I was leading the digital branch of the integration of Actelion into Janssen/J&J after the acquisition in 2018. This also aligned with the development of a Global Digital Strategy for Actelion, which I had been leading in parallel. This included the identification & prioritization of business-relevant Janssen digital customer engagement assets for potential Actelion business use. With the intention that we could show Actelion benefiting from the new ‘mother’. Until I left the company EO October 2019, I had also been responsible for the bottom-up piloting of three prioritized solutions, each meeting customer needs related to a discrete market challenge, in different regions (EMEA, APAC, US). In that scope I was managing the executing agency, Deloitte, and cared for a multi-disciplinary alignment with regions and affiliates. CLIENT:Janssen Integration Team(as an Actelion employee)PROJECT TIME FRAME: July 2018 – October…

‘Agility’, is without doubt a key enabler for digital transformation. Most organizations request their teams applying agile approaches to business . You might now that the agility idea originates from a revolution in IT software & tools development, where lean, flexible and iterative project management methods replaced the old way of doing projects with a huge gap of months if not years between specifying requirements and delivering/testing. One key principle of agile approaches is to fail quick, learn, and improve in an iterative way. Repeatedly, in short cycles. Flexibly and step-wise approaching the ideal solution starting from a minimum viable product (“MVP”), instead of having a single big shot. A few years ago, I had the exciting opportunity being part of a great cross-functional team developing an in-house “PubMed+” at Novartis. Within 6 months from mandate to launch! Following the ‘Scrum’ framework for agile development. This experience had been a true eye opener for me. As the agile methodology has been proven to revolutionized software development and successfully shown its effectiveness in IT project management, I was very happy to see that the same concepts are being more and more applied to business projects. So far, so good. But does the following sound familiar to you? “We want you to be more agile! Instantly and consequently! … … … but(!) watch out sticking to the processes … and don’t bypass established decision lines … and do not forget to include Aaaaa, Bbbb, Cccc and Ddddd … and do not forget to provide me with your 3-years plan …” What??? Sometimes, management seems to expect their people winning the surfing world championship … but in the Sahara desert. ‘Agility’ necessarily means finding new ways of doing instead following the established. ‘Agility’ requires the readiness for taking smart risks and aiming at failure. ‘Agility’ expects iterative approaches following the paths of customer needs, and not the needs of process paths or organizational structures. If agility as a business approach is wanted, it needs to be part of the corporate culture, consequently. If you miss this culture, then be brave and take smart risks! Have the courage being an example that agility works and delivers. READ MORE…

Digital Pharma is a hot topic those days. There currently is a virtual Tsunami of articles, blog posts, guidance, opinions, etc. on how to make our business more digital. But with all the things you will read and hear, there is an obvious question. Where to start, which measures to take first? Here I am going to share with your the 5 immediate actions I would take. 1. Push coordination (some call it “governance”) Today, in most life science companies I have seen so far, there seems to be a scattered rag rug of digital customer engagement activities. There will be projects driven by different divisions, different functions, and across layers (e.g. global, regional, local). So, one of your first measures has to be linking the nodes of the net. You may call it governance. But not governance is the sense of ruling, controlling or patronizing. One the one hand, the concept of control is contradicting agile approaches (in final consequence). On the other, getting control of a cross-functional rag rug simply is a complete illusion. So, don’t waste your valuable time with it. If you cannot solve the patchwork, use it! Aim at governance in the sense of coordination and alignment. Get an overview of your organization’s rich digital landscape. With the mission to use the synergies, to reduce duplicated efforts and redundancies, and to ensure that all digital activities provide a consistent external picture and all tell the same story to your customers. First action: Link scattered digital activities, and kick-off a cross-divisional, cross-functional, cross-layer digital governance board. 2. Get clarity on real-world customer needs and preferences Identify digital customer needs, digital customer and preferences, and prioritize. Sounds easy? Well, with the right approach it is certainly not rocket science, but still needs to be done rock solid. Second action: Compile and review available customer research findings on digital needs and preferences. And consequently fill gaps with state-of-the-art digital customer needs research. 3. Grow an internal ‘community of digital excellence’ You cannot save the world alone. An internal community of digital excellence is you ‘army’ for penetrating the organization with digital transformation. You need a group of dedicated, committed, motivated ambassadors, “activists” and stakeholders, in whatever function or business unit, being involved or would like to be involved. Third action: Initiate, grow and include an internal Digital CoE. 4. Start digital upskilling Upskilling is about enabling, but also about aligning. The mission is not only to provide specialized courses for people being in digital or omnichannel roles. The whole organization needs to be brought to another level of understanding the requirements and consequences of digital transformation. Education needs to support the cultural change, which typically is needed. For that reason your internal digital upskilling should cover measures for all levels and functions, from the MSLs and SalesReps to the CEO. Fourth action: Start an internal digital education program, which is taking the whole organization to a next level.  5. Foster bottom-up digital pilots Change needs success stories for being accepted. Tangible and real-world examples. Ideally bottom-up, e.g. as a pilot MVP or campaign in a single country or area. Where the set-up is based on customer-centricity, design thinking approaches, and agile methodologies. Pilots are a perfect way of learning by doing. Running those exercises will reveal general bottlenecks, process-dependencies, and requirements to be considered. So, pilots offer the chance to concomitantly deliver best practices for your environment. Fifth action: Be brave, and do digital pilots resulting in best-practices and success stories. Now, you would like to know a little bit more about ‘how-to’ for one or several actions listed by me. Let’s…

💡 Legal and compliance issues often arise late in project development.
💼 Teams in pharma or medtech face delays due to last-minute legal and compliance rejections.
⏰ Timelines and milestones are at risk, causing frustration and pressure on project teams.
🚫 Initial rejection leads to disappointment and anger towards legal and compliance.
🔄 An alternative approach involves early involvement of legal and compliance.
🤝 Engaging them from the start ensures proactive guidance and a collaborative environment.
🌟 Shifting from asking “is this compliant?” to “how can we make this compliant?” empowers legal and compliance as facilitators rather than blockers.
😊 This approach improves cooperation, potentially leading to happier legal and compliance teams and smoother project execution.

Already before the latest data privacy regulations had been released, an effective opt-in has always been key for any customer communication if not engagement campaign. GDPR now forces us to take it even more seriously. Actually, opt-ins are the bottleneck for any multi- or omni-channel campaign. Without having adequate customers’ opt-ins in place your digital or non-digital campaign is born to fail. So, do you know the quantity and quality of your opt-ins? What is your opt-in rate? What exactly did your customers actually opt-in for? Does your opt-ins management comply with GDPR regulations? It might be vital having answers to those questions before initiating any customer communication activity. I dare to say that poor opt-ins are painful road-blockers for your digital campaigns, where smart opt-ins at high rates (of e.g. at least 80%) are an effective enabler for your digital customer engagement. You should not start building a boat as long as you are not sure that there is enough water in the…

As the lead of the strategic initiative, I provided Actelion Pharmaceuticals with a digital customer & patient engagement strategy for commercial & medical functions (digital transformation of business). Together with a specialized agency, provision of a global digital strategy for Actelion business, including an omnichannel strategy for disease-specific promotional and medical communication. Establishment of a cross-functional and cross-departmental internal network linking internal digital activities, projects and expertises. Alignment with and of global/regional/local layers, IT, R&D, compliance/legal, and digital strategies at Janssen, the new ‘mother’ of Actelion. CLIENT:Actelion Commercial Excellence(as an Actelion employee)PROJECT TIME FRAME: July 2018 – February…