UCB: Innovative and Agile Analytics Data Lab Helps Determine Business Insights and Value

Accenture Life Sciences Rethink Reshape Restructure...for better patient outcomes

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The project was recognized by Data News, Belgium’s leading IT magazine, as the 2013 winner of the “ICT Project of the Year—Large Enterprises” award.

In a fast-evolving healthcare ecosystem, UCB wanted to use the diverse, growing range of internal and external data sources at its disposal to improve patient care and business value. It selected Accenture to help establish an innovative, cost-effective analytics “Data Lab” that would answer key business questions and identify tangible, untapped pockets of business value across the company. Together, Accenture and UCB established a strategic council to set the long-term analytics strategy and roadmap, as well as guide decision-making.

The Data Lab explored six strategic business questions, set by the strategic council, and conducted 50-man-day analytics “sprints” to assess the value that could be achieved in each area. For instance, one sprint identified new ways to target physicians by leveraging public data and applying advanced analytics techniques. By using this approach, UCB was better able to assess the potential value before scaling the investment. Based on the Data Lab’s success, departments from across UCB are now submitting new strategic business questions for exploration in future sprints. The project was recognized by Data News, Belgium’s leading IT magazine, as the 2013 winner of the “ICT Project of the Year—Large Enterprises” award. The innovative analytics approach has helped UCB rethink its business and invest in programs that will help deliver better patient outcomes, improve customer service and drive shareholder returns.

Overview UCB, with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on transforming the lives of people with severe diseases of the immune system and the central nervous system. It has operations in approximately 40 countries and reported global revenue of $3.7 billion (€ 3.3 billion) in 2014.

Opportunity UCB Pharma wanted to use the diverse range of internal and external data at its disposal to better focus on patient needs and adapt to a changing healthcare ecosystem. It launched an ambitious advanced analytics program that would help treat data as an enterprise asset and encourage collaboration between IT and business. The program would require UCB to transcend the company’s organizational boundaries to help create an open innovation model and capture the business value behind the growing number of new data sources, such as real-world evidence data and machine-to-machine data. To turn its vision into a reality, UCB collaborated closely with Accenture on an innovative analytics Data Lab that helps generate valuable business insights.

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The Data Lab team ran many “sprints,” often in parallel. We have highlighted a few key business challenges

Sales & Marketing Example: How can UCB optimize resource allocation for a specific brand in the U.S. market?

The Approach: Mining a range of internal and external data sources, such as promotional activities and formulary access data, the team segmented the full healthcare professional base using criteria like sales potential and product access. The team then analyzed existing promotional effectiveness for each activity, such as calls and samples. From the analysis, the team created alternative sales resource allocation scenarios to make sales representatives’ efforts more productive, increasing revenues while lowering costs.

Outcomes: With customer segmentation and more targeted sales efforts, UCB can now better target the right doctors in the right markets. Ultimately, UCB can better allocate sales resource investments across segments to increase brand sales.

Business Insight Example: How can UCB better understand HCP relationships through NPS (Net Promoter Score) and identify root causes?

The Approach: Through Natural Language Processing, the sprint team developed a multi-lingual text mining algorithm that was able to automatically cluster textual HCP feedback into business relevant categories. In addition, advanced statistical analyses were conducted to identify and differentiate root causes by country, disease area and HCP segment.

Outcome: The resulting insights can help UCB to increase HCP engagement and the automated process allows for a world-wide, multi-lingual roll-out with minimal manual intervention.

Solution Together, Accenture and UCB pursued a cost-efficient, flexible Data Lab approach to identify pockets of value across the company quickly and with only a modest initial investment. They set up a strategic council, composed of senior UCB leaders and Accenture analytics specialists. The council helped define the program’s vision and road map, conduct innovation workshops, and guide the analytics organization and IT architecture decisions. With the council, UCB could tap into Accenture analytics thought leadership,

innovation and specialist capabilities throughout its analytics journey.

The Data Lab team answered key business questions pertaining to media sentiment toward UCB, NPS (Net Promoter Score) measurement, sales resource allocation for a specific brand, and raw material tracking, among others. It explored each business question in time-boxed, 50-man-day “sprints.” Each “sprint” used a broad range of internal and external data, applied advanced analytics and reached an answer. The approach was flexible, so each “sprint” delivery team could redirect or fine-tune

its efforts to work with available data sets and help achieve the best possible business value. Data discovery and visualization tools also helped the teams see, in a concrete way, the business value that could be achieved from each “sprint.” Based on the results, UCB could then decide whether it wanted to set up the “sprint” as an ongoing analytics service.

Results The agile and flexible Data Lab has helped turn UCB’s initial analytics vision into a tangible reality with demonstrable insights and business value. By making a small initial investment in a “sprint,” UCB assessed the value that could be achieved in each area before paying for a larger, broader rollout. Tapping into cross-functional internal and publicly available external data also helped UCB bridge strategic knowledge gaps.

As a result of the program’s success, business leaders from across the organization have submitted new business questions to the Data Lab, encompassing market access, competitive intelligence, legal, market research and HR.

The project has also generated broader acclaim. It was recognized by Data News, Belgium’s leading IT magazine, as the winner of the “ICT Project of the Year—Large Enterprises” award in 2013.

The innovative approach to assessing analytics value has helped UCB rethink its business to deliver better patient outcomes, improve patient service and drive shareholder returns.

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About Accenture Life SciencesAccenture’s Life Sciences group is dedicated to helping companies rethink, reshape or restructure their businesses to deliver better patient outcomes and drive shareholder returns. We provide end-to-end business services as well as individual strategy, digital, technology and operations projects around the globe in all strategic and functional areas—with a strong focus on R&D, Sales & Marketing and the Supply Chain.

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