals

Many large-scale pharma companies have spoken extensively about their risks, aims, and problems when it comes to big data and digitalization. While a number of pharmaceutical firms are contemplating investing heavily in data and digital, they are cautious of the roadblocks that may make the shift less easy. Let’s take a look at the elements and goals that most pharmaceutical companies are considering right now.

Delivering Transformative Innovation with KanBo

Pharma companies must not only ensure operational continuity in these challenging times but also deliver transformative and collaborative innovation so that countries all over the world can develop a pandemic defense strategy. This implies that pharmaceutical firms will be required to spend more than ever in research and development. That, however, is insufficient. They also have a pressing need to revamp their business processes and operational strategies in order to be more effective and efficient than ever before. Collaboration has never been more difficult, with more than half of the workforce working remotely. KanBo is a flexible and comprehensive solution that enables businesses of any size to create and nurture a collaborative work environment that fosters and executes innovative and transformative ideas.

Transformative Innovation’s Essential Elements

When it comes to fostering disruptive innovation, there are several features to consider. The nature of the industry, business size, scalability, unique business objectives, and challenges are all taken into account in most transformative innovation strategies. There are three elements that are present in every situation:

Sustainability Goals Set by the UN for Pharma Companies

The global manufacturing sector received a huge loss as a consequence of the COVID-19 in 2020. Many industries, notably the pharmaceutical business, depended on R&D to jumpstart economic recovery and restore output. Global GDP shrank and growth slowed to a trickle. During these tumultuous times, disadvantaged people and developing nations experienced a period of economic and social devastation. The United Nations (UN) Department of Economic and Social Affairs issued objectives and indicators for large-scale manufacturers, particularly pharmaceutical companies, to concentrate on sustainable industrialization and resilient infrastructure, based on the circumstances in a number of nations.

  • Create infrastructure that is sustainable, inclusive, and resilient
  • The industrialization that is both sustainable and inclusive
  • Expand small-scale enterprise access
  • Increase resource efficiency and use green technologies
  • Encourage scientific research and innovation

What Does “Driving Transformative Innovation” Mean for Pharma?

For various sectors, the term “driving transformational innovation” has varied connotations. The definition for the pharmaceutical industry is also exceptional. In this case, generating revolutionary information implies that pharma companies may not only gain a competitive advantage in the market but also enhance patient care and give better service to physicians and other stakeholders. It also entails streamlining back-end company procedures to make the workplace more inclusive and collaborative, generating new ideas, and encouraging an entrepreneurial attitude. The following are some of the top goals for pharma companies.

  • Provide Treatment Options For Conditions That Are Now Untreatable – There are still a few medical problems that are either incurable or difficult to manage. Patients with these disorders not only have to deal with the physical consequences of their illnesses, but they also have to deal with psychological and emotional distress. What this implies for pharmaceutical companies is that they must spend more in research and development of these ailments in order to meet the special demands of patients who are suffering from illnesses for which there are no cures.
  • Prioritize Alternative/Advanced Treatment Options – For pharma businesses, transformative innovation isn’t only about achieving economic stability and long-term growth; it’s also about being competitive in the long run. They must focus on alternative treatments such as gene therapycell therapyRNA-based therapies, and radioligand therapy, among others. In other words, businesses must create a pipeline that will produce future value via increased scalability and innovation. The advanced treatment pipeline not only fuels growth but also assures that doctors have access to goods and services that improve patient care.
  • Make Manufacturing And The Supply Chain More Efficient – As supply lines were clogged and manpower was scarce, large-scale businesses had no alternative except to reduce output. As the pandemic looms, pharmaceutical companies must not only research new cures and treatments but also simplify their operations so that they can make and deliver their medications efficiently. If a product is ready in-house but not offered to patients, the consumer’s quality of life stays unchanged, and the company’s technical accomplishment does not transfer into substantial financial growth.
  • Create A Thriving Innovation Ecosystem – Transformative innovation does not happen in isolated divisions of pharma companies. They must create and nurture an innovation culture in which talent, expertise, and experience are combined to generate new ideas and devise execution tactics. This implies businesses must create innovation ecosystems in which the responsibility for inventing is distributed among multi-disciplinary teams rather than a single committed department.
  • Expand Access And Support Patient-Friendly Policies – When we speak about innovation, we should also think about promoting pro-patient legislation so that pharma firms may give better access at a lower cost. The items must be evaluated and provided to the market in the quickest period possible so that they may assist as many people as possible throughout the world. The methods and processes involved must be secure in order for the pharmaceuticals to reach customers safely and without unexpected repercussions.
  • Introduce The Concepts Of Digitization And Automation – There’s little question that no company or sector can generate transformational innovation without depending on current technologies like big data, artificial intelligence, automation, and digitalization. Pharma companies must concentrate on digitizing their processes and making data-driven decisions in order to innovate. Not only will this deliver speedy and precise findings, but it will also provide valuable insights and analytics that may be game-changing in the pharma sector.
  • Make Better Use Of Technology-Assisted Capabilities – Any pharma company can employ technology, but it is the imaginative application of skills that drives growth and new ideas. Organizations that concentrate on technology in terms of what it can achieve are more likely to become stagnant than other businesses. Pharma companies may achieve the following goals by using technology in flexible ways.

Enabling Operational Excellence with KanBo

Operational efficiency and quality have been the basis on which successful firms have been formed in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has failed to abate, and the Omicron version is still wreaking devastation over the planet. The crisis’ aftermath has touched a wide range of businesses, but none has been hit as hard as the pharmaceutical industry. As the virus has grown over the previous year, the pharmaceutical sector has been tasked with not just continuing operations but also delivering remarkable outcomes that enable healthcare professionals to overcome the pandemic’s hurdles. KanBo software is a complete work and business process management platform that enables major businesses, such as pharmaceutical companies, to establish the groundwork for operational excellence.

Operational Excellence: An Overview

It’s important to remember that operational excellence encompasses a variety of elements, each of which plays an important part in building simplified business operations that may be refined and altered in accordance with the organization’s objectives and needs.

Sustainability Goals Set by the UN for Pharma Companies

Successful businesses are concerned not just with their bottom line, but also with the environment. They are accountable for resource use as well as the creation of commodities and services. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs has published aims and indicators for large-scale corporations to attain in order to be more inclusive and sustainable in the face of global warming and climate change.

  • Resilient infrastructure aids economic development
  • Increase the share of industry employment via inclusive industrialization
  • Expand small-scale industrial and financial services access
  • Infrastructure upgrades improve resource consumption efficiency
  • Enhance scientific research to encourage innovation

What Does It Mean for Pharma Companies to Adopt Operational Excellence?

It’s important to remember that operational excellence is a broad phrase that encompasses a wide variety of procedures, needs, expectations, goals, and objectives. The fundamental goal is to maintain the same level of production while using fewer resources, however, how an organization achieves this varies from one firm to the next.

  • Digital Transformation And Automation – Many large-scale pharmaceutical companies have learned in recent years that operational excellence cannot be attained without significant investments in automation and digital transformation. As the pandemic continues to have an influence on these organizations’ operations, the necessity for digitization has grown increasingly critical. Pharma companies can organize, control, and simplify their operations with the right digital transformation and automation plan, providing long-term stability during these turbulent times.
  • Identifying Growth Drivers And Investing In Them – Many pharmaceutical companies are in the midst of creating and fine-tuning performance metrics for their key growth drivers. They’re searching for flaws and bottlenecks in a variety of processes, including product launches, in order to create uniformity across numerous marketplaces. Because the final aim is to efficiently use resources, pharma companies are increasingly opting to engage in pre-launch preparations, which include interacting with industry stakeholders such as insurers, patients, and physicians to better understand their requirements and expectations.
  • Optimum Asset Utilization & Innovation Acceptance – Business process transformation is no longer a choice, but rather mandatory for any pharmaceutical firm. This implies that companies must consistently increase efficiency without jeopardizing the integrity and quality of their goods and services. This entails manufacturing consolidation so that organizational assets may be better used and the emphasis can be switched to research and development of new medications.
  • Emphasis on Long-Term Viability, Value, and Resilience – The pharmaceutical industry has acknowledged that it has to change its focus in healthcare from cost efficiency to cost-effectiveness in order to meet its long-term sustainability objectives. It’s not just about cutting costs; it’s about doing it in a manner that keeps the company afloat and provides value to all of its stakeholders, including insurers, patients, and doctors.
  • Crisis Management And Rapid Response To Emergencies – Businesses have been compelled to change and adapt as a result of the pandemic. Almost every pharmaceutical company has opted to allow remote work and work from home so that operations may continue even if the company is shut down. Border closures and travel restrictions have also had a significant influence on supply chains, forcing the pharmaceutical sector to develop more efficient logistical solutions.
  • Improving Collaboration And Coordination – If there’s one component that can’t be overlooked when it comes to establishing operational excellence, it’s the team and individual coordination and cooperation. That is why it is critical for pharma companies to improve departmental coordination, communication, and cooperation so that everyone in the company is working toward the same goals and objectives.

KanBo’s Role in Helping Pharma Companies Achieve Operational Excellence

KanBo software creates an agile and adaptive working environment for pharma companies, allowing them to collect data, analyze data analytics, interact in real-time, provide better work visibility, and manage a wide range of business operations across several teams. This enables a huge corporation, such as a pharmaceutical business, to maintain operational excellence.

Relying On KanBo to Build Trust with Society

Nothing is more important to a pharmaceutical company than its integrity and reputation. This is why pharma companies make certain to invest in endeavors that directly contribute to establishing trust with society in order to establish their company as a reputable one. For the same reasons, pharmaceutical companies must be accountable for their social, governance, and environmental responsibilities, which is referred to as corporate social responsibility. KanBo offers pharma companies a comprehensive work and collaboration platform that can be used in a variety of ways to meet CSR goals and build trust.

Social Trust: An Overview

When we talk about ‘social trust’ or ‘building trust with society,’ we’re referring to gaining the trust of those who rely on pharmaceutical companies to deliver and acquire healthcare services and products. The pharmaceutical industry cannot develop and grow a sustainable brand without gaining the trust of these stakeholders, which typically include patients, consumers, vendors, insurers, physicians, and others.

Sustainability Goals Set by the UN for Pharma Companies

The Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations has set 17 objectives and targets for large-scale organizations to meet in order to create confidence with the communities in which they work. The following are some of these objectives.

At Every Management & Operational Level, KanBo Assists Pharma Organizations

Any company that wants to improve its operational efficiency, embrace collaboration and digitalization and go big on data and digital needs an infrastructure that works at all levels. When infrastructure is split among teams, tracking work and information becomes more difficult, resulting in inefficiency and redundancy. KanBo’s fundamental building blocks assist managers, executives, and workers in constructing and optimizing their work processes and project plans in the same manner. KanBo has all the building elements you need for all sorts of hierarchical configurations, whether you’re an executive or simply a team member.

As a Digital Headquarters for C-Level Executives

The company overview and bird’s eye vision are very important to top-level management. KanBo gives them the digital headquarters they need, with easy access to strategy, tasks, projects, information, expertise, documentation, internal communication, and organizational community, as well as key apps. This means they can make critical choices on the go rather than needing to schedule meetings and video conferences every day.

As a Low Code Platform for Citizen Developers

When we speak about low code platforms, we’re talking about a visual approach to software development that enables rapid application delivery without the need for manual coding. Low-code platforms exist to make app creation more accessible to the general public, particularly for citizen developers, who are essentially business users with no professional coding knowledge. Project managers and business analysts are examples of these people. KanBo, as a low-code platform, enables people to have a major impact in a variety of ways, including minimizing IT department backlogs, eliminating shadow IT, and taking ownership of BPM workstreams.

As a No-Code Platform for Citizen Developers

NCDPs (no-code development platforms) allow coders and non-coders to construct application software using graphical user interfaces and configuration tools. They don’t employ traditional computer programming, which may be rather difficult. KanBo and other no-code development platforms are similar to low-code development platforms in that they both aim to speed up the application development process. As corporations cope with the concurrent trends of an increasingly mobile workforce and a limited supply of qualified software engineers, these platforms have grown in popularity.

As a Work Organization Platform, Information Workers

A process is a method that consists of a series of stages that must be followed in order to achieve a certain result. A project, on the other hand, is a temporary course of action with the goal of delivering a unique product, service, or outcome. KanBo offers a single center with all the capabilities necessary by workers, managers, and executives to handle various processes and projects effortlessly.

Final Word

As the pandemic scenario evolves, pharma organizations are finding themselves in ever-changing situations, making decision-making and maintaining business continuity a difficult task. Pharmaceutical companies have been forced into a situation where they must constantly adapt, adjust, and be adaptable. The lack of up-to-date information, real-time communication, and a lack of investment in establishing an agile infrastructure have added to the complexity of these issues.

In such a difficult situation, KanBo software unifies all of the tools and capabilities for pharma organizations aiming to improve their adaptability, flexibility, and responsiveness so they can go big on data and digital, embrace social collaboration, and deliver operational efficiency.

Do you have questions?

Maybe we have an answer!

If you have any questions regarding the topics we discussed in this blog, go ahead and send them to us.