1. Achieving IT Strategic Directives
When Evaluating a New Promotional
Content Ecosystem
By embracing a collaborative assessment model to evaluate
technology platforms, life sciences organizations can better
address cross-functional stakeholder needs.
Executive Summary
With the ever-increasing demand for managing
rich media digital content, many life sciences
companies are finding their existing platforms
for promotional material review/approval (MLR),
digital asset management (DAM) and Web
experience management (WEM) inadequate.
Brand teams require accelerated review and
approval of creative content to keep pace with
ever-changing messages and to repurpose
relevant collateral across the enterprise;
meanwhile, commercial operations strive to keep
costs down by repurposing and reusing digital
assets across geographies and lines of business.
In addition to serving changing business needs,
there is tremendous pressure to meet newly estab-
lished IT strategic directives. Examples include
platform rationalization to minimize the need for
in-house expertise; cloud-based SaaS solutions
to minimize IT support costs; integrated platform
vendors to achieve a single point of accountabil-
ity; simplified user training and support services;
and greater volume discounts on application
licenses. With multiple platforms and solutions
available that meet these criteria, choosing the
right platform is a strategic imperative, with
long-term consequences.
While there may be a best-of-breed solution for
each individual component of your organization’s
platform requirements (MLR, DAM, WEM, etc.), an
ecosystem with disparate components is often
suboptimal for achieving strategic imperatives.
Even if organizations embrace a best of breed
approach, they must ensure that each solution
can seamlessly connect with one another via an
open API structure that facilitates integration with
the existing IT ecosystem. One option would be to
define the platform “anchor” that will provide the
central pivotal point for the ecosystem and build
the other solutions around it.
Rating and Ranking Requirements
Our approach enables life sciences organizations
to work more collaboratively to determine what
is best to meet the requirements of stakeholders
across medical, legal, regulatory and commercial
operations disciplines. We’ve created a model to
help cross-functional decision-makers rate and
cognizant 20-20 insights | may 2015
• Cognizant 20-20 Insights

2. cognizant 20-20 insights 2
rank proposed integrated ecosystem criteria and
parameters to determine the best approach to
address key business and IT requirements (see
Figure 1).
We have found that the right solution should
balance four strategic platform selection impera-
tives:
• Business.
• Financial.
• Vendor.
• Technology.
To leverage the model, the first step is for key
stakeholders to define and agree upon the
Prioritizing MLR/DAM Initiatives
Eyes on the Prize
Importance
Probability
A5 B5 C5 D5 E5
A4 B4 C4 D4 E4
A3 B3 C3 D3 E3
A2 B2 C2 D2 E2
A1 B1 C1 D1 E1
Probability Score Importance Score
5 E
4 D
3 C
2 B
1 A
Fit Matrix (A)
Very Low
(B)
Low
(C)
Moderate
(D)
High
(E)
Very High
(5)
Almost
Certain
(4)
High
(3)
Possible
(2)
Unlikely
(1)
Not
Possible
Almost Certain
Very High >80%
High
High 60-80%
Possible
Medium 40-60%
Unlikely
Low 20-40%
Not Possible
Very Low <20%
Very High
>800% of benefits
High
60-80% of benefits
Moderate
40-60% of benefits
Low
20-40% of benefits
Very Low
<20% of benefits
Figure 1
Figure 2
IT Strategic Focus Areas
IT Solution Ratings* for MLR and DAM Ecosystem
* Rating Scale: 1-5 (Company Priority) x 1-5 (Platform Capability)
Strategic
Objective
Criteria Parameters
Business Productivity • Agency workload
• Collaboration
• Disruption
• Functionality
• Mobile access
• Pre-built global user workflows
(U.S. gatekeeper-centric)
• Repurposing/reuse of assets
• Review cycle time
• Single source repository
• Upload time
Compliance • Business rules configuration
• Integrated with source files
(including interactive assets)
• Single source repository for all assets
(in development and approved with all
comments)
Financial Platform • Build, run and maintenance
• Platform ustream/downstreamsystem
changes(API)
• Platform validation
• Single global instance
Process • Agency spend
• Business rule requirements (customization)
• Support services
Strategic
Objective
Criteria Parameters
Vendor
Industry
Presence
• Customer base
• Life science focus
• Industry reports
Platform • Product maturity
• Third-party licensed
modules
Technology
Architecture • Mobility
• Open API architecture
• Single instance
• Single/multi tenant
• SOA-ready
Implementation • Application
• Deployment
• Configuration/custom-
ization
• Integration
• Migration
Service Model • Cloud-based SaaS
• DEV/QA/PROD
• Validated environment
Strategic Focus
Area
Criteria
Business Productivity Compliance
Financial Platform Process
Vendor Industry Presence Platform
Technology Industry Presence Platform
Key Takeaways
1. Platform Green and Blue are aligned
with company’s strategic objectives
with marginal differences.
2. Platform Blue provides incremental
core MLR/DAM platform benefits.
3. However, Platform Green aligns with
IT ecosystem directives.
4. Do incremental platform benefits
outweigh IT directives?
SAMPLE OUTPUT
25
20
15
10
5
0
Productivity Compliance Platform Process
Industry
Presence
Platform Architecture Implementation
Service
Model
TechnologyVendorFinancialsBusiness
■ Green
■ Blue
■ Orange

3. cognizant 20-20 insights 3
evaluation criteria and sub-parameters for each
strategic area. Parameters are then rated based
on their relative importance to the organization
needs and their relevance to an organizationally
aligned MLR-DAM ecosystem (see Figure 2).
By rating various solutions using the model’s
pre-defined parameters, it becomes easier to
accurately identify the optimal solution that best
fits organizational needs.
A five-phase optimized approach can be followed
to achieve confidence in the output:
• Phase 1: Engagement planning:
Define stakeholders and preferred communi-
cation channels.
Identify high-risk areas.
Refine roles and responsibilities.
Schedule kick-off meeting.
• Phase 2: Pre-work and initiation of
information-gathering:
Sponsor kick-off meeting.
Review existing roles/responsibilities.
Enable stakeholder communication.
Confirm stakeholders and schedule inter-
views.
Review current state documentation.
Complete questionnaire for sponsor review.
Initiate cloud-based options.
• Phase 3: Interviews and assessment:
Conduct stakeholder interviews on existing
platform gaps.
Continue current and cloud-based assess-
ments.
Validate current-state docs.
Incorporate learnings from prior assessment
work.
• Phase 4: Analysis output and draft delivery:
Complete analysis on all stakeholders and
platforms.
Provide future-needs working draft sum-
mary, inclusive of cloud-based recommenda-
tions.
Schedule feedback session with sponsor.
• Phase 5: Business case and final presentation:
Refine final deliverable based upon sponsor
feedback.
In conjunction with sponsor, conduct meet-
ing on internal findings.
Since every organization is unique, there may not
be one perfect model output; however, the model
does provide qualified directional guidance by
ranking the various parameters through the
collective lens of stakeholder requirements.
Essentially, the model output is a customized
directional viewpoint for any organization.
This entire process has the added benefit of
uncovering significant discrepancies regarding
important parameters across various functional
areas. In our experience, some departments feel
it is urgent to reduce costs, while others do not
believe change is needed to avoid business disrup-
tions; meanwhile, smaller functional areas simply
want to be able to leverage existing content.
In our view, the IT department is or should be at
the forefront of these changes. IT’s challenge is
to demonstrate value to the business. Partnering
early in the discussions and evaluation process
will bring clarity to the proposed benefits and
improve cross-functional collaboration, which
is critical for obtaining buy-in for a successful
transition.
Finally, the benefit of leveraging a scorecard is that
all voices can be heard and robust discussions can
be had across functions, revealing outputs clearly
visible to all. By debating the valuation of various
criteria parameters in an open forum, all interests
can be weighed, challenged and agreed upon
within a model. The focus then becomes how the
model’s output best serves organizational needs
— beyond individual functional interests.
Looking Ahead: Next Steps
Change is a constant theme within the life sciences
industry, and the IT function is the primary
catalyst for much of this change. Successful tran-
sitions start with a partnership among all key
internal stakeholders, enabling them to engage
and be part of the solution. By embracing a collab-
orative assessment model to evaluate technology
platforms, life sciences organizations can better
address cross-functional stakeholder needs.
The major steps are as follows:
• Create a governance advisory committee
comprised of functional leads to provide the
necessary guidance and accountability for
their respective representatives on a pro-
motional ecosystem technology assessment
(PETA) team.

4. About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business
process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world’s leading companies build stronger busi-
nesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfac-
tion, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative
workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 100 development and delivery centers worldwide
and approximately 217,700 employees as of March 31, 2015, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100,
the SP 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and
fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.
World Headquarters
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Teaneck, NJ 07666 USA
Phone: +1 201 801 0233
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Email: inquiry@cognizant.com
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­­© Copyright 2015, Cognizant. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission from Cognizant. The information contained herein is
subject to change without notice. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.
About the Author
Andrew Isaacs is a Principal in Cognizant’s Analytics Life Sciences Business Unit. He has over 25
years of life sciences experience, focusing on leading global commercial operations and technology
optimization teams, marketing excellence, brand management teams, lifecycle planning, stakehold-
er management and governance/change management. Andrew was the commercial processes and
practices lead for a global pharmaceuticals company and chief strategy officer for a life sciences
medical communications agency. He also introduced “marketing excellence” at a global life sciences
company and launched multiple products and services and oversight for global new product develop-
ment. He has an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering, an M.B.A./M.S. graduate degree and
post-graduate certificates in project management and new product development. He recently authored
the point of view “Accelerating Bio-Pharma’s Marketing Transformation.” Andrew can be reached at
Andrew.Isaacs@cognizant.com.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Lovelina Gupta for her contributions to this white paper.
Codex 1360
• Have co-owners (IT and business) of the PETA
team create a charter that clearly establishes
scope, goals and deliverables.
• Engage the PETA team across functional rep-
resentatives with the primary goal of defining
and/or refining the criteria and parameters
of the key areas of strategic focus in the
technology assessment model.
• Once the model is complete, assess the prelimi-
nary output, based on your strategic partners’
insights and inputs.
• Schedule live demonstrations of select platform
providers to ensure that any strengths/gaps in
the model are clarified.
• Regroup internally to refine the parameters
and/or ratings of the platforms being evaluated.
• Review final findings with the PETA team to
ensure alignment.
• Review final directional output with the
governance team.
With the right approach and strategic partner,
IT can collaborate with business stakeholders
to shape the future-state technology roadmap
for building an optimized promotional content
ecosystem.