How to stop wasting money on insights

Let’s start with a story from Branding Science Group CEO, Peter Cunningham…

“Back in the early 2000’s I worked on a project. The insights we discovered were amazing. We really felt that we had discovered the key to this brand’s success. But then a year later, we were back. Not only had the insights not led to success in the way we expected, but we were being asked to do the same work again. That’s when I knew Branding Science had to do more than just offer insights”.

It’s a story that is all too common. Research is carried out; insights are discovered and then it is just left on the shelf and never looked at again. Even worse is when it is crowbarred into strategies to support decisions that had already been made. It’s a waste. In the pharmaceutical industry insights are of huge strategic importance. Not only are they key to gaining an advantage over your competitors, but they are instrumental in helping bring the lived experience of patients into the drug development lifecycle but too often they are wasted.

Maybe your organisation and your team would never dream of ‘putting the insights on the shelf’. Maybe all your research and insights are carefully examined, understood, and used to influence strategic decision making. But in our experience most pharmaceutical companies operate somewhere in the middle of these two extremes and could do with some help to make more of their insights to increase their chances of commercial success and save money on commissioning research is that never poorly understood and utilised. That is why we offer insight-led consultancy. It helps turn the ‘what’ into the ‘so what’ and more importantly, the ‘now what’ to help pharmaceutical companies understand and overcome their challenges and achieve commercial success.

One key problem in most pharmaceutical companies is teams working in silos. This can lead to a lack of cross-functional agreement on key issues, resulting in inefficiencies and missed opportunities. Consultancy services can help you break down these silos and encourage greater team alignment by finding and exploiting common ground and helping to implement new ways of working. By working together in this way, pharma companies can save money and improve their overall effectiveness, as they benefit from a more cohesive and aligned approach to decision-making and strategy development.

So, when is the best time to involve a consultant partner? In our opinion, the earlier the better. At Branding Science our team of consultants work to become ‘partners in thinking’, digging deep to understand your business and the challenges you are facing. Engaging us earlier in the process helps ensure that the insights and strategy complement each other and that you are focused on answering the key business question rather than getting bogged down in methodological and logistical details.

In short, engaging a consultant early on is essential to achieving effective, aligned, and impactful outcomes. While market research companies can provide valuable data and insights, an insight-led consultancy offers a more strategic, holistic, and customized approach to problem-solving. We provide actionable insights, have more experience across a range of business challenges, take a collaborative and proactive approach, and provide recommendations for continuous improvement and innovation.

Want to learn more about how Branding Science Group can help you? Then reach out to our Head of Consultancy, Ed Corbett. Ed has spent over 20 years in the pharma industry as both a big pharma marketer and consultant. As Head of Consultancy he works with brand teams to develop strategies that makes a difference to their customers and patients.