Competitive Intelligence: Stay Ahead of the Competitors in 2024!

Aiming to flourish in the pharmaceutical marketplace, it’s crucial to stay up to date with all the developments in one’s industry and every industry aspect that can affect one’s business. Furthermore, firms compete fiercely to keep their pipelines strong in the face of rapid innovation, changing patient needs, and patent expiration. Therefore, in such a dynamic environment, keeping a constant eye on the competition is imperative. However, effective pharma competitive intelligence must be extremely comprehensive, reliable, and tailored to meet the needs of the specific organization.

A pharmaceutical competitive market intelligence program’s primary objectives are to help the industry gain insights around pharma market intelligence, make strategic decisions, and eventually enhance revenue. Company executives and other leaders require timely insights to make decisions that steer product development and determine the route to corporate success. The key to success is identifying the challenges and bottlenecks of the area and evaluating them to find solutions. This can be accomplished by different competitive intelligence services such as primary competitor & potential customer identification, analysis of demand in the market, business investor monitoring, etc. provided in the form of competitive intelligence report & competitive intelligence biotech consulting services, by several competitive intelligence firms.

In the fast-paced competitive environment of the Pharmaceutical or Healthcare industry, competitive market intelligence firms should consider constructing a customized pharmaceutical market intelligence program to monitor key competitors, as well as perform pharma market intelligence activities such as undertaking specific one-off projects to clarify issues and opportunities to better compete in the market, along with gaining a deep understanding of competitors’ strategies and tactics.

Through this competitive intelligence blog, DelveInsight discusses various roles and benefits of the pharmaceutical competitive intelligence and furthermore, the company showcase the detailed pharma competitive market intelligence strategies that competitive intelligence firms and pharma companies need to establish for better opportunities and growth in the market.

Competitive Intelligence: A go-to-tool for the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industry

• Pharma competitive intelligence is future-focused in a way that it possesses a forward-thinking and a predictive approach to analyze the future moves of any competitor. Some examples of pharmaceutical market intelligence consulting include analyzing the competitor’s R&D strategy, specific product development strategy, business development strategy, product marketing strategy, pricing strategy, etc. 
• Pharma competitive intelligence, by being present-focused, plays a major role in analyzing the current scenarios to reshape personal growth.

Benefits of Competitive Intelligence: 

1. Enhanced Due Diligence in Licensing, Mergers, and Acquisitions: For pharmaceutical companies, proper due diligence before any kind of licensing or acquisition agreement is extremely important. Competitive intelligence services and various competitive intelligence tools can help analyze and bring about valuable insights which help in discovering the Research and Development (R&D) synergies between the partner companies or understanding the combined operational metrics or risks involved with any kind of agreement.
2. Improved Research and Development: Pharmaceutical competitive intelligence helps in keeping track of industry failures, eventually preventing the pharma companies from making the same errors in drug development and saving precious resources. Pharma market intelligence also helps healthcare companies be updated regarding the latest breakthrough therapies and trials, and gives them a good direction to re-establish and scale up their drug development plans.
3. Tool for diving into new markets: Entering into new markets, especially the emerging economies, poses many challenges for pharmaceutical companies. Here, competitive intelligence services helps in quickly getting the measure of the new market environment and creating opportunities to penetrate the market and deal with the challenges.
4. Stronger marketing and commercialization of the drugs: Competitive market Intelligence tools assists pharmaceutical companies with key decisions related to drug marketing and also enable them with better solutions for market positioning of their assets. The product management and the sales & marketing teams need to be always aware of the competitive intelligence pharma scenarios and details, such as competitor brand messaging, key target audience, geographical coverage, sales, marketing, and promotional activities, and sales team structure. Pharmaceutical competitive intelligence provides this knowledge ahead of time and helps the companies prepare an effective brand strategy for quick market uptake.
5. Powerful Portfolio Management: Effective portfolio management is essential for pharmaceutical companies to maximize the output based on selected clinical, commercial, and regulatory criteria. The key components where pharma competitive intelligence plays a major role are managing the pipeline assets, prioritizing research & development, and ensuring optimal resource utilization. A drug maker must constantly keep an eye on the latest trends and developments in the market, especially concerning the competition. Eventually, powerful portfolio management through pharmaceutical market intelligence consulting services will ensure a steady and encouraging pipeline, attuned to the current and future market scenarios.

How Pharmaceutical Competitive Intelligence plays an essential role in Pharma Growth?

Pharma Competitive Intelligence to analyze the past:

Several pharmaceutical and healthcare firms are leveraging competitive market intelligence services to understand the industry better. Through various sources of competitive Intelligence as CI tools and analysis strategies, the pharma companies can analyze the past trends and prepare themselves to better respond to new challenges, making their enterprises resilient. 

Pharma Competitive Intelligence to assess the future:

Several competitive intelligence firms, with their strategies, support in predicting the likelihood of a scenario that may happen. Having a good conversation with the regulatory personnel and the company representatives may help in anticipating the future responses of the regulatory authorities to the outcomes of new initiatives taken by companies. Moreover, pharmaceutical competitive market intelligence has become such an important pill in the healthcare industry as it assists the companies in identifying and adapting to the changing standards of care, which may promote their growth in the future. Pharma competitive intelligence is helping fuel the growth of many industries as the companies can understand the mistakes to be avoided in plans.

Strategies that a pharma/healthcare firm can adopt for Competitive Advantage

Keep a sharp lookout on the competitors  

Starting with competitor information is the first step in any competitive landscape study. One should always identify the direct competitors as well as the indirect competitors. Competitive Intelligence tools enables systematic monitoring of competitors’ actions to determine what they’re doing now – and what they’re likely to do in the future.

Many subscription services aggregate competitor asset information in addition to numerous sources of competitor information (e.g., company websites, clinical trial websites, and researchers, etc.). By acquiring this type of data, the competitive intelligence firms can improve its strategic and tactical decisions, as well as gain a better understanding of company’s position. Competitive intelligence services such as analysis of development timelines, filings, approvals, and launches, as well as assessments of product differentiation and weaknesses, can turn information into pharma market intelligence.

Consult with the KOLs  

KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) are an important source of pharma competitive intelligence in the industry. They help in understanding the real-world scenarios that one might be unaware of. This necessitates the identification of KOLs who specialize in specific markets, the monitoring of their published work, and the investment of resources to maintain long-term relationships with them. KOLs help pharma companies find market potential by providing information on diagnostic or treatment discrepancies and other unmet needs.

It is important to connect with industry KOLs, ranging from healthcare practitioners and diagnostic specialists to corporate executives, and from funding VCs to patient support organizations, legislative affairs, and government commissions to widen the scope of gaining information.

Deploy technological advancements to improve time & speed-to-insight  

By gathering data and insights faster, technology can help competitive intelligence firms gain an advantage over competitors any day. Machine learning/AI algorithms in cloud-based platforms automate data collection from a wide range of sources, including databases, publicly available reports, company websites, social media, and other internet assets, among others. Whether acquired or developed internally, technology and innovation can provide a very strong manifestation of strategic direction. More modern competitive intelligence tools offer easier insight development by providing greater flexibility and customization in the manner stakeholders want to receive pharma competitive intelligence insights. 

A coordinated and technology-backed competitive intelligence procedure can give a step more in the drug development process by utilizing previous historical data to recognize drug development processes and acceptance rates. It also makes it easier for corporations to forecast drug deadlines and change their production processes and strategies accordingly. Automated competitive intelligence processes deliver actionable insights to R&D teams promptly, assuring commercial success. In essence, this would have far-reaching implications for both company viability and patient outcomes.

Monitor development milestones of competitors to back R&D progress

Tracking changes in competitors’ clinical trial data can also help in strategizing one’s drug development plans. It’s critical to keep track of unforeseen outcomes in relevant trials related to each therapeutic field. Keeping track of FDA applications as well as those from other nations where each therapeutic area has designated testing centers provides an understanding of the plans of a particular sponsor. Competitive intelligence service providers can do this by gathering data from various clinical trial databases. They can analyze both the competitor’s high-level objectives, such as the channels they are investing in, and the tactical aspects using the large quantity of data available from databases and press releases, as well as the company’s strategies to analyze how to best benchmark development strategies. It’s also crucial to keep an eye out for new technologies, qualities, and treatment processes employed in clinical trials by the competitors, as they could potentially shift the market.

Tracking Industry Progress through Conferences, congresses, and trade shows  

Competitive intelligence research firms help pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare companies stay up to date with the latest developments through real-time analysis of companies in various conferences, earning calls, investor presentations, and trade shows through customizable sources which send real-time alerts to notify key team members. There is a pool of valuable information that can be gathered from the conference intelligence and provides an opportunity for onsite coverage. Undoubtedly, this strategy ensures a full capture of strategic events and competitor outlook.

Embrace Social Media  

Social network intelligence is a very helpful tool in analyzing the sentiments and the real-time reactions of competitors. Audience intelligence, which includes analyzing the followers of innovations and new entrants in the market, is another aspect of the predictions of future trends. Social media networks allow competitive intelligence services and solutions to perform a wide range of live test opportunities to analyze the competition in the market. Industry players must take direct feedback about the innovations in the pharma market from the users, KOLs, and HCPs for a better understanding. Companies can also perform primary research through several social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc., where they connect with the audience and gain pharmaceutical market intelligence about the competitors’ profiles.

The finish line: Competitive intelligence knowledge management

The last and most important strategy involves the assimilation of all collected data and interpretation to understand its significance, known as competitive intelligence knowledge management. In addition, insights must be translated into actions that will aid in the strategic decision-making process. Competitive Intelligence tools & techniques, including SWOT gap analyses, benchmarking, competitor profiling, financial analysis, future planning, mind mapping, A.T. Kearney Strategy Chessboard, among others, are used by competitive intelligence firms to assimilate and create insights. These methods aid in determining what the intelligence gathered implies for the firm and what may be done to address it. Thus, this is the most crucial strategy in successful drug development and thereby, rising pharma growth.

DelveInsight’s Competitive Intelligence Services provide real-time and actionable research insights through operations that are reinforced by a fundamental goal of securing best-in-class pharmaceutical market intelligence and provide analysis and insights through our team that results in significant contributions towards the pharmaceutical market intelligence consulting goal of our partners. Our services help our partners stay ahead by drawing out implications and suggesting outcomes for the business to act upon.

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