It was barely two years ago that we invested in enTouch. As I wrote at the time, we believed that the mode of working would undergo a substantial transformation in many industries in Japan over the coming decade.
Well, the “future of work” arrived a lot faster than I expected, at least here in Japan in 2020. Of course, a thoroughly disruptive global pandemic played a role.
We’ll see if this sudden disruption represents a permanent shift, or rather a temporary shock, for work culture in Japanese corporations. Regardless, I cannot possibly imagine the system returning to the state of just one year ago.
A variety of frameworks exist to help shape our thinking around the concept of the future of work. Jessica Alter at Social Capital structured the notion around the three pillars of i) the Workers, ii) the Infrastructure, and iii) the Work itself. IDC published a framework which rests on four core principles of Empathy, Trust, Talent, and Hyper-agility. Allison Baum at SemperVirens viewed it through the lens of the three D’s: Digital, Distributed, and Data-driven.
All frameworks are valuable, and I find Allison’s “Three-D’s” to prove particularly germane concerning the conviction behind our investment in enTouch. By providing a video conference & scheduling solution through which pharmaceutical sales reps (MRs) could explain their new medications to doctors at mutual convenience, enTouch sat at the nexus of Digital, Distributed, and Data-driven.
The intrinsically digital nature of enTouch’s technology facilitated the conversations between doctors and MRs. Its distributed architecture enabled broader reach for experts and practitioners in disparate locations. And of course, by capturing and agglomerating pharmaceutical specifications and pathology data, adopters of enTouch could improve communication efficiency and sales conversion. We invested in enTouch because both the clients (pharmaceutical companies) and the end users (doctors with limited spare time) loved the product.
Perhaps most importantly, however, we invested because enTouch’s founder, Marty Roberts, struck us as exactly the right person to lead this innovation in Japan. Marty is a superstar, who in our view brought exactly the right dose of domain expertise, ambition, and humility to the project.
This week Nikkei reported on the acquisition of enTouch by Toho Pharmaceutical, one of Japan’s leading pharmaceutical distribution firms, to further support their vision of contributing to the medical care and well-being of people around the world.
We applaud Toho in its visionary move, and extend a deep bow of appreciation to Marty for letting us accompany him as financial partners in this adventure.
