BOSTON - The Internet, for PR and marketing professionals, is becoming more functional than flashy, especially for research and development, product launches and even talking to the media.
Pharmaceutical companies, for example, are shifting business to the Web to expedite the new drug approval process while manufacturing companies are looking to online technology to develop a "collaborative environment" with the media. Electronic "collaboration solution" heavyweights like Lotus Development Corp.'s [LOTS] Lotus Notes and Microsoft Corp.'s [MSFT] Microsoft Exchange are allowing communication professionals to call the shots more efficiently on how key information should be internally and externally transported.
The topic of e-business, and the exciting new lightning-speed level of communication it allows, headlined the Medical Marketing Association's conference held here last week. Here, we look at two corporate examples of how Lotus has transformed communications for administrators, PR professionals and marketing as well as research departments.
Using pharmaceutical companies as well as a few manufacturing and telecommunications companies as case studies, Mickey Hollison, Lotus's global industry manager in the healthcare division conveyed how the Lotus Notes Network (LNN) is being adopted and customized by a cross-section of industries for a multitude of electronic workflow solutions.
New Communication Platform
Prior to Bayer Corp. incorporating Lotus Notes into its new product launch process in early 1996, communicating among marketing, research and the factories was time-consuming and complex, especially during the FDA approval process.
Bayer's version of Notes, called the Candidate Management System (CMS), accelerated company-wide communications for new drug ventures in the FDA "package insert" draft stage.
Once the package insert (the loose document inside every drug package describing the characteristics of the drug) is completed, drug companies use it to alert the FDA that the drug has been clinically tested and is ready for approval.
CMS allows Bayer to post a draft of the package insert at the beginning of the launch phase to all the relevant project teams for tracking test results, filling in charts, and planning progress meetings. CMS, (which cost in the low five figures to develop) also:
- Identifies candidate drugs that will not make it past the FDA early on. Bayer can use its resources to focus on those drugs that will be approved;
- Streamlines the process associated with gathering and organizing the information and supporting scientific findings that are required for FDA approval; and
- Allows Bayer to get to market earlier, allowing Bayer to secure its reign longer as a market leader.
Streamlining PR
Developed a key component of its $1.6 million "Office 21" project, Chrysler Corp. [C] overhauled its computing environment with new hardware, software and networks in 1995.
The first Notes application was used in the PR department to streamline the press release process. The "Press Release Form" features spaces to list all the readers/editors, the release date, the Chrysler contact, the originating location and the date by which the author of the press release needs feedback. After it has gone through its editing process, the press release is ultimately posted on the newswires and on Chrysler's Web page (http://www.chrysler.com).
"We are using this application in other areas of our organization that employ the same process," says Steve Harris, Chrysler's director of PR.
One of those other areas is speech writing. The speech writing group plans to store all of the speeches written for and delivered by Chrysler executives in a Notes database. PR staffers will be able to view the list by speaker, topic, date delivered and content. Speech writers, in particular, can access key messages from other speeches to use in the speeches they are writing to ensure consistency among speakers.
And using the same Notes application, speeches will be made available to the media. (Lotus, Mickey Hollison, 770/913-1546; Chrysler, Steve Harris, 248/512-9300)