Braun to Give Pharm Aid

As more and more pharmaceutical firms leverage the Web as part of their newly embraced CRM initiatives, Braun Consulting has introduced a new platform to aid companies in their attempt to make the most out of Web initiatives. The product, called Global Product Performance Platform (GP3), fuses customer-centric strategies and user-focused design within a standards-based J2EE architecture. Pharmaceutical companies can benefit from a single platform to optimize core business processes and support interactions with brand teams, customers, and partners, according to Tony Kieffer, vice president at Braun Consulting's Healthcare Practice. "The pharmaceutical industry has come under increased pressure to find more ways to get more out of their promotional dollars," Kieffer says. "They want to give stronger capabilities to the customer, and GP3 is a framework for building a strong interactive framework." GP3 combines global content management and delivery, automated collaboration and workflow processes, and improved customer analytics within an integrated, secure, and personalized portal environment, Kieffer says. Designed to drive relationship management from one common platform, GP3 enables organizations to deploy online solutions across and beyond an enterprise. These include portal solutions to drive product awareness and to build patient and physician loyalty; extranets to facilitate effective collaboration with key partners, and internally focused intranets to streamline and improve key sales and marketing processes. Kieffer says that GP3 provides a "future proof" foundation to effectively accommodate the evolving demands of customer and product portals. As Web sites evolve or additional sites are added, GP3 enables marketers to build extendable services and capabilities, reuse key functionality and data, and integrate processes and technologies across and beyond an organization, according to Kieffer. Following up on this pharmaceutical industry solution, Kieffer says Braun will extend the GP3 platform across several other verticals. "The platform resonates with the IT side of operations, but is easily digestible by sales and marketing executives," Kieffer says. "Thus we will be adapting GP3 to fit verticals like media, financial services, and the consumer packaged goods industry."