Adapting data management for international standards—live in 15+ countries in just 18 months

The challenge

Our client was preparing to expand sales beyond the United States for the first time—targeting more than 15 countries over 18 months. To launch international operations, commercial sales teams required 360-degree healthcare professional data as well as purchased data with various features and levels of quality. The company would need a robust data management strategy and processes that comply with various international regulatory requirements. Compounding the challenge? Our client didn’t have an international data team.

An undeniably different approach 

With significant investment and revenue potential on the line, speed and precision were critical—along with flexibility as expansion plans crystalized. Regulatory complexities required deep industry expertise. That’s why the client counted on us. 

We started with the big picture: How could we extend the data platform to accommodate international privacy and data standards—GDPR in the European Union and LDPR in Brazil? What changes were required? This involved coordination with multiple business functions.  

Our longstanding Databricks partnership facilitated exploration of newer platform features, including some in Public Preview.  

Key elements included: 

• Using the existing data platform for ingestion and migrating transformation to Delta Live Pipelines reducing cost and increasing developer productivity.  
• Building features in our proprietary Databricks accelerator, Mizu, to segregate regulated international data from US data.  
• Leveraging existing API integration to connect new international Salesforce instances.  
• Automating sales performance and regulatory reporting in Databricks, using native dashboards and PowerBI.

We served as the company’s international data team for the first year of international operations—continuing to refine the solution while also supporting sales and medical affairs teams in more than 10 countries. Once our client hired an international data executive, we facilitated the transition, including training offshore resources to manage reporting.

Real results

Building upon our client’s existing Databricks platform allowed us to expand analytics to support more than 15 new country launches—all while delivering tangible benefits. 

We were able to store all international data in a separate, isolated cloud storage location eliminating data replication and reducing risk by adhering to GDPR/LDPR best practices. Consolidating data storage, transformation, and analysis in Databricks has the potential to reduce cloud costs by 30%. 

Automating monthly, quarterly sales, and regulatory reports—work previously done manually in Excel—in a dashboard refreshed twice daily delivers information faster and improves organizational efficiency. Sales leaders can react rapidly based on evolving conditions. And the company can generate required regulatory reporting about EU sales activity on demand—a process that previously took three days to complete.