In the beginning of October, representatives from some of the top global pharmaceutical companies gathered in Stockholm for the TSS User Forum – a bi-annual event that brings together TSS’ customers from all around the world.
TSS User Forum plays a central role in the development of TSS’ solutions and in forming our value proposition. It also serves as a vital cornerstone in the foundation for our partnership with customers and partners. As always, this year’s forum addressed the business problems and needs facing our customers – both those of today and tomorrow.
During three days, we presented our current offerings as well as ongoing projects, shared best practices, and listened to external guest speakers as well as business cases presented by the participating pharma companies.
Technology changes exponentially
As we all know, technology is changing rapidly at an exponential rate, and these changes seem to be accelerating. To prevent falling behind, companies need to define profound business strategies and create integrated business processes based on close collaboration with relevant organisations. We need to partner up and harmonize our course of action. And as the speed of which technology and business change increases, forums for profound reflection and strategic direction become essential.
Calling this a user forum is an understatement. I’ve been to many user conferences and the TSS User Forum was far more forward looking and embracing of emerging technologies. The forum embraced the immediate technical horizon and helped educate the audience. TSS was also provocative in terms of challenging users to think differently.
I think that TSS is uniquely situated as they are sitting on a tremendous repository of information from the industry. I see huge potential in a collaborative process across multiple companies taking some of the waste out from the supply chain and streamlining the processes.
– Director of Supply Chain Logistics IMS at a top 10 Global Pharmaceutical Company
The rise of emerging technologies
This year’s theme was “Digitalization, Harmonization and Change”, and the event agenda addressed various topics related to emerging technologies and business change in the digital age. During a visit at RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden) as well as the IBM Science Centre and Watson Lab, we deep dived into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Blockchain technology to learn more about how these technologies could be applied in the pharmaceutical supply chain. TSS also presented our identified AI initiatives as well as concrete examples of what is waiting in the product development pipeline.
“What I really enjoyed during the conference was the great perspective on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The AI presentation, that we got on the first day, was amazing in terms of where we are today and all the directions we could find ourselves going in.”
“On a practical level it made us start to think about, and realize, the potential impact AI could have on the BioPharm industry. For me, the key piece is the data. We have to be able to not only collect the data, we need to share it and most importantly – we have to make sure it’s clean data, bring it all together, aggregate it, and then fully leverage it to our advantage. That, for me, was a key takeaway.”
– Steven Jacobs – President, Global BioPharm Solutions
Thank you!
Just like previous years, TSS User Forum offered a unique chance to share knowledge and experiences with industry colleagues and experts in a relaxed atmosphere. We would like to thank all attendees who, thanks to their positive spirit and brilliant minds, made this year’s event a success!