As life sciences companies navigate the latest economic uncertainties, cloud technologies are proving to be a major catalyst for innovation and growth. Recent Wipro research shows the industry’s cloud leaders—those with the highest levels of cloud maturity—are reaping significant benefits from their cloud investments, including 3-year cumulative revenue gains of over 5%.
Thanks to cloud adoption, life sciences cloud leaders have remained agile and resilient since COVID-19’s arrival, with cloud investments driving business continuity to ensure firms can deliver new and established treatments to market. Cloud leaders also report greater improvements in decision making, customer satisfaction, and market share than companies in the earlier stages of cloud maturity, and their average 3-year annualized cloud return on investment (ROI) is estimated to be 51%.
For enterprises new to cloud technologies, understanding how cloud leaders are achieving these benefits can provide a foundation for strengthening performance and developing greater maturity.
With an effective plan for enhancing cloud operations, life sciences firms can accelerate drug discovery and product development while furthering improvements in supply chain management and compliance, all of which are crucial in a highly competitive industry.
The insights shared in this report are based on a survey conducted for Wipro between June and September 2021 by ThoughtLab Group to analyze the current and future patterns of enterprise-level cloud adoption. Overall respondents included 1,400 executives from organizations ranging in size from less than $5 billion in annual revenue to more than $20 billion, with the largest share in the midsized category. The survey included 109 life sciences enterprises located in Australia, France, Germany, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S. All respondents were knowledgeable or very knowledgeable about the use of cloud technologies at their respective organizations. The largest portion of respondents (18%) were the heads of business units or divisions, 16% were chief financial officers, 12% were chief digital officers, 11% were chief executive officers or presidents, 9% said they report directly to the C-level or business unit head, and the remainder reported that they hold C-level positions such as CTO or CIO.
To calculate cloud maturity, an analysis of each healthcare provider determined the cloud progress it is making, the percentage of applications it operates in the cloud, and the number of advanced technologies it uses in conjunction with the cloud. Based on those criteria, the top 20% of healthcare provider respondents were classified as cloud leaders, the middle 42% as intermediate users, and the remaining 38% as beginners.
