What is the Importance of Technology in Life Sciences?

Digital Disruption has arrived in the healthcare sector, and when it comes, it essential for life-science companies to retools the core technology to stay competitive.

FREMONT, CA: Throughout the life sciences, a particular posture toward IT has prevailed for many years. IT does not provide businesses with a competitive advantage but only with necessary capabilities. Thus it is essential to minimize the IT expenses while maintaining an acceptable level of performance. Budgets are aligned to the plans a year in advance, and IT is regarded as the cost center. As IT is charged to build the technology that the business asks for, it needs teams of analysts to sit between the business and developers to translate business concepts into the language of technology.

For a long time, this posture was pragmatic and even necessary. IT organizations had to focus on the implementation of the core enterprise-resource-planning systems, untangling the siloed infrastructure from years of M&A activity, standardizing processes, and providing a basic technology literacy for their business counterparts.

The IT functions must move closer to the business and the customers so that the companies can meet the increasing expectations of the end-users and seize the robust first-mover advantages that accrue in digitizing markets. These advantages are inclusive of unlocking data for better decision making, creating solutions that complement the commercial offerings, engaging with the customers, and reimagining internal processes.

Enterprises on the way to lead the pack have a clear strategy that consists of ten technology plays—in its absence, they can only fall further behind.

What technology means for life-science companies

The wave of digital disruption has reached the healthcare sector. While there is still a debate around the scale and pace of the change, this will bring for the industry, and there is minimal doubt that the difference is well underway. Various disruptive forces have been pushing this boundary in the healthcare sector and are revolutionizing the way care is provided:

1. Patients are more engaged with their respect and expect the same convenience and transparency for healthcare services.

2. There is a new desire to access and use the already created data to provide transparency into product performance.

3. Automation, advanced analytics, and the cloud are making it easier to increase productivity and improve decision-making quality.

4. Digitization has started to move past the digital pill to enhance outcomes and provide personalized medicine.

5. Digital ecosystems are playing an important role.

6. New, non-traditional tech players are intervening.

See Also: Top Cloud-based Solution Companies for Healthcare Industry