Pharma & Healthcare

Customer-oriented and lean processes are the key to future growth and yet, many companies operate on a country-specific basis with little external benchmarking or independent supervision.

Roland Berger works with your company to develop suitable commercial operating models that standardize processes for all key levers and functions. These include segmentation and value proposition development, execution quality, organization and internal collaboration, KPI, people and performance. Through our experience with clients from around the world, we have a proven assessment approach and understand how individual strengths and weaknesses can be effectively leveraged. We are ready to apply our long years of experience also for your company.

Competition between the various pharmaceutical segments is increasing, with greater pressure on profit margins. Consisting of the process steps "procure - make - deliver - plan", the "integrated supply chain" has become the focus; an area in which Roland Berger has a long track record of successful projects in the pharmaceutical industry. We can combine this concept with best practices from other step-by-step industries to strengthen your position.

Developing a new drug is expensive and regulations are strict – circumstances that put great pressure on R&D. New technologies and players are constantly emerging. Innovation processes have changed. To plan a successful R&D strategy, it is therefore not enough to know what the market currently demands. Imagination and lateral thinking about how the market will develop are just as important. What will drive the pharmaceutical industry in 20 or 30 years? When so much of your investment is tied up in R&D, your company cannot afford to make misjudgments about the future.

We have decades of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. It is true that the past cannot provide reliable guidance for the future. But this experience has equipped us with important analytical skills. We have seen trends come and go and observed how products become successful or fail. We have studied in detail how management strategies work and understand why they sometimes do not work. If you work with us, we can put this knowledge to work for you.

The overall market growth in the MedTech industry is slowing down, but there are opportunities for growth in many areas and regions. We will work with you to find these opportunities, match them with your core competencies and thus realize profitable growth together. In this context, we often accompany our clients in the development of new (regional) markets and the acquisition and integration of M&A targets.

Permanently accelerating innovation cycles and more individual customer requirements are increasingly challenging the "classic" R&D process of MedTech companies. With our customer understanding and access, we can help you to align product development closely with the customer and thus efficiently develop innovations demanded by the customer. At the same time, we can bring new impulses to your company by integrating young companies and thus further expand your innovative power.

Stagnating growth and rising costs are putting the traditionally high margins of MedTech companies under pressure. As the market leader in restructuring, Roland Berger brings extensive experience in improving economic results and regularly achieves sustainable success with our clients. We usually focus on sustainable optimization across all value-added stages - for example, optimizing production, sharpening the product portfolio or increasing sales efficiency.

You can measure our jointly developed strategies by the results achieved. From the strategic decisions we have made, we derive precisely the organizational and process changes required. By closely monitoring the organization, we then help to turn these into reality. Our clients regularly confirm in independent surveys that this leads to sustainable implementation success.

Digitization is a constant companion and an essential lever of our cooperation. How can new business models and added value for customers be derived from all the generated data? Where can RPA solutions enable significant short-term efficiency increases? We know where digitalization can support and how and we use it for our clients in multiple ways.

Hospitals in many countries are under ongoing cost pressure and legal cost-cutting measures in the health care system will sometimes exacerbate the general conditions. While staff shortages and the associated collective bargaining negotiations will lead to a further increase in personnel expenses, medical progress and digitization will require high investments, revenue growth is often significantly slower. Additional pressure results from a multimorbid patient structure and a shift towards chronic diseases, coupled with a growing awareness of the need for high quality care.

In order to meet these challenges and to cope with the pressure on costs and earnings, hospitals must not only continuously improve their operating performance but also position themselves optimally in the market from a strategic point of view. With this in mind, Roland Berger works with service providers of all sizes and all sponsors. Roland Berger supports private, public as well as general and specialized hospital operators in questions of strategic medical development, performance improvement and cost-cutting measures, including procurement optimization and digitization initiatives.

The outpatient sector is the largest or second largest area of health expenditure in many countries. In addition, the outpatient sector has been growing disproportionately fast compared to the inpatient health market in many European countries for years.

The main drivers of outpatient care are, in particular:

• Patient needs: In case of doubt, patients prefer outpatient operations to inpatient operations because they do not need to stay in hospital
• Cost advantages: In a direct comparison, outpatient procedures are usually less expensive health insurance companies are therefore interested in more outpatient treatments
• Medical progress: Treatment options are constantly evolving, and many interventions are increasingly standardized, minimally invasive and have lower-risk

For outpatient and inpatient service providers, opportunities and risks arise in this changing healthcare landscape. Roland Berger supports your company in various strategic issues, such as additional outpatient potential, digitalization strategy, referral management, revenue growth potential, or a new or adapted medical strategy.

After hospitals and outpatient medical care, the nursing sector is usually the third largest segment of many health care systems. In Germany, for example, the care sector has been gaining in importance since 2015, with above-average growth of 4.8 percent per year. This development is the result of strengthening and slowing trends that can be grouped into seven influencing factors. More elderly people and thus people in need of care are confronted with more prevention and thus, less need for care. In addition, there is more need for professional nursing care on the one hand but fewer available personnel on the other. Finally, there is a high investment backlog and, more outpatient care.

A high degree of regulation and the changing needs of the people to be cared for and their relatives increasingly ensure a more varied range of care services. In addition to the "classic" old people's homes, new living concepts such as assisted living, nursing shared flats and neighborhood concepts are being added. An adapted, varied range of nursing care that takes these needs into account is thus becoming increasingly important for nursing home operators.

Nursing home operators have a limited scope of action in the context of a highly regulated environment. Roland Berger can help you actively shape this room for maneuver, whether it's growth ambitions, which are often slowed down by acute staff shortages, efficiency gains through digitization initiatives or other strategic issues.

Homecare companies that provide patients with medical aids in their own homes or in nursing and old people's homes are in a challenging market environment. Historically, the sector has been characterized by high competition and strong price pressure from health insurance companies. Now, medical technology companies are also developing further along the value chain, closer to the patient, and are thus moving from supplier to competitor. The increasing demands of the patients cared for in terms of service levels and the individuality of the therapy are creating additional complexity.

We help Homecare companies to formulate the right answers to these challenges and turn them into reality. We regularly supplement classic levers such as the optimization of processes and service levels with innovative, digital solutions.