Christophe Brock | Head of Impact, Strategic Consulting, Precision AQ
Most biopharma organisations agree on the importance of omnichannel. Far fewer are executing it reliably. The gap is not strategy. It is capability.
Across biopharma, there is now broad agreement at leadership level that customer experience (CX) is a meaningful commercial growth driver. And the evidence supports this conviction.
Research reveals a consistent chain: stronger omnichannel engagement correlates with better CX performance; better CX drives higher brand net promoter score (NPS) and higher brand NPS is associated with stronger sales and market share evolution.
The link OC → CX → NPS → Sales is no longer a working assumption. It is measurable.
What organisations are still working out is how to act on it.
Despite strong alignment on ambition, many organisations struggle to translate omnichannel strategy into reliable execution. The challenge is not defining a vision, but building a multiyear roadmap and the organisational muscle to deliver on it, repeatedly. This gap widens when leaders are not visibly leading by example—because without leadership behaviours reinforcing the roadmap day‑to‑day, strategy fails to translate into sustained execution.
The result is a familiar pattern: teams agree on the ambition and initiatives get launched, but coherent cross-channel engagement proves harder than expected to sustain. Progress slows, not because intent is lacking, but because the conditions for reliable execution are not yet in place.
Today, the real gap in omnichannel is no longer between knowing and wanting. It is between wanting and doing.
Two factors consistently differentiate organisations that feel confident in their omnichannel execution from those that do not: the disciplined use of customer insights to guide channel and content decisions, and the ability of teams to act on those insights in practice. The second factor is the decisive one.
Maturometer data shows that differences in training and capability emerge as the single strongest differentiator between organisations satisfied with their omnichannel execution and those that are not.
Without targeted capability building, omnichannel remains an aspiration. The data leave little room for doubt on this point.
Most omnichannel capability building in the industry focuses on education: frameworks, process guides, e-learning modules. The content is often solid, but education alone is not enough.
Less than one third of pharma staff considers their organisation’s current training programmes to be effective at building digital and omnichannel capability. The Maturometer is unambiguous on this point.
Most programmes explain what omnichannel is but offer limited opportunity to practise the decisions it requires. Teams learn the language without developing the judgement. The result is surface-level alignment: everyone agrees on the model but hesitation remains underneath, because navigating real tradeoffs in practice is something that teams have rarely had the chance to rehearse.
This is where learning and development (L&D) teams in biopharma are beginning to look beyond conventional formats. The question is no longer whether to invest in capability, but how to create the conditions in which teams develop the confidence and shared judgement that execution actually requires.
Hands-on approaches, simulations and scenario-based learning environments where teams make real decisions and observe the consequences, address the gap that knowledge transfer alone cannot close. They allow teams to build a common understanding of what effective omnichannel execution looks like, not in theory but in practice.
Omnitopia, a simulation environment built specifically for biopharma omnichannel teams, works on this principle. Rather than explaining omnichannel, it makes it tangible: teams work through realistic scenarios, learn to understand the value of good customer insights, experience the consequences of their choices and develop a shared sense of what good looks like across channels, content and customer interactions.
The aim is for participants to leave not just with knowledge, but with sharper judgement, stronger cross-functional alignment and the confidence to make better decisions when it matters.
The OC → CX → NPS → Sales chain is well established. The remaining challenge, and the real opportunity, is ensuring that teams are genuinely equipped to deliver on it.
When omnichannel learning shifts from theory to experience, CX stops being a strategic aspiration and starts becoming a repeatable driver of growth. The organisations that will pull ahead are not those with the boldest vision, but those that invest in making insights-driven execution their second nature.
* 52% of HCPs are not happy with biopharma’s digital engagement - Navigator365 Core 2024 Specialists, n=5488