WhizAI brings an augmented consumer platform to the life sciences industry to deliver better, smarter and faster business decisions at lower TCO with contextual, AI-powered analytics.
Last year, Gartner Research published a report titled “Top Trends in Data and Analytics for 2021: The Rise of the Augmented Consumer.” In this report, it was anticipated that organizations will need to broaden their analytics initiatives to augment end-consumers of data insights.
An augmented consumer is an end user of data who uses business intelligence (BI) tools and leverages powerful analytics capabilities without needing an education in data analysis. The new and improved analytics workflow used by an augmented consumer would have easy access to modern features like automated insight generation and natural language query (NLQ). These modernized dashboards and analytics workflows contrast the predefined dashboards and reports that are traditionally used by data analysts.
“It is now possible to make data-driven organizations where we can empower our end business users with information which is on demand,” says Rohit Vashisht, CEO of WhizAI. “Dashboards will become personalized and go very fast. We can get more out of the data that is generated and collected in life sciences organizations. We are looking to increase adoption as well as ROI [return on investment] from that data.”
In a recent webinar, Vashisht explained how the augmented analytics and BI user experience should be consumer focused. Vashisht described how an augmented consumer platform would make it easier to find content, get insights and take action, giving life sciences companies an advantage over their competitors. In the same webinar, Jérôme Chabrillat, Associate Principal, Business Intelligence Lead, ZS Associates, spoke about the main components of next-generation reporting and their benefits for life sciences companies.
Watch the free, on-demand webinar to learn about augmenting the business end user of data in life sciences from this duo of experts.
Why is the Augmented Consumer on the Rise in the Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Industries?
Just as ordinary consumers are being augmented with smartphones and related artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools, life sciences professionals who need data insights are also being augmented by new technologies. This technological shift in the life sciences industry includes the modernization of the dashboard and augmentation of the information consumers need to find and understand.
Chabrillat explains how before the use of data visualization tools, data analysis was very slow because Excel spreadsheets were mainly used. This was improved with the onset of data visualization tools that have made data analysis and summaries more convenient.
“One of the things I’ve seen over the last 15 years working in business intelligence is there was a key shift about 10 years ago with the adoption of visual tools,” says Chabrillat. “The iPad also came to the market around that time. That was a big momentum shift for our clients, pharmaceutical manufacturers, in the way we could deliver and provide data to sales reps, marketers, executives, et cetera.”
However, the challenge of the current technological landscape in the life sciences is that there is much more data than ever before. Now that everything is digital and there is a burst of data, life sciences companies want to get an edge with that information.
According to Chabrillat, the pain points clients in the life sciences are having now with their data insights is that reports are complicated due to the overwhelming amount of data. In addition, reports are static and can only address a certain need at a point in time. Chabrillat also adds that many analysts are needed to write executive summaries for the C-Suite.
The market problem that the industry is having with data insights were reviewed during the webinar and include the following:
- Business and data are becoming much more complex
- Predefined dashboards frequently overwhelm users with data
- Dashboards lack the deeper context needed for users to make business decisions
- The entire ecosystem is time-consuming and prone to errors
- Many business professionals struggle to identify the best actions to take
All these challenges highlight the need for an augmented consumer platform in life sciences. WhizAI solves these unmet needs by providing an augmented consumer platform that is built specifically for the life sciences industry. With this AI-powered analytics platform, WhizAI enables business users to gather data insights more easily.
“Today, we live in a world which is on demand and always available. If I want to order food, I can just flip open DoorDash. If I want a cab, I can open Uber. And I can connect anywhere with anybody in the world in seconds. So why should analytics be any different? Why should insights be any different?” says Vashisht. “That’s the market problem that we are trying to solve.”
What Capabilities Should the Augmented Consumer in Life Sciences Use?
There are several advanced analytics tools in the AI discipline that can be used for next-generation reporting. During the webinar, Chabrillat explained six advanced tools or “ingredients” that can be used to solve the market problem:
- Automated Insight Generation
- Search and NLQ
- Content Personalization
- Embedded Interfaces
- Natural language Generation (NLG)
- Phone Interfaces
Automated insight generation is about how AI can identify trends and outliers and point the user towards the things that matter. Therefore, key takeaways can be quickly pulled from the dashboard.
Search and NLQ involves asking a question in human language and having the computer turn the question into a database query to produce the result.
“Getting that simple answer about your data quickly, as opposed to going through pages and pages of reports, that’s a big winner, from a convenience factor and for the end user,” explains Chabrillat. “From an operational perspective, there’s huge cost savings here. That allows me — as the owner of the dashboard — to simplify it, and really get to put my focus and my thinking into where it’s going to have the highest impact.”
Content personalization and embedded interfaces involve making the information specific to the interest of the business user based on their profile or needs. This allows the content to be relevant, unique and tailored to the target user at the moment they need it.
NLG is the use of AI programming to produce natural, human language output about a set of data or facts.
“The natural language generation is one that I think is important in the data literacy area. Basically, algorithms explain and bring some context to the data to bring a little bit of clarity to all the information you might have displayed on a dashboard,” says Chabrillat.
Phone interfaces allow augmented consumers to use smartphones, tablets, laptops and computers to get data insights anywhere, anytime.
When the information consumer is turned into the augmented consumer, advanced analytical power allows them to now have new and sophisticated data insight capabilities (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Turning the information consumer into the augmented consumer — the end user data insight capabilities with advanced analytical power. Figure courtesy of WhizAI. ©2022 WhizAI.
Therefore, bringing advanced analytical power to end users of data simplifies their work and makes them more efficient. This empowers decision makers to act sooner with confidence.
How Should Data and Analytics Leaders View this Shift Towards the Augmented Consumer?
Data and analytics leaders should try to get more people to use data for decision-making. This would make an organization more data-driven, with the ability to make strategic decisions based on data insights rather than general observations or subjective opinions. The steps that data, analytics and business leaders should take in the shift towards the augmented consumer were reviewed during the webinar and include the following:
- Assess the existing BI and analytics platforms and introduce new, augmented end user capabilities
- Align features to the user profile and displace the use of manual exploration and predefined dashboards to accentuate consumer capabilities
- Simplify access to data insights for end users with natural language processing (NLP) and embedded analytics to increase data-driven decisions
- Bring attention to domain- and industry-specific insights to accelerate value generation for end business users
- Teach users how to use the newly discovered capabilities of an augmented consumer solution
“From a data analytics leader perspective, it’s really about challenging some of the investments that you’ve made, the ways to operate and the solutions that you’ve put in place that have made you very successful,” says Chabrillat. “I think it’s time to look and challenge those solutions, and rethink how to compliment your tools and capabilities so that you can bring more value to your end users.”
Top Three Organizational Benefits of Augmenting the End Users of Data
Having an augmented consumer platform allows a business to simplify, summarize and bring clarity to the analytics they need at the moment. The business will become data-driven by making decisions based on their data insights. This has many advantages, but the top three benefits include speed, simplicity and ROI.
Chabrillat explains that it is beneficial to be able to deploy a new type of capability or new priority to the field within a few days. Having timely data insights has the potential to impact a business’s top line and the effectiveness of sales reps.
The second advantage of having an augmented consumer platform is that it simplifies the complex data and analytics ecosystem.
“If you have a lot of data, or billions and billions of records now, we can fit them in one simple model. Everybody is hitting that model — the whole company — and it doesn’t matter where you are,” says Vashisht. “Whether you are an area manager, a director or a sales rep, you’re all going to the single version of truth. So that simplicity that we bring is super advantageous for our customers.”
The third benefit of augmenting the end business user is the ROI and reduction of cost.
“We’re always being asked to do more with less,” explains Chabrillat. “The only way to achieve that is through automation and the help of AI.”
WhizAI delivers insights at the speed of business directly into the hands of life sciences business users by offering solutions in the areas of field sales analytics, brand insights, market access, patient services and manufacturing.
To learn more about how an augmented consumer platform allows more informed business decisions to be made faster and at lower cost, watch WhizAI’s free, on-demand webinar.
This article was created in collaboration with WhizAI and the Xtalks editorial team.
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