Survey Finds Pharma Marketers Are NOT as Interested in IT as Vice Versa
Chief information officers at drug companies want IT to be more closely aligned with marketing, but chief marketing officers are less likely to agree, according to a new survey conducted by Accenture.
About 90% of 22 CIOs at pharmaceutical companies with more than $55 billion in revenue say marketing and IT should be better aligned. Only about 60% of the 24 CMOs who were surveyed agreed. But other priorities for CMOs, such as customer experience, are less likely to be considered a priority for CIOs.
“The industry faces a period of rapid change marked by digital advances, new expectations from health care professionals and patients, and a dominant outcomes-based reimbursement environment,” Anne O'Riordan, senior managing director of Accenture's life sciences industry group, said in a statement. “This requires CMO-CIO collaboration to increase.”
But it's unclear how best to integrate the different functions. Almost 40% of CIOs would put IT and marketing staff on one team. Only 13% of the CMOs would do the same thing.
Still, more CMOs and CIOs say that the move toward digital is driving the need for better collaboration.
Marketers are not mathematicians and IT smacks of math. Marketers are not daVinci's -- they are not good at combining art and science. For example, have you heard this joke:
How many marketers does it take to calculate ROI?
None. There's a lot of talk about ROI, but no one's got the time, money or the inclination to do the math.
Why many pharmaceutical marketers ignore ROI and rely upon anecdotal evidence
When the two agree that CX = UX is inevitable, rapid progress will be made.
This survey highlights why it is difficult for Pharma to successfully implement digital initiatives.