The role of artificial intelligence in business transformation: A case of pharmaceutical companies
Open accessAbstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) is of great interest to researchers and practitioners as a means of achieving the necessary progress in the pharmaceutical industry. However, the role of AI and ways of transforming companies are not well studied. The purpose of the paper is to identify exactly how AI affects the key and support business processes of pharmaceutical companies. We offer a qualitative interview study of five large, five medium, and five small pharmaceutical companies. Based on scarce literature on the role of AI in the pharmaceutical industry, we considered which business processes are subject to transform within it and how they do so. We determine that small pharma companies significantly change research and development, master data management, analysis and reporting, and human resource business processes under the influence of AI. Large pharma companies use AI to transform production, sales, marketing, and analysis business processes. In turn, medium-sized companies are in the middle and individually transform their business processes depending on their specialization.
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Use of AI for monitoring can boost employee retention by analyzing financial data for payment and motivating personnel based on compensation.
“and also analyzing financial data for payment and motivating personnel based on compensation (Kulkov, 2021)”
From Unlocking the value of artificial intelligence in human resource management through AI capability framework (2023) · cites this paper as Kulkov, 2021
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Kulkov, I.
- Affiliations
- Åbo Akademi University (FI)
- Corresponding author
- Kulkov, Ignat
- ORCID
- Kulkov, Ignat
- Venue
- Technology in Society
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-08
- Volume
- 66
- Pages
- 101629
- ISSN
- 0160-791X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3166218875
- Cited by
- 188
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 47 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 5
- FWCI
- 13.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Technology in Society (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Åbo Akademi University Research Portal (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Diva portal (Dalarna University Library) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Impact of AI and Big Data on Business and Society
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Management of Technology and Innovation › Digital Innovation in Industries
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Artificial Intelligence Applications
- Keywords
- artificial intelligence, business transformation, pharmaceutical companies, business process change, small and medium-sized enterprises, research and development, master data management, human resource management, production process, sales and marketing, firm size differences
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