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Skills shortage still holding back pharma's digital transformation: survey

21 November 2024

Nick Paul Taylor / FiercePharma

The people piece of pharma’s digital transformation remains a problem. That is the top takeaway from a GlobalData survey, which showed companies are continuing to grapple with a skills shortage—and found bigger businesses are bearing the brunt of the problem.

One year ago, GlobalData reported survey data showing a lack of specific skills and talents was the top digital transformation challenge in healthcare. Forty-three percent of people surveyed by the company named skills as a challenge, putting it ahead of insufficient funding and operational silos on the list of the biggest issues.

GlobalData recently updated the report based on the findings of a survey that collected responses from 109 pharmaceutical industry professionals from August to October. The latest survey suggests companies are continuing to grapple with some of the same issues.

A lack of specific skills and talents was the top challenge once again. This time, 49% of respondents said a skills shortage is hindering the digital transformation at their organization. Urte Jakimaviciute, senior director of market research and strategic intelligence at GlobalData, discussed why the drug industry’s skills problem is dragging on in a statement about the survey data.

“Shortage of talents that have specific digital skills continues to be a pressing issue for pharmaceutical companies that first experienced digital skills scarcity shortly after the arrival of COVID-19,” Jakimaviciute said. “Despite the growing demand for tech-savvy specialists, there is a limited supply of individuals possessing necessary expertise, and there is no quick solution for this.”

GlobalData found larger companies are more concerned about skills than smaller firms are. Large businesses “may have a wider scale of operations or a higher number of systems to digitalize,” Jakimaviciute said, and therefore need “more human resources to complete the process.” The absence of skills may prevent large companies from realizing the potential of digital transformation technologies they adopt.

GlobalData believes large enterprises may struggle to deal with tech-savvy workforce constraints. Smaller businesses, in contrast, are more likely to outsource to access very specialized skills, GlobalData said, and “may prioritize rapid innovation over very specialized roles.” 

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