The search for innovation

Big players in infocomm

Wonder if they'll ever introduce sexily-clad models in medical conferences?

If you haven't been living in Timbuktu, you'd known that Singapore is playing host to the mother of all infocomm convention in this part of the world this week. I made a brief trip down to the expo just to busk in the exhilarating air of innovation and rapid advancement (albeit in the technological -ahem?? field)

For a regional event, describing it as massive seems to be an understatement, it is goliath, more impressive than most of the international medical conferences that i have attended. And this is merely for the expo, i did not register for the lectures.

If pharma is a trillion-dollar industry as quoted by oprah winfrey, then infocomm must be a mega-hexa-bazookazillion dollar industry. As i walked around the booths, i smell money, an obscene amount at that! What intrigued me most was that many companies (no small players) are offering their products and services for free! it is absolutely mind-boggling. i wonder about the invisible revenue streams and if i'm missing out something that these tech geeks have sussed out.

before i proceed, let me clarify that i am not posting in the wrong blog, i have not digressed to a non-related industry. my attendance at communicasia was to learn about the ever-evolving and highly morphological industry who is always at the forefront of things. While it is important to keep abreast of clinical and scientific information, one must be able to spot trends in an increasingly-converging world. and infocomm plays a big role in the current and progressive future of healthcare. http://www.ida.gov.sg/Infocomm%20Adoption/20060406150532.aspx

have i gleaned anything useful? plenty, but i'm not about to go into details with the techy stuff. instead, i gathered some perspective (which are always useful) about how disparate pharma is from the rest of the other industry. And even within the industry, how dissimilar pharma marketing is across the globe.

for you see, in pharma, things are pretty mundane and predictable. our product offering (drugs, devices, nutritionals, supplements, etc) business models, sales channels have remained the same since civilisation began trading. with the immense amount of governance the industry is subjected to, hardly anyone dares to challenge conventions. this in turns, stifle business innovations and marketing creativity.

This fact is even more glaring in Singapore, unlike US, where DTC promotions are permitted. Without the advertising portion, how then do the PMs spend their A&P? sponsorships (primarily, in various facades), marketing collaterals, samples, sales incentives, etc. Big YAWN for the consumer marketer.

It would be convenient to blame tight compliance for the lack of brilliant ideas, but surely a good marketer should be at the forefront of trends to understand market dynamics and identify opportunities. Looking around, you'll spot the typical PM spouting endlessly of strategies but when it comes to executions, they consider a trip out to the field as gathering market intelligence and holding a CME as action superieur.

Its about time too, that this industry sheds the grossly inadequate title of product managers in this age when IMC is being embraced if they expect their effectual outputs to include the rest of the 6 P's.