To transform their digital approach, Life Sciences companies can no longer ignore their complex content management needs or the impact that a mediocre approach has on their business.
The volume of digital and traditional marketing content that Life Sciences companies produce continues to grow, and many are struggling to keep up. Content encompasses so many business assets: internal documents, reports, presentation slide decks, social media posts, website copy, images, videos, and everything in between. The bigger the company is, the more content they produce, and the more people involved in content-related activities.
The approach that a company takes to managing its content can be as important as the management of its products and services, intellectual property, or people. A mediocre approach will be felt across the company and weaken its overall performance.
Kyowa Kirin North America (KKNA) recognized this and, with our help, implemented a strategy to transform its existing content management and approval process into a true content lifecycle approach.
The results were beyond our most optimistic expectations and anticipated outcomes.
The content lifecycle is the full set of activities related to the management of content, from the beginning to the end of its existence in a company. This includes planning, creation, approval, distribution, maintenance, and expiration or retirement.
Our client’s team identified and targeted four essential elements of their content management process for improvement: workflows, collaboration, content standards, and content tagging. Together, we defined and created a detailed action plan for each element, to which Campana & Schott brought its expertise in digital transformation and content lifecycle management.
Simplifying and optimizing content management workflows is paramount. KKNA’s original workflow had a total of 30 steps. After analyzing all the steps, dependencies, and users involved, the team reduced the number of steps to 18 by streamlining and clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the team members, as well as reducing the points of contact required between them during the review and approval process. We also created additional metadata fields, new document types, standard terminology and aligned compliance SOP, and upgraded methods of delivery.
Collaboration tools can make a world of difference in content management if team members believe in their value, know how to use them, and commit to using them. The client team had been using an out-of-box configuration of Veeva Vault PromoMats, a cloud enterprise content management platform designed for Life Sciences companies, but the solution required further configuration to leverage more of its features and better meet their specific needs.
In addition to helping KKNA reconfigure Veeva Vault PromoMats, we introduced Agile methodologies, which simplified the decision-making process and increased collaboration between different internal teams. Unlike using a waterfall methodology, this allowed us to adapt faster and release, test, validate, and optimize changes in two-week cycles. Through multiple training sessions and the development of the team’s first user manuals and help portal, we prioritized learning and knowledge sharing with users and partners. The manuals and portal will also be used as key training documents for onboarding new team members in the future.
Standardizing content makes it reusable, trackable, and measurable. KKNA selected an array of content standards that needed to be implemented in Veeva Vault PromoMats, including format requirements for the review process and final upload version, document design, use of component assets, and retention requirements for source files. As part of these new standards, we also implemented an expiration feature that tracks when assets expire or need to be retired from use and automated the process as much as possible. This is critical to maintaining an up-to-date, compliant content library.
Defining clear content standards allows the impact of content to be measured across channels through the use of a universal content tagging model. To improve the quality of data collected and the flow of data between systems and teams, we implemented new system integration (with Veeva CRM), data fields, and a content release process to the sales field.
Implementing this content management strategy overhaul decreased the total time it takes this Life Sciences company to complete a full review and approval process by more than 70 percent. The industry average for this process is 14.7 days. We achieved an average of 6.4 days.
The content time-to-market was also reduced, and the user experience, compliance, and consistency improved. Impact measurement is now an integrated part of the process.
Better data means our client will be able to measure and analyze their workflow and the performance of their content (e.g., consumer experience, user behavior) more reliably. This will facilitate future optimizations and continuous improvement of their content management.
The strategies that are required to manage content today, including the growing scope and scale, must be responsive, cohesive, and customized to a company’s unique needs. Building an approach around the full content lifecycle will mean the difference between settling for mediocre results and creating a genuine content excellence hub.
Jay McMeekan | Head of Commercial Digital CoE | Kyowa Kirin North America
