Unlocking Competitive Advantage: The Evolving Role of Market Research in Healthcare

February 2025               (Read Time 10 minutes)

By Fabrice Dussol, Ken Kirsch, Claire Macchia, Diana Pohle, and Lynn Ricker

Core Considerations

1.  You Must Balance Speed and Quality in Market Research and Analytics:
The rapid advancement of technology and the push for faster decision-making often lead organizations to prioritize speed over quality in insights generation. This can result in the loss of valuable strategic insights, ultimately affecting commercial planning and execution. Companies must strike a balance by investing in both digital analytics and harmonizing largely available data to unlock meaningful insights and drive competitive advantage.

2.  The Role of Market Research in Decision-Making Is Evolving:
Market research remains essential for understanding patient and provider needs, even as advanced analytics and AI become more prominent. Integrating insights into decision-making processes ensures that organizations move beyond being merely data-informed to becoming truly insights-driven. Executive sponsorship and cross-functional collaboration are crucial to embedding market research as a strategic partner in business planning.

3.  You Should Harness GenAI Responsibly to Enhance Insights:
While Generative AI (GenAI) presents opportunities to streamline processes and enhance efficiency, it should complement rather than replace traditional market research. Ensuring quality control and human validation of AI-driven insights is critical to both ensure the voice of the customer is accurately represented and that misinformed decisions are avoided. Market research teams play a key role in guiding organizations on the responsible use of GenAI to enhance strategic value without compromising the integrity of insights.


The Changing Landscape of Healthcare Market Research

The healthcare industry is evolving at an unprecedented pace. With advancements in technology and the rise of Generative AI (GenAI), decision-makers are under increasing pressure to act quickly. However, speed should not come at the cost of strategic insight. Intellus Worldwide members have observed that organizations experience a loss of the strategic insights that often dampen the impact of commercial planning and execution when investment in digital, advanced analytics, and GenAI comes at the expense of market research. Designing an optimal market research and analytics organizational structure requires proper investment in both. In striking the right balance, organizations can mitigate the potential risk of overlooking important context that helps enterprises unlock and validate true insights for competitive advantage and optimal outcomes. Simply put, market research remains a critical function, providing the context and understanding that analytics alone cannot achieve.

Why Market Research Matters Now More Than Ever:

●       It uncovers the "why" behind the data, helping businesses make informed, patient-centric decisions.
●       It provides a strategic lens that balances innovation, speed, and quality.
●       It offers a unique competitive advantage by identifying unmet needs and market opportunities.

Case Study: When Data Alone Isn't Enough

In recent years, Intellus Worldwide has observed a trend of companies undervaluing market research and over-relying on advanced analytics to the detriment of these businesses. Just because data can be churned through a predictive model does not necessarily mean that it can generate good answers, let alone direct the right action. There are no shortcuts to good insight.

To illustrate this point, consider market research conducted by one of the authors a few years ago that uncovered a pivotal insight that transformed a pharmaceutical brand's performance. Despite strong messaging and positive reception, sales were underwhelming. Through focus groups with physicians, the team discovered that doctors were no longer focused on treating the primary condition—thanks to advancements in treatment—but were instead prioritizing comorbidities associated with aging patients.

Key Lesson:
Primary market research provided the human perspective that data alone couldn't capture, leading to a successful repositioning of the brand’s messaging.  The shift from efficacy to long-term tolerability resulted in improved sales—a clear demonstration of market research’s enduring value.

Elevating Market Research in the Decision-Making Process

Organizations that position market research as a core strategic function can:

●       Enhance Decision-Making: Move from being merely data-informed to insights-driven.
●       Integrate with Marketing Strategy: Collaborate with marketing, strategic planning, and brand positioning.
●       Align with Leadership Goals: Ensure insights inform key business objectives at the highest levels.

To achieve this, market research must move beyond traditional boundaries and be recognized as a co-equal partner in business planning. Some organizations have even shifted their market research teams to report directly to the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), ensuring insights are embedded into strategic decisions.

Market Research and GenAI: Partners, Not Competitors

GenAI is revolutionizing how healthcare businesses operate, but it cannot replace the nuanced understanding that market research professionals provide. Instead, GenAI can complement research efforts by:

●       Accelerating data analysis and compliance reviews.
●       Enhancing the efficiency of project planning and execution.
●       Providing new tools for identifying patterns and trends.

However, human oversight remains essential to ensure the quality and integrity of insights derived from AI-generated data.

Protecting and Prioritizing Market Research Budgets

As businesses face financial pressures, it's crucial for functional leaders to remember the high impact of investing in market research:

●       Recall Success Stories: Research leads to measurable business outcomes.  The value of insights garnered through market research and analytics can be monumented within case studies to memorable lessons learned and set up best practices across the organization.

●       Insights are an Investment: Research efforts are a strategic asset, not just a cost.  Functional leaders should use available tools to reorient organizational focus from cost centers to the top line – said another way, from pain to profit. Simultaneously, executive leaders can lend further support to this cultural transformation by also speaking to the business about insights in terms of an investment rather than merely relegating the function to a cost center

●       Amplify the Value of Insights Via Cross-Functional Collaboration: The value of insights can increase dramatically when you build partnerships with other departments.  Through an expansive, collaborative model of insight generation, organizations can broaden stakeholder ownership in investing in the right tools for the business questions at hand.

When inappropriate trade-offs between research and analytics are entertained, the onus is on functional leaders to communicate the opportunity inherent in funding critical engagements as well as to foster transparency of the risks if appropriate investment is not made. This requires a tactful skill in courageous conversations.

The Future of Market Research: A Strategic Imperative

To remain competitive, organizations must recognize that market research is evolving and more essential than ever. It represents the voice of HCPs and Patients and helps companies to make informed decisions to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty by addressing their needs and challenges directly. The next-generation market research team is not only embracing cutting-edge tools but also shaping the strategic direction of their businesses.

Concluding Takeaways

Market Research as a Competitive Edge: Market research provides critical insights that drive strategic decision-making and business growth.

Embracing Innovation: Market research teams are evolving to champion new technologies like GenAI, enhancing their ability to generate impactful insights.

Investing in Insights: Protecting and prioritizing market research budgets ensures businesses stay ahead in a rapidly changing healthcare landscape.

By prioritizing market research and embedding it within strategic decision-making, healthcare organizations can unlock new opportunities, adapt to evolving patient needs, and drive sustainable growth.

Looking ahead, the healthcare industry must:

●       Embrace market research as an evolving, dynamic function.
●       Leverage insights to stay ahead of industry shifts.
●       Encourage a culture of continuous learning and adaptation.

For more insights and thought leadership in market research, consider engaging with Intellus Worldwide—where professionals stay at the forefront of industry innovation.

About the Authors

Fabrice Dussol is Head of US Commercial Strategy at AplusA Research, Ken Kirsch is a Director with AVEO Oncology – an LG Chem company, Claire Macchia is a Managing Partner at Day One Strategy, Diana Pohle is a Senior Director at BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Lynn Ricker is a Principal and the Founder of KnowVanta. All authors of this paper are committee members of the Intellus Worldwide Integral Insights Taskforce.

This article was informed by a roundtable discussion among industry thought leaders at the September 2024 Intellus Worldwide Institute and edited by the Intellus Worldwide Integral Insights Taskforce.

The authors would like to express their deepest gratitude to Diana Pohle, PhD. for leading the Integral Insights Taskforce, and for her effort in producing this article.