DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SERIES - Deploying content to every channel across the organisation, regardless of the market

I have been inviting pharmaceutical leaders to learn from them and provide them a platform to share their views as part of my Digital Transformation Series.

Nataliya Andreychuk is the CEO of Viseven and a leading digital transformation evangelist for the pharmaceutical and life sciences industries.

As a digital marketing professional with nearly twenty years of expertise, Nataliya Andreychuk has contributed to the development of advanced digital solutions and software for clients in over seventy global markets. As part of her role as the CEO at Viseven, a global MarTech provider, she is taking marketing interactions in Pharma to the next level by introducing new methods to more companies.

We first met in Dubrovnik at the Next Pharma Summit. It was the night of the after party, the music was amazing, and I was naturally drawn to the dance floor where I met Nataliya. I was most impressed by her dance moves. Her confidence and energy were infectious. The next day, I saw her on stage presenting with three other Pharma leaders. The presentation was about cutting through the noise and creating meaningful content for proper stakeholder engagement. I loved her insights, and she spoke a lot of common sense. As soon as the session ended, I went to congratulate her. However, she had already left to catch her flight back home. Her team put us in touch, and we connected remotely. We share a lot in common - a passion for common sense and experience from leading companies as females in a leadership role. I immediately wanted to invite her to speak.

I’m curious, what led you into Pharma, and why is it important to you?

We all strive to do something meaningful in our lives, something that makes us proud to be alive. As an IT organisation, you can apply technology to any field. People often ask me why we aren't working across other industries. Pharma is our destiny as a company. When my business partners and I decided to build a company from a small startup, we aimed to do something meaningful for ourselves and others. Motivation isn't solely about money and career. You need something bigger, a purpose. Personally, I believe we are contributing IT to an area that will benefit us all. We are all patients in some way. By working in this field, we have the opportunity to enhance this experience. Just think, if we don't launch a website or a unified experience for patients to access information, we might lose their attention, and that information could have been crucial to someone. It could have guided them correctly. Not everyone has immediate access to doctors. Many of us search the internet and might stumble upon unsafe information. We are striving for a better future, accurate and approved information. This could resolve numerous issues.

What is your main mission at Viseven? I've heard you talk about the Digital Content Factory. Could you elaborate more on your mission?

Our Digital Content Factory is our umbrella product. It encompasses every service and product in our portfolio. When we introduce digital content products, we bring technology and content together to collaborate with our customers, creating a single source for content storage and management. We collaborate with Veeva and other digital asset management systems to ensure our customers make the most of unified content production. We don't just launch products; we establish a process that isn't just for us, but also for vendors. This process unites various agencies already working with our customers on this approach. Our focus isn't just on technical unification, but also on the approach itself - how we program and create content. Crafting content, key messaging, and communication of this nature form the core of creative agencies' work. We aim to involve them from the beginning, in the Digital Content Factory. This ensures they align with the new approach to content creation and message organisation. We're creating a factory, reusing modularised content across channels, delivering a true customer experience. This not only saves them money but also time-to-market, the ability to launch new channels, adopt an omnichannel strategy, consolidate data, improve segmentation, personalisation, and ultimately, automation at the desired level for each target audience.

What distinguishes Viseven from digital or software production agencies? What's the most impactful change you're bringing to Pharma's customer engagement?

First and foremost, we aren't replacing creative agencies; we are uniting them under a common approach. Creative agencies often work in isolation. Consider a global Pharma approach with a local perspective. Each country traditionally had its cherished creative agency, and that's reasonable. However, can experiences from one market be effectively shared with another market on a global scale every time? Sometimes, yes, sometimes no, due to barriers like translation, understanding gaps, and lack of mechanisms for sharing in the IT ecosystem. Additionally, creative content might not have been designed specifically for the communication channels used in another country. Companies like Viseven, with the Digital Content Factory, don't just produce content; we produce content in a way that we create it once, utilising key messages and creative materials through a well-designed content offering platform. This allows us to deploy content to every channel across the organisation, regardless of the market. Our platform includes translation mechanisms integrated with tools like Veeva, IQVIA, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and others, enhancing flexibility. We also integrate Amazon's AI-powered and cloud-based technologies to deliver these services. As we implement this ecosystem, we empower creative agencies to be more productive, as they no longer need to focus on delivering content to the right channels. Our platform automatically publishes content to the CRM, making it suitable for every channel in the customer ecosystem. This could range from emails and landing pages to multi-page websites, interactive visual aids, and social media ads. We cover all these channels. This technology facilitates deploying content from one market to another without significant costs. We promote reuse and repurpose, allowing creative agencies to focus more on their creative work.

How does Viseven ensure content is relevant and personalised?"

Given our engagement with various channels, we have gained a deep understanding of the mechanisms that drive personalisation. Our content is standardised, allowing us to consolidate data from different channels. Regardless of the different types of channels an organisation employs across markets, we work to build accurate data and effective data management. This consolidation helps to create more accurate digital segmentation and insights based on our content's initial interaction with the audience. These insights can be delivered to brand managers and creative agencies, thanks to our partnerships. While this process is still manual today, I believe that with AI implementation, suggestions and changes will be automated in the future. We constantly strive to automate and enhance our software and approach by incorporating AI. Internally, we've already started this by integrating ChatGPT into our data knowledge library, utilising data from years of experience.

How do you cultivate a culture of innovation and collaboration at Viseven? What's the mindset towards technology and AI?

We are optimistic about AI, especially for tasks that are repetitive, mundane, and don't require much creative input. Over time, technology will likely eliminate these routine tasks through incremental steps. We prefer the idea of virtual assistants instead of hiring individuals for less engaging roles. Also, with tools like GPT-4 and offerings from Google, we've seen promising results in proofreading. This is crucial for a global organisation with people from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Ensuring clear and effective communication is paramount.

What, in your opinion, is the most significant challenge faced by Pharma companies in terms of digital transformation?"

While everyone should have a grasp of technology, large organisations often struggle with isolated departments. This is where our Digital Content Factory truly excels, as it fosters connections within our customers' organisations on multiple levels. We engage with marketing, IT, creative agencies, compliance, procurement, and various levels within organisations. This is the challenge we address: despite the advancements in technology, change management is key to bridging the gap between technology and people.

What qualities do you believe make a good leader?

Whether I'm a good leader is best assessed by my team. I strive to lead by example, demonstrating teamwork and collaboration while facing challenges together. I recall a comment from a visitor at our headquarters. They noticed how we greeted each other and interacted on a first-name basis. The visitor remarked, 'You truly know everyone in your organisation.' I consider this a key aspect - knowing your business and what you're doing. Growing the company from Ukraine to a global presence is what drives me. While it's been a monumental journey, my greatest accomplishment is expanding the company not just across Europe, but also establishing teams and offices around the world, from Canada and Argentina to the USA, the Philippines, and India. Our ongoing expansion has taught us a lot about change management within our organisation.

If you could be remembered for one thing in your career, what would that be?

I would say being able to grow a Ukrainian company into a global entity. Back in 2013, my co-founders and I were envisioning where the company would stand in a decade. With only fifty team members then, I wrote on a whiteboard that our goal was to become one of the top five content offering tools in the pharmaceutical industry within ten years. I was confident, and we achieved this within the stipulated timeframe.

Conclusion:

Nataliya is an inspiration to me! Her journey has been remarkable. Viseven's inception in Ukraine in 2013 coincided with tumultuous times for the country. Yet, they've managed to establish a global presence in diverse markets. Conversations with her team echo her personal leadership style. Despite its global stature, the company maintains a family-like atmosphere. Nataliya is genuine, a trait that speaks volumes about her and the culture she's nurtured at Viseven. She believes that effective communication can save lives, and so do I.