Éric Phélippeau is the President of By Agency communication group specializing in communication and design of Health brands.He chairs the agency, takes care of the group’s business development, partnerships and By Agency public relations.
His vision of digital transformation in health is multifaceted.
To be able to transform themselves, healthcare companies must innovate more than ever, far beyond innovation in the search for new treatments and new drugs. Today we are at the hour of the care journey with as central issue: the overall support of the Patient. In addition to the treatments, digital is already one of the keys to this journey!
The place of digital in innovation is therefore a major strategic issue for Laboratories. But let’s not forget that the pharmaceutical industry (or to be more precise, some of its leaders) is a bit “traditionalist”. The challenge brought about by digital transformations is not always easy to integrate and leads to long-term decisions. A long term that is particularly complex to manage while “the system” expects short-term results.
The current period we are going through will undoubtedly accelerate this digital transformation. We can already see very clearly that this transformation is today largely driven by biotechnology on the one hand and on the other by the big companies stemming from digital and Internet technologies (BigTech).
We are here at the heart of the HealthTech boom. HealthTech develops health solutions around a major axis, that of the care pathway.
At a time of coronavirus, the examples of the acceleration of telemedicine or the search for vaccine assisted by AI tools show all the potential of digital applied to the service of Health.
These digital accelerations will, most certainly, significantly change the economic models of the world of health and inevitably affect in particular the pharmaceutical companies.
Regarding the impact of COVID-19 on the pharmaceutical industry, Éric Phélippeau notes that the major changes in terms of innovation are already underway. For him, the central question will be to integrate these innovations into an approach more respectful of environmental and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) issues.
Beyond innovation, another fundamental question will arise for Laboratories: how to reconnect with Healthcare Professionals?
What will be the future of the medical examination and what content to implement?
Everything suggests that marketing and communication will be done, initially, around a resumption of contact, a “soft” reconnection with Health Professionals.
The integration of the remote medical visit will reorganize relations with the Doctors. At the same time, the use of digital information channels should make it possible to optimize not only communication with Healthcare Professionals but also communication with Patients.
In the years to come, Éric Phélippeau believes that health communication will undoubtedly be more digital. To do this, it will be necessary to completely review the cartography of the communication media, the omnichannel nature of the information will then take on its full meaning, both for communication actions and for advertising actions.
According to him, there is a strong hope that the future will not be only digital, at least in the medium term … He likes to believe that the other communications media will not all be suffocated by digital and that human encounters will remain essential in our communication devices.
The world of the pharmaceutical industry will also have to reinvent itself and implement omnichannel in its communication media.
Éric Phélippeau also reveals that the digital shift through the use of data, digital tools and supports, CRM, CLM, Patient monitoring tools and ultimately all digital technologies, allows acceleration of the pharmaceutical companies transformation process. Drug development with digital tools is a real area of change. However, according to him, the industry must always focus more on the strategic vision that this digital transformation brings in the long term rather than focusing solely on isolated uses of digital tools. To do this, the establishment of internal and transversal human resources is essential. Developing partnerships with Bigtech and start-ups can also prove to be very fruitful.
Finally, Éric Phélippeau enlightens us with some advice on how small businesses can integrate digital into their activities to deal with the crisis and optimize their positioning on the market, especially in the health communication sector.
For small businesses, the main thing is already to look at the existing digital communication solutions, to analyze the offers and the way they position themselves.
Once identified, the time will come to use these solutions, not only in everyday life within the company, but obviously in developing business with their customers. All these solutions are not always accessible in terms of price … Creating alliances, partnerships often allows you to benefit from the contribution of these innovations without being too heavy financially and therefore remain active and dynamic in its market.
For an agency, digital is not everything! It is always necessary to have a strategic vision to implement a communication, but without the contribution of a bold and relevant creative strategy, the chances of success of this communication will be much less strong!
Creativity within companies and of course even more when it is a communications agency, is a powerful tool for growth and this period of crisis shows us a little more.
For communication agencies, we have no doubt, creativity must be at the heart of its expertise and know-how, for a consumer agency as well as for a health agency. Creativity is the fuel of an agency, big or small.
Our customers come to get it from us.
Creativity never stops, you have to constantly feed it and know how to question it, to question yourself. Opening up to others and sharing is very often the best way to cultivate your creativity and in the end it is also a real remedy so as not to wear out too quickly in our agency jobs!
