Download the “Outcomes Rocket Podcast_Mahmood Majeed audio file directly.
Outcomes Rocket Podcast_Mahmood Majeed: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Saul Marquez:
Hey everybody! Welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket! Saul Marquez here, and I’m so excited that you tuned in to listen to the show today because I have an incredible leader here with us. His name is Mahmood Majeed. He’s the managing principal and leader of ZS’s Global Digital and Technology Services area, where he leads the strategy, formulation, and execution growth go-to-market teams and partnerships. He’s also responsible for ZS’s technology innovation investment to develop, disrupt, and deploy cutting-edge technology solutions and services that are well-adapted by the industry. ZS, if you guys are not aware, is a leading management consulting and technology firm working with dozens of the top companies in healthcare, and we’re excited to have him here on the podcast with us. So Mahmood, welcome.
Mahmood Majeed:
Thank you. Saul. Thanks for having me.
Saul Marquez:
It’s such a pleasure to have you on here. Before we dive into the work that you’re doing with digital in healthcare, we’d love to learn more about you, Mahmood, what inspires your work in healthcare?
Mahmood Majeed:
Sure, it’s a very interesting story for me, as a, and a very interesting career. I was trained as an architect, so I was a very creative art student, and then, after I finished my undergrad, I actually always have a passion to create something, to do something to really look for things in a very different context than just the usual things. Of course, after my graduation, I did a bit of work in computer science area and then really joined ZS, a small strategy consulting firm with a very purpose-driven focus to drive impact in healthcare and ’til this date, when ZS is a very large firm, our focus has been driving impact in healthcare. And to answer your question, Saul, I’m really inspired by the idea that healthcare has the power to improve and even save lives, and knowing that the work I do directly impact patient lives is a great motivator, and also being passionate of technology and how to really leverage technology to solve complex problem, and that’s what my passion is. How do I leverage technology to improve patient engagements, to ensure that patients are able to get the right treatments at the right time, or even provide the right diagnosis, or even from a biopharma standpoint, help companies accelerate drug discovery, personalizing the treatments, or leveraging technology for a vast array to really drive innovation and improvement in healthcare is really what inspires me.
Saul Marquez:
That’s beautiful. Appreciate that so much, Mahmood. And it is time for us to meet patients where we are. I say we because we’re all patients. And so the work that you’re doing is powerful work, from drug trials to how do I access diagnostic information, what are you, what would you say is the best way you and the business are adding value to the healthcare ecosystem today?
Mahmood Majeed:
So ZS and most of us, our singular focus is to connect healthcare. Healthcare is very, very complicated, and it’s disconnected. And the biggest opportunity is that how do we really, and it’s already changing, there are lots of stakeholders, including pharmaceutical medical devices, providers, payers, regulators, and everybody talks about the connectivity, but as we know, it does not happen. So we believe that if we put all of our mission and energy to connect healthcare and really making sure the stakeholders are able to leverage this connectivity, and I feel the connectivity is happening through the leveraging data, and data is the singular most important element that will connect this, connectivity will make it live. So we are doing this by bringing very unique and innovative approaches to solve these problems, to establish what I call this currency or exchange of value between different stakeholders so they can make better decisions, they can reimagine the business of healthcare, and they can create new opportunities to drive better outcomes.
Saul Marquez:
Well said, Mahmood. And there’s certainly a lot of disconnections beyond the disconnections we’re seeing in healthcare. What else is driving the need for these changes now?
Mahmood Majeed:
So if I was to look at it a little broadly, as we are, as you mentioned, that patients have emerged as consumers of healthcare, where there are increasing opportunities and mechanisms for patients to assert their influence, and we meet where they want those experiences. So as a result, the focus is shifting from talking about features and benefits of treatments to hyper-personalization of experiences for patients. We call it N Equals to One, the quality of life, the quality of … So that’s the one big shift that is happening, that consumerization of patients is going to really significantly drive the disruption of healthcare. I think the pricing pressures are tremendous even just in the context of, let’s say, pharmaceuticals, where $300 billion of pharma sales are at risk over the next 5 to 8 years. So the definition of this whole blockbuster is changing, and pharma needs to cut down this much of its GNA to really drive focus in this industry. The diversification and integration of healthcare entities as well as partnerships have led to a significant consumer and a competitive … shift. In addition, I think if you look at how technology, and again, I’m a true believer that if you look across every industry, technology has actually disrupted those industries, and this is the time for healthcare to actually go through the same disruption as well. And I believe that advancement is technology, advancement is data, and how they’re all coming together, they’re creating this macro force that will really drive the business to be in a different direction than where it is today. If you look at just the healthcare data volume expansion, and variety, this expansion of technology advancements, AI, analytics’ sophistication, are making it easier, much more affordable, and we are able to analyze the data. So the exponential decrease and scalability of pricing, the whole, as we saw the whole cloud computing has reduced almost 99.9%, and that’s where we saw the way the genomic data processing and how the evolution of technology has significantly impacted the potential, the algorithms, the AI, ML, and how large volumes of data is being handled. The most recent trend, the generative AI, ChatGPT, is the latest example of such advancements. So I see that the advancements of technology, the evolution of data, and the regulatory reforms are really driving this macro force for healthcare towards this disruption in a big way.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, couldn’t agree with you more, Mahmood. There’s definitely a lot of different catalyzers for the disruption, and if we don’t take them seriously, we will get disrupted, and there’s an ongoing need to solve these disconnects, right? This theme of disconnects is here, and data plays a pivotal role. That’s where we’ve been focused on in this discussion. What are ways that companies listening to today’s podcast should be thinking about data?
Mahmood Majeed:
Yeah, it’s a very good question, Saul, and I think many clients in the past used to ask this question, How do I get value from data? And we actually tried to reframe the question because the value of data is already proven. The question should be, how do you maximize the value of data? And we think about maximization of value of data, the first is, how do you really create value and capture value with data, and data has the potential to, not only you can capture the value, but you can actually create new value. Let me elaborate on what do you mean by that. When I say how do I capture value, that means that, can I actually use data to enhance my decisions? Can I make better decisions? Can I actually create a competitive advantage, or can I make a decision that can really create a much more different than just me using data to inform a decision to making data as a enabler to drive business decisions? The next element is, how do I use data to improve operations? How do I really create better mechanisms or better processes or find additional efficiencies so I can actually save time, save cost and improve the operations? That’s kind of what call is all in the bucket of how do I capture value with data? But more and more, we are seeing that now you can actually create new value with data, and I believe that pharma companies or even healthcare companies are not just talking about providing clinical products or even just services or what they do in the health ecosystem, but they will be looking for creating new businesses, and data deployment of AI are examples of new businesses. So how you really generate new value and new revenue with data is going to be a key differentiator. So that’s how I say that in some areas, companies just thinking about capturing value or even creating value. But my advice to many data leaders is to think broad and really look at how you really create and capture value with data and venture into new areas that are completely net new for your business.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, that’s a really great perspective, Mahmood, and the challenge sometimes is that there’s so much data, the data is quote-unquote dirty, it’s not structured well. So a lot of companies out there are probably wondering, how can they make this data usable? What necessary changes need to be made to unlock the value that data brings?
Mahmood Majeed:
In my mind, if you have clarity of what you want to do with data, so the first step was, how do you maximize the value of data we just talked about? Now that’s not to say that you can only do it one-off, you have to do it in a very consistent way, and you just have to do it episodic, you have to do it in a way where you’re able to scale across all of your business enterprises, all the things that you do. So how do you create and capture value with data, how do you scale that value, and how do you sustain that value are the three things. So let me, when I talked about the value of data already, but when it comes to scaling the value, this is where leveraging technology, leveraging newer approaches and modern approaches to manage data, implementing newer practices, to really think about data as your asset. So how do you think about, let’s say, verification of data where it’s accessible, it’s integratable, and it’s available, it’s findable, it’s searchable. How do you leverage technology in a way where you’re not just trying to put data in one box and let everybody constrain it, but you’re really liberating the use of data and its spread across all elements of your value chain, and you’re able to really harness the value of data by meeting where the people are using those data sets for? And then how do you do this in a systematic way, in a scalable way, so you’re not just focusing on one area, but you’re doing it across? And more importantly, the other part is, how do you sustain the value? And sustaining the value means, how do you develop an operating model? How do you leverage data as a value creator for your organization? How do you establish partnerships? How do you establish governance? How do you bring users and the consumers of the data together in a way where it meets their needs and it meets their purpose is what they’re trying to do, is really the mechanism to create more adoption.
Saul Marquez:
That’s great, Mahmood. What about in a pharma lens? Like how would you speak to pharma companies, healthcare companies, to continue innovating and sustaining the value they create through data?
Mahmood Majeed:
Yeah, I think every pharma company is now trying to maximize the value of data. And for them, if I look at the traditional pharma companies, they are organized how a drug development process happens, research, clinical development, commercial, development commercial, etc, etc. So the way data is housed today and utilized today is sitting in functions. And while it is very specific for function, there are three things that cannot happen. One is this approach is not scalable. If you’re sitting in a silo, you’re not able to scale across the enterprise, you’re not able to connect the dots. Second one is you’re not able to learn from each other as to what are the different ways others are solving the same problem, leveraging data, and because they sit in silos, they’re not able to really learn from each other. And the third one is the scope of what they can do with data is also very limited. There’s not enough potential to exploit those things beyond what they do. This is where I think pharma companies, what I call is, it’s time for pharma companies to also start thinking about or, what I will say is, walk towards a digital native operating model, which is where data, AI processes are the binding capabilities of your organization. So imagine where multiple functions are actually leveraging a more integrated and a more horizontal capability. Now, that doesn’t mean you try to centralize everything and slow things down. You’re actually able to bring new technologies, new ways of working, and newer paradigms of how you manage data to actually achieve the scale, the scope, and the learning elements of different functions across the pharma companies. Now, where we are seeing these work well, and some companies have already started applying these transformations or working towards this new way of working where they have centralized data, they’ve implemented newer technology approaches like data mesh and systems to really democratize this way of data consumption across the enterprise.
Saul Marquez:
That’s great, Mahmood, thank you for that. And folks, that leaves us with really some clear ways of thinking through the strategy of data for your organization and your business. The silos are certainly not allowing for scalability, and beyond that, you’re unable to use the aggregative power of your organization and, ultimately, the insights and actions you could get out of it if you made data, the binding like how you said it, Mahmood, the binding factors of your organization, you set yourself up for a future that is less impacted by the disruption that will happen if you don’t. Mahmood, you’ve obviously been doing this for a while. We appreciate you coming on here to share the insights that you and ZS are working on with all your clients and as industry leaders. What closing thought would you leave us with as we consider applying data, getting more value out of the data, but adding more value with that data?
Mahmood Majeed:
I think the question of how do you maximize the value of data, how do you scale the value of data is very important, but the most important thing I believe is, how do you sustain the value? How do you ensure that that you are able to really the data is a core part of your existence, of your firm, and what does that look like from an operating model standpoint, which I believe that even though you have the best data assets and you have the best technology to implement it, but if you don’t have the right operating model, companies will struggle. So for me, I think a few things are how do you gain business buy-in, right, and how do you make sure that you’re not trying to slow people down, but you’re trying to add more value in what they do? So how do you create quick wins? How do you really meet the demands of the business where they are, and how do you really help them tell this entire data value story so that way they can activate business outcomes much faster and much, much better than the kinds of things that they do today? How do you structure your organization, the data organizations? Saul, I’ve seen a lot of areas or a lot of examples where companies have tried to centralize everything and slow things down, or they have tried to decentralize everything, and it is completely a chaotic environment. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. How do you really bring the right focus of centralization or decentralization? And you really bring efficiency scale, but at the same time, you give autonomy for innovation, for decision making, and you are able to really pursue your long-term goals. The other element is all the talent, people, and skill development. We are in the era, if I look back ten years back, and if I look at now, everything related to data, the ecosystem, the technology, the ways of working, the way how we consume information, everything has changed, and I feel like sometimes the way people have to evolve is very hard. How do you pivot your talent towards this new way of working in this new digital environment, and how do you really build your skills, and how do you scale that? So that way you’re elevating the, your talent quotient organization-wide consistently. And I think that’s a big focus, in my opinion, for organizations to focus on, the ways of working. The other one is where we used to think of bringing data technology as linear projects, but now with this new platform-product mindset, everything is agile, everything is iterative, everything is fit for purpose. I have developed a capability to solve a business problem and deliver a business outcome, and very quickly, I will repackage the same sets of capability to solve a different business outcome. So how am I really bringing that agility, the interoperability, and the ability to really drive these outcomes in a much more iterative and much faster way? And I think that’s where I would believe, I believe, are very important elements for us to really exploit value of data beyond just putting frameworks or beyond just putting technologies out there.
Saul Marquez:
That’s a great way to close out on this podcast, folks. Some clear direction in how you can take the next steps to make data the value add to your customers, to your organization, and how to make it consistent. Mahmood, thank you so much for your time today. We really are grateful that you carved out some time to discuss the insights that you and the team at ZS are up to. Thank you so much for being with us.
Mahmood Majeed:
Thank you, Saul. It was my pleasure. And I look forward speaking with anybody who would like to have any more information. Feel free to reach out, it will be available in the podcast.
Saul Marquez:
That’s a good point, Mahmood. Everything will be in the show notes. So a link to ZS Consulting as well as a way to get in touch with Mahmood will all be in the show notes. So with that, thank you, Mahmood. Appreciate you being with us.
Sonix has many features that you’d love including transcribe multiple languages, automatic transcription software, automated translation, generate automated summaries powered by AI, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.
