Focus Magazine - Spring 2015 - 23

FEATURESTORY

Learning in Changing Times:
5 Trends in Life Sciences Learning
I By Ann Stott and Rich Mesch

T

here's no denying that changes in the world economy
are having an eﬀect on every industry. And the life
sciences industry is feeling the eﬀect like everyone
else. As budgets for learning and development get battered
from all sides, the savviest life sciences learning
organizations have realized a simple truth: it isn't about
doing more with less, it's about fundamentally rethinking
the way learning and development gets done.
Some of the most respected organizations in the life
sciences industry are rethinking their approach to
organizational learning, whether by
restructuring their learning function,
changing the way they resource
initiatives, re-evaluating
partnership models, or
reprioritizing learning needs.

Trend #1:
Rethinking Product
Launches
Once upon a time,
product launch meant one
thing: A new blockbuster
drug coming to market.
Budgets for product launches
were vast, as companies ran
large-scale events, produced
mountains of literature for
salespeople, healthcare professionals
and patients, and emblazoned logos on golfshirts, laptop bags, totes and pens.
You don't have to look far to see how much things have
changed. Blockbuster drugs have become far less prevalent
and new dosages and new indications have become much
more common; organizations need to prepare for a new
future with 10 or more launches annually. e historical
approach of big productions, time out of the field, and
national meetings will not fit the current business need. e
new model means more frequent launches on a smaller
scale. And with smaller budgets, planning is key; how many
launches will you need to support each year? What is the

FOCUS | SPRING 2015 | www.L-TEN.org

impact of each launch? Who needs to be included? How do
you reach your audience in a memorable and cost-eﬀective
way? Pharmaceutical companies need to evaluate their full
portfolio of launch products and match the appropriate
training plan to the appropriate launch.

Trend #2: A Return to Shared Services
As many life sciences companies grew and diversified,
they tended to adopt decentralized learning models. e
conventional wisdom was that diﬀerent therapeutic areas,
diﬀerent brands, and diﬀerent job types needed
their own unique training strategies.
Diﬀerent lines of business-
manufacturing, R&D, sales,
marketing-each have their own
learning organizations. is
approach definitely has its
merits, but it also can be
expensive, resourceintensive, and complicated
to manage. In many cases,
redundant resources
perform the same role in
multiple learning
organizations, and systems
like content management
systems and learning
management systems are replicated
as well.
In many life sciences organizations, the
pendulum has swung back to a more centralized
model, where a shared pool of resources provides services
to many diﬀerent parts of the organization. While the
primary drive behind this change is cost savings (the same
amount of work completed by far fewer resources), there are
other benefits to this model, including better consistency of
training materials, minimized rework and duplication, and
(in some cases) better content management.
But for organizations used to owning and controlling
their own resources, the shared services model can be a
bitter pill that means less control over materials. Time will

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