Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15507

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Sadika Sultana M, Manivannan L.
Knowledge Management in Pharmaceutical Marketing: Theoretical Models
Social Science Research Network 2009 Mar 23; 7:(2):62-76
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1366930

Abstract:

Knowledge is the most valuable asset of a pharmaceutical company. It is also seen through the ages that only those who make a systematic effort can acquire knowledge. Today, Knowledge management is a growing field of study. Several principles of management apply to knowledge management as well. One can go back to the time of the Hawthorne experiments to prove this point. It differs from other business processes, where only information handling is given much importance. On the other hand, knowledge management, particularly in the area of pharamaceuticals, requires expertise in several related fields. The context is quite complex and the task, enormous. Those firms which rely on knowledge management in the form of information sharing are sure to achieve competitive advantage. The area of knowledge management in the pharmaceutical industry raises more questions than one can give answers to. Is it about knowledge selling? Is it about knowledge storage or inventorying? Is it about a central facility? Should it be decentralized and the important fragments preserved? Is it to be electronic or on paper? This paper is a preliminary step in the ongoing study on the same subject. The paper also presents three simple theoritical models for information sharing, building a knowledge pool and for knowledge audit. There is scope for future improvements in the area. It is not uncommon for pharmaceutical firms to get bogged down by the amount of information they generate at each stage of their operations. This paper attempts a review of handling and sharing of knowledge or electronic data that is available to pharmaceutical firms and the need for introducing Knowledge Audit (KA) in these firms. Methods to achieve the same have also been suggested.