[March 06, 2024]

Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries Look to AI and Automation to Boost Growth and Productivity, According to Clari and FiercePharma Study

Clari, the leading Revenue Platform, today announced that more than two-thirds of healthcare and life sciences sales leaders plan to implement AI and/or sales automation technology in the next three years to drive much-needed data accuracy and sales productivity. That's according to the findings of a new Clari-commissioned study by FiercePharma to discover how healthcare and life sciences sales teams are performing in these turbulent times and how sales leaders are positioning for future growth.

When healthcare and life sciences sales and revenue leaders ranked their priorities, retaining and expanding existing accounts ranked first at 20% of respondents, followed by selling into new accounts at 19%, and increasing sales productivity at 18%. Increased competition and the economy are keeping them up at night, as are abysmal conversion rates, with a majority of executives reporting that 20-40% of deals aren't closing. One quarter of executives reported even higher non-conversion rates.

According to the new study¹ - "The State of Sales in Healthcare and Life Sciences" - sales and revenue leaders are focused on finding ways to accelerate sales productivity and are looking to AI and automation within the next one to three years to drive gains. Additional key findings include:

• Team collaboration, forecasting, data quality, and coaching are top priorities. The four tactics executives believe are most important for improving sales outcomes are collaboration across teams (67%), more accurate sales forecasts (42%), and improved data quality and sales coaching (tied at 38%).
• Leaders aren't confident in sales forecasts. Esimates of sales forecast accuracy varied widely between executives, but it was generally very low. About a third (32%) believe their forecasts are 50-75% accurate, while 27% believe their forecasts are 25-50% accurate. 12% rate their forecast accuracy at a woeful 20% or less.
• Sellers want more time for sales, less time on data entry. 60% of executives say their reps are spending too much time on administrative tasks like entering data into CRM systems. Approximately three out of four executives report that sellers are spending up to five hours a week on these tasks, with 26% spending even more time entering data vs. creating relationships and selling to doctors.
• Investments in AI and data automation tools will drive productivity. One out of four executives reported that their sales organizations are currently using AI and/or data automation. Within the next 3 years, 67% of executives expect AI and/or sales automation technology to be implemented to drive data accuracy and sales productivity.

"Clari has saved us enormous time. It's just fantastic to look at and dissect your pipeline activity currently or next quarter or the quarter after.

Clari has really simplified all of our processes. We can easily see all deals, what we are going to call, what we are not going to call, and what's at risk. I can also deep dive into those deals during one-on-ones."

- Jonathan Slasinski, Head of Commercial Training and Education, Singular Genomics

"Clari helps us understand if the number at the end is the 'same' as the number at the beginning (i.e., same deals). We were accurate (called the right number), but were we precise (shipped the forecasted product)?"

- Keith Moore, Director of Revenue Operations, PerkinElmer

AI and automation tools promote easier access to data with the ability to streamline Revenue

Operations or Sales Operations. A commissioned study conducted by Forrester on behalf of Clari shows that the Clari platform significantly reduces "revenue leak" - the loss of earned revenue that has not been captured due to breakdowns in the revenue process, such as deal slippage, inaccurate billing, error-prone manual processes, bad data, unbilled services, or human error. The platform helped customers save 40% more committed revenue ($9.6B) after customers leveraged the platform for over a year.

The complete FiercePharma study is available to download here.

About Clari

Clari is the leader in Revenue Collaboration & Governance, providing the only enterprise platform to run the most important business process: Revenue. More than 1,500 organizations - including Okta, Adobe, Workday, Zoom, and Finastra - run revenue on Clari to improve win rates, prevent slipped deals, forecast with accuracy, and boost the productivity of all revenue-critical employees. Visit clari.com and follow us on LinkedIn.

¹ This online survey was sponsored by Clari in partnership with FiercePharma. Research was conducted from September to December 2023, during which time 106 executives (database contacts from Questex, FiercePharma's parent company) completed the survey. 106 executives completed the email survey.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240306315635/en/

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