Master Data Management
For Life Sciences companies, the key capability required to effectively integrate and consolidate data within the information ecosystem lies in the effective management of master data. As the connective tissue that binds disparate data sources, master data not only enables an enriched, comprehensive perspective of the business environment, but also ensures that core data pertaining to customers, products, and sales used throughout the commercial enterprise is consistent, complete, synchronized, and of the highest quality.
Leveraging its experience supporting MDM for Life Science companies and other industries, Collaborative offers a comprehensive suite of services that support the full MDM life cycle, from strategy to implementation and operation for core data domains including:
- Healthcare Professionals, Healthcare Institutions and Networks
- Managed Care Organizations, Trading Partners
- Products and Hierarchies
- Market Definitions
- Customer Alignments and Sales Forces
Customer Master Data Integration
Given the number and types of customers within the commercial information ecosystem and the complex relationships that exist among them, gaining a true “360-degree” view of the customer is a challenging and elusive proposition. Core MDM capabilities for customer domains are essential for commercial analytics and reporting. By cross-referencing customer data across multiple disparate systems, MDM provides the “glue” that associates transactions, activity, and demographics to construct a comprehensive and integrated view of a customer, be it a healthcare professional, institution, group practice, managed care plan, or patient.
In addition to planning and delivering core MDM capabilities that establish cross-referencing and integrated views, Collaborative also works with its clients to implement MDM solutions that manage customer hierarchy and affiliation data. As the availability and dependability of relationship data has grown within the industry, life science companies have become increasingly reliant on using it to support initiatives such as aggregate spend reporting, multi-channel marketing, and account-based selling. Understanding not only the relationships that exist between healthcare institutions (such as a healthcare system or IDN), but also the relationships of healthcare professionals to those institutions (and to each other) greatly enhances the composite customer view and the overall effectiveness of a CRM program.
Product Master Data Management
Product data is used by practically every function throughout the commercial enterprise. Because of its inherent complexities, product data is typically a challenge to manage, especially for life science companies that have large portfolios, in multiple markets, with many competitors. In addition to the disparity in product data granularity, naming conventions, and coding schemes that exist across multiple systems and sources, product data complexity is compounded by the numerous grouping requirements (market baskets, market definitions, product groups) that support a wide variety of commercial business functions. The Product Master serves as the consistent and accurate source of product and market information for downstream operational systems analytics applications alike.
Using its MDM methodology, Collaborative implements Product MDM capability for its clients that:
- Defines a fully-attributed product master entity structure
- Establishes master product hierarchies for therapeutic areas
- Maps and conforms source system data to Product Master structures
- Provides centralized management of current and historic product groupings and market definitions used by downstream systems
Alignment Master Data Management
Commercial organizations rely heavily on alignment information to effectively manage their accounts and territories. Alignment data can be quite complex given the numerous permutations of point-in-time relationships within commercial data that link sales forces to customers, geographies, and products. And because alignment information changes relatively frequently, managing the data and business rules can become challenging, especially for organizations with multiple sale forces operating in multiple markets.
The Collaborative team works with clients to implement Alignment MDM solutions that maintain and provide consistent historic, current, and future views of alignment structures to critical functions throughout the commercial enterprise using centralized alignment data. Be it downstream operational systems or analytic applications, Alignment MDM capabilities significantly increase the reliability of and consistency of alignment information usage and reduce the overall costs in maintaining it.
