It is well known that the uniqueness in pharmaceutical selling is its high direct selling dependence and the influence or decision-making disparity between customer (physician) and consumer (patient). Hence pharma selling has been always focused around the sales reps meeting customers and the associated measures to achieve business objectives.
Till the early 2000’s, companies were mainly focused on customer coverage (number and frequency) and hence the sales force size and penetration. The mantra was larger the sales force, more potential to generate prescriptions! The US had about 100,000 medical sales representatives meeting about 800,000 physicians in 2002-03. It sounded sensible to have more feet on the ground, as the scenario had more new products getting launched in the market and more gaps existed in the treatment and therapies to make at least some of these new products block busters.
Things have changed now and pharmaceutical industry is facing challenges from many fronts – drying pipelines, generic competition, price erosion, increasing sales and promotion costs, evolution of various customer sets, changing customer influences among prescribers, payers, managed care organizations, governments, patients etc. The future growth is expected to come from niche segments like cancer, chronic conditions, and vaccines etc., where high value biotech products, personalized medicine etc. would play major roles. In this changing scenario, companies have realized that increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of sales reps is the key and not adding more numbers (on an average a sales rep costs about $200,000 per annum in the US). Hence the focus is shifting to niche, highly focused and competency driven task forces in place of large sales forces.
Employing a task force calls for a change in focus and I am trying to list down some of the major concerns and areas to consider here.
1) Customer segmentation becomes critical: Task force does not have the luxury of meeting all the prospective customers. Hence segmenting the customer and imparting differential focus on the segments is critical. This would help identify the target customer segments and their numbers, which in turn would facilitate the task force size and spread.
2) Territory alignment: Since no one would want the task force to spend more time on transit driving from one physician call to another, territory alignment is also very important to charter a task force member territory. The territory will be mostly larger than that of a usual sales rep territory and hence the customer plotting and territory assignment for every task force member is important, as this directly affects his/her productivity.
3) Product basket: Usually a product basket for a sales team is decided on the therapy area / disease area the team represents like Hypertension, Diabetes, and Cancer etc. Since a task force is more driven by the competency they have, the product basket selection decision should involve factors like core competency of task force (biotech, antibodies, vaccines, medical devices etc.), organizational core competency, corporate strategic focus, organizational value addition etc. Bundling value added services (Eg. Diagnosis, patient education, physician information, care-giver information etc.) with products is also a new trend followed by the industry now, which increases the value of the brand and organization.
4) Personalized customer message: One size fits all is out of scope. During early days, sales reps were given scripts to “puppet” the detailing talk and other information to the physicians (this is followed in most countries even now). A task force should be empowered to analyze each customer’s needs and profile and deliver customized marketing messages to address the customer’s needs. There should be a real-time two-way communication channel between the task force and the brand teams so that each of them share their findings and tailor their strategies in the light of customer feedback and analysis. One solution for this is a concept called “Closed Loop Marketing”, where data can be easily exchanged between the task force and brand teams and customers can be tracked through the suspect-to-sales continuum.
5) Competency levels: The ideal benchmark of a task force member is to be a partner of the physician in diagnosing, treating and managing the target disease / condition. He should be well informed and highly knowledgeable about the product, its uses, the target disease area, the scientific developments and best practices in the target disease / condition etc. Pharmaceutical companies should take utmost care in periodic evaluation, tracking and mapping the training needs of the task forces and conduct necessary training on an ongoing basis. E-Learning modules are becoming popular nowadays, where periodic evaluation, identification of training needs, training modules, exams etc. happen automatically with features like user based access controls, animation, certification, report generations etc.
6) Complementary channels: A visit by a task force member to a physician is not the end of it. The visit should be complemented using various channels like web, mail, kiosks, conferences, journals etc. Even though these media for promotion is utilized even now, the method of usage needs to be relooked. The selection of the alternate channel/s and the specific communication for a specific doctor should be based on the call feedback / response of the doctor, prescription adoption level, patient profile, interest areas etc. Using “Closed Loop Marketing” this can be automatically facilitated from the call / campaign feedback collected by the task force member during a call.
7) Investment track: The financial rationale for using a task force is not just from the less number of people on the ground, but from the excellence and competence a task force would bring-in in sales processes, campaign execution, customer relationship management etc. Hence it is critical to track and follow up the financial equations in a timely manner. There should be strong processes to track each and every internal and external investment the task force makes and the returns it fetches in the prescribed timelines. After all any initiative or innovation is successful only if it impacts the key performance indicators of a business in the prescribed timeline.
8) Team morale: Any new move always come with a steep learning curve and one of the success factors is how fast the team rides through this learning frontier. One way is to share success stories and best practices etc. among the organization to celebrate early successes. It is also important to clarify how the task force is important for the organization as change agents and as the corporate-face in front of the customers and competitors. An open culture and team spirit should be encouraged inside the team, which would make the transition of the task force from beginners to performers faster.
These are some of the major points came to my mind when I thought of the changes happening in the sales front in global pharmaceutical industry. I thought of sharing these humble thoughts to all of you. I look forward to receiving your corrections, responses, thoughts, opinions etc.
Thank you. Happy blogging!!!
