Digital & Advanced Analytics

We help medtech companies drive digital and advanced-analytics transformations to accelerate performance and enhance productivity across the entire value chain.

Medtech companies face significant opportunities and challenges amid the increasingly rapid developments within advanced analytics and digital technology, introduction of new entrants, and changing customer expectations. To help our clients stay ahead of the curve, we help develop strategies, build digital and advanced-analytics capabilities within their organizations, and apply our vast medtech knowledge and network to capture value at stake.

What we do

Digital and analytics transformations

Through our proven approach, we help global medtech leaders enhance their performance and competitiveness by focusing on defining the vision and strategy, executing priority use cases for value creation, building the data infrastructure, implementing agile ways of working, designing the organizational model, and managing change thoughtfully to make it sustainable.

R&D and product development

We help improve R&D performance and drive innovation through digital, analytics, and design tools. Examples include improving clinical-trial efficiency and site selection through artificial intelligence (AI), identifying drivers of R&D performance and ways to optimize processes through advanced analytics, and building products with enhanced precision, connectivity, and usability.

Manufacturing and supply-chain management

We help medtech companies drive operations efficiency by applying advanced analytics to the entire value chain. Examples of this include optimizing manufacturing, plant, and distribution networks using big data; maximizing yield through advanced analytics and real-time changes to flow; rightsizing inventory through statistical analytics and new technologies, such as radio-frequency identification; enhancing supply-chain planning with 24/7 sensing and dashboards; reducing engineering costs with predictive maintenance and machine data; and deploying automation in manufacturing and procurement.

Marketing and sales

We help clients unlock growth opportunities across all marketing and commercial levers. This includes setting up digital channels for patient-clinician engagement and e-commerce; deploying AI to predict purchase likelihood and define next steps for sales representatives; predicting and identifying under-diagnosed and under-treated patients using claims and electronic-medical-records data to better target patients; applying digital tools to optimize salesforce structures and deployment at the institution and physician-level; enhancing B2B-pricing opportunities with dynamic deal-scoring algorithms; and validating product value proposition and reimbursement with empirical evidence.

Enabling capabilities

We help improve productivity through automation in HR, finance, and IT and enable better decision making through enhanced competitive intelligence and forecasting capabilities.

Examples of our work

Digital transformation

A leading medical-device manufacturer was experiencing fragmented legacy data and systems, hundreds of interdependencies, and a large number of SKUs. We deployed a multiyear digital transformation across R&D, commercialization, and supply-chain management to create a stable data backbone, digitize core processes, and enable advanced decision analytics. We deployed our proprietary Agile@Scale tool with 50-plus integrated business-IT teams, executed a distinct IT approach, and supported value assurance and culture change in deploying solutions to 30,000-plus users across the organization.

Digitizing a manufacturing process

A medical-device company was experiencing low manufacturing efficiency due to inconsistent paper-based procedures, which led to lost productivity in manual processes (that is, changeover, start-up, line cleaning). We deployed an end-to-end digital transformation that included digitizing all shop-floor procedures through a platform accessible by mobile phones and tablets and connected operators to supervisors and technicians through real-time workflow. These efforts resulted in an 85 percent reduction in paper work and ~15 percent increase of throughput and capacity.

Salesforce targeting and deployment

A leading orthopedics company faced revenue stagnation and sought to identify new growth levers. We conducted granular growth opportunity and coverage analytics using our Rep Planner tool and uncovered several growth levers, such as enhancing coverage in high-growth accounts, deploying a low-cost coverage model in low-priority accounts to free up capacity, redesigning territories to balance work load, and designing new incentives to focus on growth. This resulted in a ~5 to 10 percent revenue improvement opportunity over the next 3 years.

Dynamic deal scoring

A global $10 billion-plus medical-device company faced continuous pricing declines across product and service contracts. We worked with them to deploy a holistic pricing transformation across ten levers that included developing and integrating an advanced-analytics algorithm to predict customer-specific target prices based on multiple variables. This resulted in an estimated $100 million earnings-before-interest-and-taxes impact over the next 2 years.

Process automation

A global medical-devices firm with existing capabilities in automation sought to understand additional automation use cases. We assessed 1,200-plus tasks across seven back-office processes (for example, record to report, recruit to retire, plan to forecast) to identify automation potential and the automation technologies needed to capture that potential (for example, robotic process automation, machine learning, and smart workflows). This resulted in $19 million to $24 million savings opportunities identified.

Featured capabilities

DNA transformation: Our approach to conducting enterprise-wide digital and analytics transformations through small-scale, impactful end-to-end journeys. We have developed a comprehensive playbook with step-by-step guides to support clients through multiyear transformations.

QuantumBlack: A McKinsey company that specializes in advanced analytics and big data to improve clients’ organizational performance and growth. Teams of data engineers, data scientists, and designers combine their expertise of integrating diverse and granular data with the latest tools, like artificial intelligence. From there, they develop explanatory algorithms to find performance drivers and predictive and optimization algorithms to capture value. This approach brings deep insights across areas, such as predicting age of onset of chronic diseases, accelerating R&D, and increasing sales through optimized commercial and marketing activities. Learn more

Digital Labs: Our multidisciplinary team of product and data engineers, experience designers, agile coaches, and more that help clients solve problems of uncertainty, such as shifting customer preferences, disruptive competitors, new technology, and talent decisions. They do this by creating products, experiences, and businesses with cutting-edge digital tools and user-centric design thinking. Learn more

CARE (Center for Analytics and Real-World Evidence): A specialized team that conducts advanced analytics with diverse sources of data to determine high-potential physicians and accounts for targeting, identify under-diagnosed and under-treated patients, quantify benefits of different treatments and procedures, and facilitate the use of empirical evidence for targeted evaluations of treatment outcomes.

Rep Planner: A cloud-based sales analytics and planning platform that calculates growth potential by account, conducts granular account segmentation, optimizes salesforce coverage, and translates insights into field-ready plans.

Featured experts

Featured Insights

Discussion Paper - McKinsey Global Institute

Notes from the AI frontier: Applications and value of deep learning

April 17, 2018 – An analysis of more than 400 use cases across 19 industries and nine business functions highlights the broad use and significant...

Article

How medical-device CEOs can navigate digital disruption in healthcare

October 31, 2017 – Medical-device companies will need to reinvent themselves to stay competitive. Now’s the time to craft a strategy and scale...

Article

Four keys to successful digital transformations in healthcare

April 25, 2017 – By taking a comprehensive approach to digitization, healthcare companies can deliver products and services more quickly, boost...

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