DT founders’ update:
Is this our new normal?
By Tim van Tongeren & Dennis van Rooij
As the founders of DT Consulting, we wanted to update you on the progress we’ve made over the past year and our strategy for expanding our capabilities and services.
What happened?
Incredibly, it’s been more than a year since Indegene acquired DT. As founders, the months leading up to and directly after the acquisition were tremendously busy for us. Specifically, we:
- Continued to expand our consulting offerings. Independent of the acquisition, DT has been investing in adding consulting capabilities. In the past 12 months, we’ve developed CXQ®—our proprietary framework and KPIs to measure and benchmark customer experience (CX) quality—for patients and patient organizations and expanded our ability to help global pharma firms measure CX as a fully managed service.
- Dealt with a sudden spike in demand. The COVID-19 crisis upended everyone’s personal and work lives and forced firms to reimagine how to deliver great CX remotely—which is our sweet spot. We responded quickly to the increased call for our services by expanding our talent pool and consulting capabilities.
- Introduced an integrated client offering. We are excited to announce that Indegene and DT are joining forces to help bring pharmaceuticals to market via an end-to-end digital experience (DX) and CX enterprise solution focused on commercial and medical operations. Our integrated offering quickly gained the trust of the executive team of a major global pharma firm, which chose us for its end-to-end transformation program.
What's next?
As expected, we had our hands full in the months after the acquisition as we juggled our time and priorities, but the dust has now (mostly) settled. Indegene’s backing is enabling us to relaunch existing strategic objectives and undertake new ones:
- Insights and networking. We’ve been fairly quiet publicly in the past year but have reignited our Insights and Networking practice by hiring two directors of research, Michael Cook and Francesca Properzi, both from respected companies. They will be responsible for defining and communicating emerging trends in the pharma industry and making this thought leadership accessible to all levels of our client firms—from local DX/CX practitioners to pharma execs.
- A diverse group of consultants and expertise. We’ve added eight seasoned and talented DT consultants to our team of industry leaders, including director of CX Hannah Price. All of these new colleagues bring client engagement and consulting experience from big industry names like PwC, Accenture, Deloitte, Gartner, and Forrester.
- More coverage for commercial operations. With more people and Indegene’s extensive network to draw on, we’ve expanded coverage in our core focus area: commercial operations. Many projects are taking place against the backdrop of COVID-19; adjusting to realigned customer needs and expectations will continue to test our clients’ DX/CX strategies. Whatever our client companies face, we are committed to ensuring that they can adjust their strategy and operations to meet the needs of patients, HCPs, and other stakeholders in the health ecosystem.
And after that?
We aim to help life science companies achieve their DX/CX ambitions from end to end. Previously, we couldn’t always support this comprehensively due to a lack of size, geographic reach, or expertise in specific areas of clinical operations or medical affairs. But now we’re in a position to extend our consulting capabilities and tackle these issues in depth. We will:
- Leverage Indegene’s delivery engine. Customers will soon enjoy a number of options for DX/CX excellence beyond strategy consulting. We can help clients understand how to manage assets internally or advise them on the issues and provide implementation or execution resources. We’ll also be able to take on complete commercial responsibility for certain assets through a co-commercialization partnership model that delivers strategic consulting on portfolio analysis and decision-making support.
- Add coverage outside of commercial operations. As early as 2016, we realized just how necessary it is for life science companies to seize the opportunities that digital technologies offer R&D organizations. We now see medical affairs teams getting more involved in the planning and execution of DX and CX. As we provide advisory on clinical and medical DX/CX, we will cover a wider set of stakeholders involved in companies’ CX transformations.
- Take the first steps toward going global. DT will open a US office shortly and have consultants on the ground on both coasts. In the coming year, we will also explore how we can gain similar proximity to our clients in Southeast Asia.
We’re excited about the company, its future, and what our clients can experience. We’re humbled by the fact that we now count 13 of the world’s 20 largest pharma companies—and six of the top ten—as active clients. We want to thank these clients, colleagues, and Indegene—everyone who has helped us make DT what it is today. Stay tuned for updates, thought leadership, insights, and other content from our seasoned consultants and industry leaders. We’ll soon kick off this effort with the in-depth CXQ® and Digital Excellence Benchmark reports you’ve come to expect from us.
Stay safe! All the best,
Tim van Tongeren & Dennis van Rooij
