Winning Strategies for Effective Collaboration in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract

This paper examines key success factors for effective collaboration in the pharmaceutical industry. In an industry where speed to market is critical and where informed and timely decisions can have large financial implications, collaboration is a key factor to ensure value is delivered. Consequently, considerable investment is being made by pharmaceutical companies to enable project teams to work more effectively together across departmental, functional, company and geographic boundaries. Investment in collaboration has varied tremendously across companies – both in the level of investment and in the degree of success. It is against this background that British Telecom (BT) commissioned RM Consulting (RM) to research the key strategies for effective collaboration. A major finding of the research was that while technology is a strong enabler to better collaboration it must be intuitive, easy to use and enable natural people interaction for widespread adoption. The correct technology can allow richer social collaboration and more intuitive usability.