An article (white paper) on the #DigitalHealth ecosystem in the United States as of Q2 2018, highlighting the various players including #funding scene as well as the supporting infrastructure which includes #incubators, #accelerators, #advocacy groups and #research institutions. I had previously published the Digital Health Ecosystem in the United States synopsis as of Q4 2017.
In Part 1 of this series we focused on incorporating Predictive Analytics in B2B Marketing. Part 2 addressed the importance of utilizing Content Marketing.
Below in this final part of the series we examine the latest technologies that B2B marketers can leverage to connect with customers.
Emerging Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Blockchain, Virtual & Augmented Reality (VR & AR), and Robotics are creating ripples across industries. B2B organizations can leverage these new technologies to reinvent the marketing, sales and support functions performed by marketers.
An interesting technology which is well-poised to make an impact in marketing is Robotic Process Automation (RPA). An application of AI, it significantly enhances productivity, accuracy, timeliness of routine, repetitive processes, interactions, and tasks in the marketing environment.
AI and ML have paved the way for chatbots and virtual assistants that can provide machine learning optimized recommendations, support and interactions, something which was not imagined few years back.
Predictive Analytics using big data and analytics techniques can recognize patterns in customer behavior and allow marketers to develop customized interactions with their B2B customers to maximize sales possibilities. Predictive Intelligence, a critical component of Predictive analytics, can assist marketers in disseminating the right content at the right time to the right set of B2B audience. As we know, context is key to content marketing in B2B space. Innovative predictive analytics tools can not only help in appropriate content syndication, but in the generation of appropriate content as well.
Forrester Research found three predominant B2B categories of predictive analytics use cases:
Blockchain is another technology which has the potential to enhance customer satisfaction by inducing more transparency, security, trust, and reliability in a B2B setting. Blockchain can revolutionize record keeping, payment, exchange of contracts and other documents and authentication of transactions to smoothen B2B interactions and thus, elevate customer satisfaction levels. Leading companies such as Walmart have already started experimenting with blockchain technology for supply chain procurement. Blockchain can also be used for creating simple, secure and transparent solutions for managing contracts, and payment transactions, as well as the recording and verifying activity and spend across social media platforms.
AR & VR tools are not only revolutionizing the retail and B2C space, but have the ability to transform B2B interactions as well. The value proposition, brand story and benefits of complex products and solutions sold by B2B marketers can be effectively conveyed to B2B customers by providing a truly immersive, real life like environment with the help of augmented & virtual reality applications. VR technology is not new, but it has now become much easier to produce VR content. B2B Marketers can leverage VR in many ways – for instance providing an experience to one’s B2B customer to enable him/her to view the full line of products without having to take them to the customers as well as view new products that are yet to be created. AR and VR can also be used to enhance one’s presentations and pitches.
We, at Resource Leaders, had conducted a technology survey with our B2B clients/partners. Though we found that Blockchain is still not prevalent, other tools are being actively used, especially in firms where more than 10% of the marketing budget is spent on new technology initiatives/technology tools. The companies also felt that these technologies are a major factor for securing competitive advantage with their customers.
For B2B marketers, the road towards innovation is a critical success factor for exceeding the expectations of their customers. It is a journey that needs to be thoroughly evaluated and undertaken with full support from all the stakeholders - be it top management, employees, vendors or customers. Innovative technologies have the potential to reinvent the relationship, interaction, customer satisfaction, and loyalty with customers.
I welcome your comments, and invite you to share this information.
(This was originally published in the Southern California Business Marketing Association Blog)
Many business-to-business (B2B) companies have understood the need, and have adopted, cutting-edge strategies used by their business-to-consumer (B2C) counterparts. For those B2B marketers who remain on the fence, this series addresses why, and specifically what to incorporate.
The world of B2B Marketing is witnessing profound changes attributed to:
· Evolving Customer Expectations
· Technology Trends
· Increasing Influence of Digital Marketing
· Changing Customer Purchasing Dynamics
Below we focus on one of the cutting-edge topics in B2B Marketing – incorporating Predictive Analytics. We address the creation of a relevant, contextual, and personalized interaction with your B2B customers over an extended period of time, covering the entire sales lifecycle.
As B2B marketers, the need to continuously adapt to the changing environments with new disruptive tactics is vital to the growth and sustainability of your business. To ignore this reality means to run the risk of encountering greater disruption -- by the competition. So, where do you begin?
Consider global B2C leaders such as Amazon who have taken Personalization, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience (CX), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to another level. They've deployed big data and analytics tools, developing in-depth understanding about unique needs and preferences of customers, driving customer loyalty and satisfaction to the highest possible levels.
Forrester Research posits that 2017 is the year B2B marketers are organizing themselves around the customer life cycle, significantly augmenting customer intimacy and insight skills. Skeptics can argue that since the level of personalization required in B2C marketing is much higher than B2B marketing, big data and analytics is not useful for creating personalized marketing for B2B customers. But this simply isn't true.
B2B buyers value a personalized approach. In fact, given that the lifetime customer value of a B2B customer is much higher than a B2C customer, the importance of big data analytics to create customized marketing tactics is extremely important for B2B marketers.
Just like in the B2C space, analytics can provide deeper insights into the purchasing behavior of B2B customers, allowing you to make proactive marketing strategies to augment sales. Unlike their B2C counterparts, however, B2B buyers need personalized or customized information, since they often lack homogeneity. Marketing tools offered by companies such as SAP can help access real time data to offer customized solutions and information to their target customers.
With multiple stakeholders and decision makers in an organization, marketers can provide contextual information to make a successful sale. Hence, the definition of personalization in B2B marketing can take the form of relevant and appropriate information, content or solution, that best addresses customer needs.
The concept of B2B personalization extends beyond personalized emails or purchase suggestions and penetrates deeply into the later stages of the sales cycle. You can effectively utilize big data and analytical tools to nurture long-term relationships with your customers.
Personalization, continuous engagement and interaction, and the utilization of technology tools and big data analytics shapes and refines your B2B Marketing strategies and tactics. Helping your customers acquire and serve their customers more effectively is another perk -- with more personalized products, services or support. This can be done by adopting two strategies: one for your B2B customer, the other for your customer’s customer.
Coming soon in Part 2, our focus will shift to tips, tactics, and insights to regularly interacting and engaging with your B2B customers.
(This has also been published in the Southern California Business Marketing Association Blog)
Blockchain has been traditionally associated with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. It is now making its presence felt across several industries including banking, insurance and even healthcare.
A recent IBM survey reveals that 16% of healthcare professionals expect to have a commercial blockchain solution in 2017.
So, what is the major advantage of this technology that positions it as the next game changer for healthcare industry?
“Blockchain technology has the potential to transform health care, placing the patient at the center of the health care ecosystem and increasing the security, privacy, and interoperability of health data”
Blockchain, also known as distributed ledger technology, can address one of the major problems of the healthcare industry- secure storage and sharing of healthcare data. With blockchain, data can be shared across multiple parties without the risk of tampering or theft of data, as it is extremely difficult to access or alter records on blockchain. It is virtually impossible to hack one block of data in the entire blockchain without hacking all the blocks which makes it extremely superior in terms of security. Healthcare professionals see significant benefit in terms of reducing risks, cost and timeframe in sharing data related to clinical trials, medical records. Data interoperability issues can be addressed with the help of blockchain. There would be complete standardization, transparency, trust and accuracy in terms of information shared across multiple parties.
With the help of blockchain, doctors, hospitals and pharmacies will be able to access the patient’s entire historical data without actually having to send data back and forth. The same common ledger will provide access to all the parties having permission to access the data.
A recent partnership between IBM's Watson Health artificial intelligence unit and FDA plans to explore the use of blockchain in oncology. Google’s artificial intelligence outfit DeepMind recently announced plans to build a blockchain inspired auditing system to track how every piece of patient data is used. Blockchain will help in integrating data from multiple sources to provide a 360 degree view of the patient. It can be a major enabler for personalized medicine as personal data can be securely shared with practitioners without any privacy issues which has been a major impediment for precision medicine. The health insurance sector can also benefit from blockchain applications in areas such as record keeping and claims. Further, pharma companies can benefit from it to prevent drug counterfeiting.
Even though the technology is so promising and healthcare IT companies are moving ahead with full force, critics argue that regulatory constraints will keep the innovation quotient of this technology muted. Critics also argue that the storage capacity of blockchain is unable to handle the huge volume of clinical data being generated. Further, as blockchain is public, identity is subject to being discovered even though it is cryptographically hidden.
Even with all the criticism, the blockchain is well poised to create ripples in the industry. It would be very interesting to see how real world use cases of the application continue to grow and prove the merits of the technology.
Not so long ago, wearables such as fitness bands were just considered a fad that would lose its popularity in a short frame of time. However, in the recent times, wearables have gained strong traction and have evolved from simple fitness trackers to more advanced and innovative devices capable of monitoring the overall health of individuals. It would not be wrong to term these devices as mobile doctors now!
Recent innovations at events are showing the trend that manufacturers are not only making wearables more functional and integrated into our daily lives, but are also paying close attention to aesthetics and comfort. New features such as long battery life, compact size and the ability of the wearable to be part of the connected ecosystem have enhanced the popularity of wearable devices among consumers. These tiny devices, whether in the form of wristwatches, smart garments, or other forms, will have the capability to monitor and track different body functions, collect a host of data from different body parts, analyze such data with the help of machine learning & artificial intelligence and communicate such data to healthcare practitioners for proactive health monitoring of an individual.
Here are some of the notable health wearables showcased at CES 2017:
The central theme of wearables now is digitization and democratization of healthcare. It is moving beyond hype to become a mainstream healthcare application for monitoring of patients and individuals. The demand for wearable medical devices and remote patient monitoring systems is increasing, and the 2016 report by Grand View Research predicts that the global market is expected to reach $612 billion in the next seven years.
So, what is driving this phenomenal growth in wearables, especially health-related wearables? There is a growing need among healthcare professionals to gather more and more data for more coordinated and efficient healthcare delivery as well as offer personalized healthcare to individuals and patients. In addition, health insurers and their employer clients are covering the cost of health wearables due to the premise that it leads to better enrollee health and benefits all the players.
Wearables are well poised to become a key enabler to achieve these goals. We will still need our doctors, however, we will increase our reliance on these tiny mobile doctors embedded in our bodies for our daily healthcare needs.
Pharmacy costs are putting a serious dent in the profits of health plans.
In a recent report, Segal Group, the benefits and human resources consulting firm, projected a continued double digit growth rate in carved-out prescription drug benefit cost trends in 2017 even though the health benefit plan cost trend rates were projected to remain similar for most medical plan options.
2017 Health Plan Cost Trend Survey Report
Health plans in recent years have stepped up their efforts to keep pharmacy costs under control, including entering into strategic partnerships with Pharmacy Benefit Management providers (PBMs) to curtail costs. The Value Based PBM is growing in popularity and has become a must-have strategic tool for payers to make US healthcare sustainable in the times of rising healthcare costs.
Some of the popular strategies that have been pursued include:
In this era of rising drug pricing, the above mentioned strategies pursued by pharmacy benefit managers can be utilized to their full extent with the use of latest technologies. For instance, a value based pricing and value based care approach can be achieved by leveraging cutting-edge data analytics tools.
Pharmacy benefit managers are mining their data to measure drug efficacy and make decision about coverage - Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Pharmacy Managers Unleash Big Data
Similarly, low cost primary care access can be facilitated by using telemedicine technologies such as video visits by doctors.
In addition to the above mentioned tools, numerous technologies have emerged and are being deployed by payers and their PBMs to not only improve the well being of patients, but also to save on costs. Digital pill reminders and digital drug dispensers ensure that patients are given the right drug at the right time and thus, significantly improve drug adherence and the patient’s health. Similarly, innovative digital health tools, such as mobile apps and wearables, are being promoted by payers to encourage patients to keep a close tab on their health as well as to motivate them to lead a healthier lifestyle.
The path towards a value based PBM can be realized if payers and PBMs actively integrate, modify their culture to become more innovative, develop a flexible and modular service model and leverage technology in the right manner. By putting data management and analytical capabilities at the forefront, the value based PBM approach can assess data provided by payers; apply predictive analytics to assess costs and outcomes. Such support from PBMs will allow payers to achieve both financial as well as care goals, i.e., save on costs as well as enhance care quality.
Medicare Accountable Care Organizations or ACOs, as they are popularly called, can be defined as a group or network of doctors, hospitals, healthcare plans and other healthcare providers that collaborate to provide high quality, coordinated health care at lower costs to their Medicare patients.
The Centers for Medicaid or Medicare Services (CMS) has been promoting the Next Generation of ACO initiative which has seen an increasing participation of 45 ACOs, as compared to 17 in the previous year.
https://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/Next-Generation-ACO-Model/
“The goal of the model is to test whether strong financial incentives for ACOs, coupled with tools to support better patient engagement and care management, can improve health outcomes and lower expenditures for Original Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries.”
This new initiative provides a higher risk-reward ratio to ACOs who provide a high quality of care to patients at lower costs. The rapidly changing healthcare landscape in United States is paving the way from the traditional fee for service model towards a fee for value model, where healthcare providers do not focus on charging a fee on the volume of services delivered. They instead earn their reimbursements on generating more value for the patients.
Healthcare providers are facing an increasing level of pressure from government authorities as well as payers to transition towards the value-based reimbursement structure with a population health approach, so that the best possible care can be delivered to patients at the lowest possible cost.
This transition is not easy for ACOs. The Next Generation of ACOs are expected to not only change their mindset and culture, but also make increasing use of digital technologies, EHRs, data and analytics tools in order to make this transition a reality. Data and analytics, in fact, form the foundation of this whole transition process. Data driven decision making will aid ACOs in eliminating inefficiency, duplication of efforts and quality of care at each step of the care mode, be it diagnostics, treatments, re-admissions or monitoring of patients. A proactive data driven and analytics-based approach will go a long way in eliminating many of the pitfalls and problems surrounding healthcare delivery in the country.
The healthcare technology market has responded well to help in this transition and continues to innovate with solutions that are really revolutionary and slated to deliver the best possible efficiency, quality of care and collaboration among organizations in an ACO. However, such a technology focused approach triggers a tremendous level of investment, re-engineering and change management in processes, systems and overall culture of an ACO. Whether or not such solutions can really deliver the desired results and ROI for ACO is yet to be proven fully.
The plethora of new technologies and tools creates additional challenges related to integration, interoperability, data security and privacy - something that ACOs need to overcome with a well planned approach that not only allows them to transition from their legacy solutions but also creates a new tech enabled culture focused on cost containment, efficiency and well coordinated care delivery. ACOs have realized that the future lies in increased coordination, sharing of data and collaboration across the entire value chain and the definition of payer and provider is blurring. Technology which can support the entire value chain is in demand, rather than focusing on individual business entities. The individual entities within an ACO also cannot afford to act in silos and need to integrate well with their group members and collaborate closely to reap the benefits of technology.
The debate on whether such a transition towards the fee for value model from the current fee for service approach will be successful and really change the healthcare delivery landscape in US will continue but one thing is sure - the technology enabled healthcare delivery by ACOs looks definitely exciting. Imagine a patient receiving customized care delivery from his/her provider based on an extensive analysis of his/her historical data, or imagine a proactive care approach by providers for the high risk population based on data analytics. In the future, patients will not need to spend time and money on unnecessary visits, re-admissions or diagnostic tests as data analytics combined with remote monitoring tools, wearable and tele-health tools will allow ACOs to remotely manage, monitor and proactively deliver high quality care to their patients. Cloud based technologies will allow ACOs to provide value based care efficiently across the entire value chain.
Expectations are high but the road for ACOs towards this transition is full of challenges.
A sound technology strategy, backed by the support of executive management and coordination among individual entities within the network can help ease the transition towards value based care for Accountable Care Organizations.
Worldwide spending on information security will reach $76.9 billion in 2015, an increase of 8.2 percent over 2014.
The increasing adoption of mobile, cloud, social and information (often interacting together) will drive use of new security technology and services through 2016.
Regulatory pressure will increase in Western Europe and Asia/Pacific from 2014.
Mobile security will be a higher priority for consumers from 2017 onward.
By 2017, 90% of an enterprise's endpoints will utilize some form of hardware protection to ensure that endpoint integrity is maintained.
By 2018, 25% of security applications that were previously purchased independently will be incorporated directly into business applications.
Cyberthreat intelligence (CTI) has emerged as a potentially powerful tool for Security& Risk professionals who must defend their digital business from cybercriminals seeking to disrupt their operations and steal their most valuable information — their customers' data.
Investors are eager to capitalize on the strong demand for CTI solutions and services: Since October 2014, CTI vendors have raised $102.5 million, and there have been three acquisitions.
The vendor landscape is overwhelming, and Security& Risk professionals must separate fact from hype when it comes to investing in CTI offerings.
Netflix is to be admired for its new policy of allowing new parents (mothers AND fathers) a year of paid leave, without taking disability benefits. It even extends the policy to parents of newly adopted children. Parents can return part-time, full-time, or return and then go back out as needed. This is practically unheard of, here in the States, though the tech industry is one of the leading industries with more generous policies.
The U.S., Papua New Guinea and Suriname are the only countries left in the world that do not guarantee paid family leave. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2013, only 12% of Americans had access to paid parental leave. Low-wage earners, those in the bottom income quartile, have it much worse: only 5% get any paid maternity leave.
Only California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Connecticut have paid maternity leave laws, funded through employee-paid payroll taxes and administered through their respective disability programs.
The only major U.S. legislation to address these issues is the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. Qualifying American parents are guaranteed 12 weeks of family leave in a 12 month period to care for a new child - however, it is unpaid.
And, there's another catch:
To be eligible an employee must:(i) work for a firm with 50 employees or more within 75 miles of the employee’s work-site; (ii) have 12 months of tenure with this firm; and (iii) have 1,250 hours of service in the past year (about 24 hours per week). According to a survey done in 2012 of 1,812 work-sites and 2,852 employees about experiences with family and medical leave, only 59% of all employees meet these criteria.
In California, where paid family leave exists, low-income moms nearly doubled their maternity leaves since paid leave was instituted. But after the maternity leaves end, mothers of small children in California both work more and earn more than they previously did.
According to a study by economists Francine D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn, in 1990, the US had the sixth highest female labor participation rate among 22 OECD countries. By 2010, its rank had fallen to 17th.
A 2014 New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of nonworking adults aged 25 to 54 in the United States found 26% were homemakers with the ability to work, but 84% of this group said that they were unable to work due to family responsibilities.
Economist Christopher J. Ruhm lays out a model in his paper titled 'The Economic Consequences of Parental Leave Mandates: Lessons from Europe' to show how parental leave affects labor demand and labor supply. According to the study, leave policies would mean that more workers likely to take leave will choose to be in the labor market, relative to workers less likely to take leave. And in reality, that actually seems logical, even without an economic model. If new parents are guaranteed pay and job security during the parental leave, most would usually desire to get back to work at their original company, after the required period, except for emergencies or a decision to be a stay-at-home parent.
And obviously, the bonding that is needed between the parent and the baby during this period is critical for both of them.
According to a study by the National Partnership for Women and Families using data recorded between 1997-2009, women who take paid leave after giving birth are “more likely to be working 9 to 12 months after a child’s birth than are those who report taking no leave at all”. And women who “report leaves of 30 or more days are 54% more likely to report wage increases in the year following the child’s birth than are women who take no leave at all.”
Businesses are usually concerned that paid leave programs will be too costly to maintain. But the report 'Employer and Worker Experiences with Paid Family Leave in California' finds that "The business community’s concerns prior to passage of the Paid Family Leave legislation, that it would impose extensive new costs on employers and involve a particularly serious burden for small businesses, were unfounded. After more than five years’ experience with PFL, the vast majority of employers reported that it has had minimal (negative) impact on their business operations."
So its good for businesses, its good for the employees and its good for the economy.
Netflix has passed the baton - who will pick it up next?
