New IDC Report Investigates IT Outsourcing for Life Sciences
Last week, IDC Health Insights released a new report comparing major life sciences IT vendors and what factors are most important when selecting an outsourcing IT vendor. Called IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Life Science Sales and Marketing ITO Vendor Assessment 2013, the report assessed a number of vendors, including Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, Deloitte, HCL, Indegene, Infosys, IMS Health, L&T Infotech, NTT Data, TAKE Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tech Mahindra, and Wipro.
The report found that 68 percent of life sciences companies are due to expand in overall sales and marketing IT spending this year, with IT services accounting for 45 percent when compared to hardware and software, which IDC expects to put IT outsourcing in greater demand. Specifically, IDC researchers anticipate an increased need across the industry for lower costs, improved process efficiency, increased automation, and life science-specific industry experience.
“Companies are being driven toward sales and marketing IT outsourcing by several business needs, including the need to automate and optimize recurring sales activities, consolidate disparate information sources, optimize multi-channel sales and marketing operations, improve sales force effectiveness and efficiency, broaden their adoption and utilization of mobile platforms, and improve regulatory compliance,” says Eric Newmark, program director of Commercial Life Sciences research at IDC Health Insights and author of the report.
In the report, each of these 14 companies were evaluated in terms of the breadth of services offered, their geographical footprint, industry experience, and vetting of customer references, with IT outsourcing defined by all services related to system implementation and integration, application development, maintenance and support, and infrastructure outsourcing.
Within the area of services offered, IDC not only looked at the variability, but also the depth of companies’ related project experience and the number of customers the vendor already serves. Similarly, each subject’s geographical footprint was defined not only by global delivery, but the extent of the company’s focus and investment in life sciences.
The last key criterion of the report was corporate financial stability and the willingness to work with clients using a risk/profit sharing contract model.
Newmark expects the report to be of help to companies looking to outsource their sales and marketing IT.
