Content Management: A Prerequisite to Marketing and Sales Effectiveness

Abstract

The management of information is probably an organisation's single most important competitive capability. With pharmaceutical and life sciences firms awash with data, ensuring effective and efficient utilisation of information in support of business goals yields tremendous challenges in maintaining structure, accuracy and timeliness of data. One approach, content management (CM), targets the management of information across the life cycle of a product, emerging as a critical factor in achieving greater efficiencies and driving productivity. In its broadest sense, CM is a combination of software tools and business processes that allow corporations to effectively manage and deliver large amounts of diverse information to different media in the most effective manner. Historically, CM has been used to drive value and compliance in managing data in such areas as research and development (R&D), manufacturing and regulatory submissions, serving as a cornerstone of the industry. Today, CM is increasingly being viewed as an opportunity to provide an ‘information backbone’ across the entire enterprise — from ‘discovery’ to ‘commercial’. Within this context, CM is the final link in an enterprise-wide content management strategy that aims to serve business needs across functions and across the span of a product life cycle (Figure 1).