Agency Case Study » Leveraging the Impetus InSite Platform® for New & Existing Advisory Boards

OverviewBy leveraging the best-in-class, pharma-compliant collaboration tools of the Impetus InSite Platform®, our customer — a large Medical Communications Agency in Amsterdam, Holland — has been able to transform the way they plan and conduct advisory boards for both themselves and their clients.

The agency’s initial goals were to:

1. Move from only planning and executing in-person advisory boards for their existing clients to having at least 1/3 of all meetings online.

2. Use the platform as a selling point to gain new customers and expand their client base.3. Run semi-regular internal online advisory boards with their Pharma clients.4. Save money by reducing the time spent on planning and logistics for in-person advisory

board meetings.5. Improve the advisor engagement rates and thereby increase the advisory board

effectiveness for their clients.

Managed online solutions for life science advisory boards, working groups, team collaboration, and execution of continuing medical education

Increase in new clients as a result of offering online advisory boards (vs. in the previous year)

+120%

Proportion of Agency’s pre-existing clients using the platform

38%

Examples of Successful Online Advisory BoardsUtilizing the Impetus InSite Platform® stripped away the barriers to entry that traditional Medical Agencies face when getting into online advisory board or working group services, including IT overhead, manual project management, and complex data risk assessments. As a result, the Agency was able to immediately digitize how they work with their clients and offer them a range of innovative and compliant communication tools for engaging their advisors and working groups. Below are three examples of successful online advisory boards executed by the Agency and their Clients in the first year of implementation.

Internal Advisory Board(Agency-Pharma Clients)The Agency was able to conduct an internal online advisory board with 10 of their Pharma clients, comprising 3 touchpoints over a period of 1 year. During these touchpoints, the Agency utilized a combination of asynchronous discussion forums and webforms to gather insights from their clients on the Agency’s performance, service offerings, strengths, and areas of improvement. One of the Agency’s staff members acted as moderator to optimize the quality and quantity of insights gathered.

External Customer Advisory Board (Pharma-KOLs)Several of the Agency’s Pharma clients chose to supplement or replace their face-to-face advisory board meetings with online touchpoints. As a notable example, one client (“Client A”) conducted a series of 4 touchpoints with oncology key opinion leaders (KOLs). During these touchpoints, Client A used interactive discussion forums and debates, along with several image- and text-based case studies, to determine the role of their novel immuno-oncology agent in the advisors’ practice.

Internal Customer Advisory Board (Pharma-Sales Reps)As a third example, another of the Agency’s clients (“Client B”) wanted to effectively collate the feedback gathered during the in-person meetings between their many sales representatives and local endocrinologists relating to the promotional materials on Client B’s oral anti-diabetic product. Based on the insights collected during the first 2 out of 3 touchpoints, Client B subsequently utilized the platform’s asynchronous annotation and selection tools to allow the sales representatives to suggest changes directly to the materials.

CaseStudies

Group Discussion

Web Form Tools

Group Discussion

Online Debates

Annotation Tool

Selection Tool

Group Discussion

The ResultsTo date, the Agency has successfully planned and conducted custom-branded online advisory board touchpoints for 38% of their pre-existing clients using the Impetus InSite Platform®. In addition, they more than doubled the number of new clients compared to the previous year, largely by using the offering of online advisory boards as a selling point. The Impetus platform’s automated recruitment & project management, behind-the-scenes technical support & programming, and automated report generation have saved them countless hours of time.

These results are in line with what is typically obtained using Impetus’ solution.

Increase in Agency productivity

+32%

Increase in Agency revenue

+36%

Overall increase in number of client projects

+57%

Average customer satisfaction (1-10)

9.3

Increase in Net Promoter Score

+15 points

Est. time saved by leaving PM and IT compliance to Impetus

98 hours per client

Increase in follow-up projects based on advisor insights collected using the Impetus InSite Platform®

+50%

$£€

Key Advantages for the Agency and Their Clients

1. Private, secure, and compliant: The Impetus InSite Platform® is a tried and tested platform with Fortune 500 pharmaceutical companies, passing their rigorous IT risk assessment and regulatory and legal requirements. By using this private and secure white-labelled platform to host their clients’ projects and advisory boards, the Agency has been able to avoid barriers related to compliance and cybersecurity.

2. Low barrier to entry: By not having to build the client portals or the platform tools from scratch, and by allowing Impetus Digital to manage all software updates, as well as the addition of new modalities and options, the Agency was able to start planning online touchpoints for their clients immediately.

3. Increased efficiency and productivity: By not having to manually follow up with advisors who have not finished an assignment and needing to send out email reminders, the project management time for each client has been reduced by approximately half, and the Agency employee productivity has increased by over 30%.

4. High advisor engagement and frequency of interaction: For the cost of ONE in-person advisory board meeting, the Agency’s clients have been able to interact with their advisors an average of 3.7 (range: 2.5–6) times more.

5. Increased number of follow-up projects with existing clients: Based on the insights generated through their clients’ initial online advisory board meetings, the number of follow-up projects has increased by 50%. This number has been exponentially increasing since the implementation of the Impetus InSite Platform®, with the platform ensuring a continuous flow of consulting and follow-up projects for the Agency and clients.

6. New clients: By advertising their ability to conduct complete online advisory boards and working groups for their clients, the Agency has gained more than twice as many new clients compared to in the same period the previous year. Of these new clients, 75% were previously working with another Medical Communications or Consulting Agency.

Impetus Digital specializes in managed online solutions for life science advisory boards, working groups, team collaboration, and execution of continuing medical education.

Learn more about Impetus' best-in-class collaboration platform and consultative services at impetusdigital.com.

“Partnering with Impetus has been a great business decision. Our clients love it, our IT and admin staff love it (less work for them!), and it has helped us grow this company faster than we have seen in years. I would 100% recommend working with Impetus Digital.”

Owner and CEOAmsterdam, Holland

“As far as I know we are the only agency in all of the Netherlands to offer online advisory meetings other than over skype. We have seen a clear impact of pitching this option to potential customers. As a matter of fact we have doubled the number of new customers!!!”

Account DirectorAmsterdam, Holland

Agency Feedback

“The technical support [from Impetus] has been very good and it is very nice not to having to worry about software or content updates or security problems. It is easy for me or my staff to help clients to create and customise their own portals.”

Head of ITAmsterdam, Holland

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