Building a digital pharma of the future can require investments in people, technology, processes, and premises. Most of these investments will likely be upfront. In the short term, pharma leadership may not see immediate returns on these investments. In the longer term, however—as digital technologies improve care delivery, create operational efficiencies, and enhance patient and staff experience—the return result can be in higher quality care, improved operational efficiencies, and increased patient satisfaction.

These six core elements of an enterprise digital strategy can help you get started as you begin to push your pharma into the future:

• Create a culture for digital transformation
  It is essential that senior management understands the importance of a digital future and drives support for its implementation at all organizational levels.
• Consider technology that communicates
  Digital implementation is complex. Connecting disparate applications, devices, and technologies—all highly interdependent—and making certain they talk to each other can be critical to a successful digital implementation.
• Play the long game
  Since digital technologies are ever evolving, flexibility and scalability during implementation can be critical. The planning team should confirm that project scope includes adding, modifying, or replacing technology at lower costs.
• Focus on data
  While the requirements of data interoperability, scalability, productivity, and flexibility are important, they should be built upon a solid foundation of capturing, storing, securing, and analyzing data.
• Prepare for Talent 2.0
  As pharma invest in exponential technologies, they should provide employees ample opportunities to develop corresponding digital strategies.
• Maintain cybersecurity
  With the proliferation of digital technologies, cyber breaches can be a major threat to pharma of the future. Executives should understand that cybersecurity is the other half of digital implementation and allocate resources appropriately.