Adieu 2020. Looking Forward to a saner 2021

By Doron Aspitz, Verix CEO.

2020 is definitely not an easy year to summarize, neither personally nor professionally.
I have mixed feelings about this year. For Verix, the year that started with a feeling that a bombshell had been dropped on us, ended up not a bad year at all, and we’re looking back at it with relief, as all our
families are still healthy and alive. As a business, we made some significant leaps forward in spite of the
unprecedented challenges this year brought on us. Or maybe because of these challenges? I guess we’ll
never know.

Two months into 2020 the world went into panic mode. All of sudden, no more travel to meet customers, no more meetings in the office to discuss the latest developments, and lots of uncertainty on so many levels, on where this world is headed. It surely introduced a lot of complexity, but also taught us some important lessons about working from home with bored kids screaming around us, connecting with customers via Zoom in their kitchen, presenting our successful case study in front of a screen rather than a roomful of colleagues at a vibrant conference, and getting used to a routine of completely mixed-up day and night, workday and weekend. Boundaries are blurring on every aspect of life.

Business wise, after the first jolt that pushed us out of our comfort zone, affairs went on at full steam,
with people finding comfort in perseverance and diving into innovation and creativity. We completed
successful POCs for three use cases of our flagship machine learning strategic planning product, Tovana– Dynamic Targeting & Segmentation, Bottom-Up Forecasting, and HCP Landscape Analysis, and already went into production with two of them after demonstrating clear business value.
The new circumstances underscored the need for new methodologies such as precision forecasting and dynamic planning that empower brand teams to generate quick results. Even with Covid-19 straining the accuracy of predictive models, results were still able to greatly improve our customers’ commercial planning, and our targeting and segmentation use-case helps oncology brands dynamically focus their marketing efforts with precision targeting and relevant messaging, demonstrating ROI within a few months of use. With the new norm of restricted engagements with prescribers, fine grain targeting becomes especially critical.

On the personal level, the sudden change from an extremely busy routine of flying to every meeting, I was thrown into forced isolation and had to learn new ways of interaction, new practices of work, and new methods to create personal bonds. This slower pace brought back into attention the importance of the simple things in life. In hindsight, I feel grateful for this awakening, yet sad it came with such a toll.

All in all, I end this roller coaster of a year with a lot of appreciation and optimism. The Pharma industry managed to do the unbelievable and produce vaccinations in less than a year (!) Our team, partners, and customers, all managed to overcome amazing hurdles, and continue to innovate and grow, and we all learned to be more grateful to basic values of healthy living.

Wishing all our friends around the world a happy, successful, and more sane 2021!