United States New Tender

There is a significant industrywide shift underway to improve the quality of customer data according to new research by Veeva Systems. The Veeva 2018 Customer Reference Data Survey reveals that 86 of life sciences professionals view customer data as a strategic business asset to sales operations but only 22 are satisfied with the data quality from their primary customer reference data provider.Consistent with the industrys need for more accurate customer data to support business goals most companies 87 have a data quality initiative underway or plan to implement one. A majority of respondents 79 identified at least three priorities for their customer reference data. Complete and real-time views of the customer 66 was their top area of focus followed by managing sales execution 55 and enabling multichannel engagement 51.Customer data is moving from a commodity to an integral component that drives business performance in the life sciences industry said Rebecca Silver vice president of Veeva OpenData. There is significant potential to empower sales teams with more accurate and complete customer data to improve sales productivity and stakeholder engagement with healthcare decisionmakers.Major focus on affiliations and hierarchy dataRespondents cite a significant need to improve the quality of affiliations and hierarchy data for improved sales effectiveness. Affiliations and hierarchy data gives sales representatives a full view of a healthcare delivery network to map out a holistic engagement strategy or focus on a particular hospital.The majority 89 of companies use or plan to use affiliations and hierarchy data to implement key account selling and specialty sales models. Though this data is crucial to healthcare provider access only 15 are satisfied with their affiliations and hierarchy data to support daily sales operations. This hinders sales representatives from calling on group practices and securing contracts with large healthcare systems.Primary drivers for data quality improvementsHigh quality customer reference data can help support digital transformation initiatives and enable companies to take advantage of new technologies such as artificial intelligence. Organizations are also launching data initiatives to reach new markets and make better business decisions.The top drivers for data improvement initiatives include the need to improve targeting segmentation and alignment 69 as well as better customer insight 53. Although respondents have data quality initiatives underway more than half 56 note two or more barriers to improvement. The two biggest roadblocks are the need to cross reference multiple customer data sources 54 followed by limitations of their primary data provider 41.The Veeva 2018 Customer Reference Data Survey explores the current state of customer reference data utilized by the life sciences industry by gathering feedback from 125 U.S. operations sales marketing regulatory and IT professionals. The goal of the research is to understand the priorities drivers barriers and progress toward accurate high quality customer data and its role in advancing the business.