This HfS Research Blueprint: Pharmaceuticals Industry–Specific BPO Blueprint, looks at the evolution of Pharma BPO to “As-a-Service”—a market that is increasingly agile, collaborative, and consumer-centric. HfS considers this transition in outsourcing a move to the As-a-Service Economy, placing increasing value on diverse talent, analytics, and collaboration, as well as increasingly on platform-based services.

Thus, in this Blueprint we use the 8 Ideals of the As-a-Service Economy as a significant element of our service provider assessment methodology. The eight ideals describe the operations of service buyers and service buyers in a business outcome–focused outsourcing partnership.

Two of the significant ways that pharmaceuticals companies “touch” consumers are in the R&D process and through sales and marketing. Along these lines, the scope of the Blueprint is business process support for industry-specific Pharmaceutical Research & Development and Commercial Services, including clinical data management, pharmacovigilance, regulatory support, consumer experience management, and sales and marketing.

The report includes a comparative analysis of the innovation and execution capabilities of service providers in this market. The service providers in scope are multi-national, multi-functional service providers with industry-specific pharmaceuticals business process support capability in their portfolio: Accenture, Cognizant, Genpact, HCL, TCS, Tech Mahindra, and WNS.