|
|
|
|
Resourcen zum Thema e-DetailingLiteratur zum Thema
Medical Communities - Übersichtsartikel aus Pharma-Relations 2002 Pharmaceutical eDetailing: Overview Pharmaceutical product materials that help physicians understand how to correctly prescribe and understand possible drug interaction is called “detailing”. The world’s leading CRO with a global presence in over 39 countries hired OnSphere to build a robust commercial application for online or eDetailing. Business Drivers Delivering pharmaceutical product information in an accurate and timely matter has become a very large business challenge, and opportunity. Tradition methods of educating doctors on what drugs are available and how they should be prescribed has become more and more difficult. Our clients’ business challenge was to build a FDA compliant eDetailing site, which could attract revenue from top Pharmaceutical clients who would want to detail their drugs. Strategy In to develop a site in which disparate sponsor companies (Pharmaceutical) could target and educate prescribing physicians, the system was designed to handle the following:
In all, the Detailing system was a live, robust application, which had to be responsive and flexibly maintained from anywhere in the world. Benefits By building an open application based upon commercially available software technologies, our client was able to launch a non-proprietary revenue-generating product. The application was designed top allow maintenance and support to be provided by internal IT staff, allowing for reduced cost of ownership. Since internal personnel update the site, it can be quickly tuned to meet client demands. 'e' - What's the return on my detail? Contributed 10 November 2001 by Dr Andree Bates, Founder and Managing Director, Mednet Media eDetailing is under consideration by the majority of pharmaceutical sales and marketing departments, but companies must be certain that any new system is cost efficient and delivers tangible results before taking the plunge. The many forms of eDetailing, such as live and virtual, are now widely known. These, like any other marketing activity, must be assessed for Return on Investment (ROI). ROI is a measure of the return the company gets for implementing the system after calculating out what was spent in creating and maintaining the system. Clearly, the overriding objective of any form of eDetailing activity is to increase the number of prescriptions written, while reducing costs. ROI examples of online detailing from the US are plentiful. The oft-quoted study from a Novartis eDetailing pilot using the iPhysicianNet videoconferencing style system (live eDetailing) showed that 'virtual-reps' were able to complete 13 calls per day, compared with eight for field reps. The cost per virtual rep was $18,000 per year less than a field rep and the cost per minute was $14 compared with $58 for field reps. The ROI was reported to be 20% higher for virtual detailing. Price Per Average eDetail in the US (estimates)
Source: Mednet Media A study of the Physicians Interactive system (virtual eDetailing) found an ROI of around 480% from high prescribing physicians and an increase in new prescription market share of physicians who participated from 3.2% to 9.8%. So what are the important considerations to take into account when implementing eDetailing and measuring ROI? Companies need to consider products, physician type, measurement metrics, and measurement methods. Determining whether or not eDetailing is appropriate or not for a specific country or product is a key issue that must be considered prior to developing or buying eDetailing capabilities. Factors affecting whether to initiate eDetailing as well as which form of eDetailing to use will include; Different stages in the drug lifecycle are far more amenable to eDetailing than others. In addition, it is crucial that the physicians targeted are also chosen carefully. It is still a cost-consuming resource and some physician groups are clearly better targets for a savvy marketer than others and the eDetailing activities should be focused on these. What metrics are being used to measure the ROI? As with any business planning process, the metrics used in calculating ROI are directly related to the objectives initially set. These commonly include; By putting these items into a formula and measuring the incremental profits from increases in prescriptions written as a result of eDetailing (from IMS data), and then dividing these by the cost of the eDetails added to the development of the programme (start-up costs) a figure can be reached. Naturally assumptions are made within this formula. The cost per eDetailing session is not necessarily completely straightforward since the pharmaceutical company may negotiate price breaks after a specified number of eDetails have been performed or contracts with eDetailing vendors may state that the pharmaceutical company will only be charged for fully completed details. However, it is best to try and find the average cost per eDetail for the purposes of ROI calculation. Who calculates the metrics? Currently ROI can be calculated by the pharmaceutical company itself (often with the assistance of an independent third party firm using IMS data) or by the eDetailing vendor company. Typically there is input from both parties outlined above, depending on the type of eDetailing system employed. Pharmaceutical companies tend to outsource their ROI calculation and monitoring role to independent groups (such as Mednet Media) who work with IMS to ensure integrity of the data in terms of the final purpose - increases in prescriptions. This provides integrity and impartiality to the data collection and analysis process. Vendors currently tend to be charged with tracking the length of the interactions and time of day and who they are with - which is also verified by the independent market research firms employed who also track these (just to be sure) and then an ROI calculation can be made. The main question European-based pharmaceutical companies are asking is, does Europe differ from the US in terms of what kinds of eDetailing will work best to achieve good ROI. Mednet Media researched this by conducting market research with over 200 GPs in September 2001. The results of this survey are detailed in a Mednet Media report1. Such results do have an impact on how eDetailing should be conducted in the UK and should certainly be consulted prior to initiating any eDetailing programme in this market. Reference: 1 Mednet Media Research Report eDetailing: A strategic analysis of implementation and ROI, Bates, A., Bailey. E., & Wyles, M. October 2001 The eDetailing Phenomenon Throughout history, the image of the salesperson has remained constant. Whatever the item to be sold, the diligent seller travels with dusty shoes from door to door, ready to display an omnipresent sample case and win the business of each buyer with personality and persuasiveness. The sales process itself is laborious, requiring diligence and an enormous expenditure of time, and every deal is closed face-to-face with a handshake. In recent years, however, the rapid development of Internet technology has forced a paradigm shift in the way goods and services are sold. eCommerce -- in which purchases are made online and often without any direct physical interaction between buyer and seller -- is becoming the rule for consumer products, from CDs to homes. For a long time, the process of drug marketing has proved resistant to these changes. Pharmaceutical companies have continued to send sales representatives, in person and at considerable cost, to visit the offices and practices of primary care and other physicians, where they distribute free samples and explain the value of the company’s newest medication. However, no industry can remain forever untouched by the Internet revolution. As an increasing number of physicians become connected to the Web, a growing demand has been placed on pharmaceutical companies to utilize this technology in order to reach more providers and improve overall efficiency. The Traditional Method If he or she should succeed in getting an audience, the representative will read a short script describing a new medication, hurrying to fit the entire presentation into the two-minute time slot and hoping the physician is paying attention and not thinking about the tricky case he or she has just encountered. The physician -- who may already be resentful about losing the only two-minute break available during the day -- must process 20 pages of information on indications, side effects, clinical trial results, and more. He or she must also ask any questions that the presentation leaves unanswered, all in approximately the amount of time it takes to brush your teeth. As the above synopsis should make clear, there are significant problems with the current system. The modern doctor is busier than ever, thanks to a managed care environment in which each physician must perform certain tasks and see a prescribed number of patients every day. According to Richard Weiss, Vice President of Business Development for Clark O’Neill, “physicians need information about these products. They want the samples but they have no time to interact with their own patients, [let alone] with pharmaceutical representatives.” The number of pharmaceutical sales representatives has increased dramatically in the past decade, rising from 30,000 in 1988 to an estimated 71,000 today. Each of these individuals costs the parent company somewhere in the neighborhood of $63,000 annually. Salaries for salespeople comprise by far the largest percentage of expenditure by most drug companies, accounting for around $7 billion of $17.2 billion in total costs. Unfortunately, many of these representatives are increasingly unsuccessful in efficiently reaching the 425,000 providers who write prescriptions in the United States. More than 40% of the time, salespeople don’t even get to speak with a doctor on a given call, and 87% of the calls that are made last less than two minutes. The average call length is only about two minutes, providing precious little opportunity for thorough discussion of a particular drug’s value. As a result, pharmaceutical companies pour a tremendous amount of financial resources into a system that is at best inefficient, at worst completely ineffective. For more on the problems facing today’s conventional detailer, see this excellent article. iPhysicianNet.com iPhysicianNet offers a web-based approach to detailing. The company provides
the physician with a PC that has video- This system offers many advantages over the conventional procedure. Since physicians may access it at any time, they listen to marketing presentations at their own convenience; this allows them to devote a greater amount of time and attention. The company reports that “the average length of a detailing call [has increased] to eight minutes, as compared to less than two minutes” using the eDetailing application (view the company press release). The increased time has additional advantages, as well. Using the system, physicians have a greater opportunity to ask questions, creating a dialogue where once the salesperson’s monologue reigned. What’s more, since representatives do not have to physically travel to each physician’s office to make a sales call, the number of calls made per day can increase enormously. iPhysicianNet anticipates a five-fold increase in calls per day, from four to 20. Since the primary goal of detailing is to reach as many providers as possible, this is a major advantage for drug companies. iPhysician compounds this benefit by requiring that every physician who makes use of the application participate in one detailing session per month for every pharmaceutical client. iPhysicianNet also offers other, even more ambitious applications and services. Clients may participate in “eMeetings,” at which eight to 10 physicians participate in live peer discussion and share clinical experiences relating to a certain product. Compared to traditional conferences, the iPhysicianNet system represents substantial savings of time and money. Physicians may participate from their own office, instead of being forced to travel to a distant city and expend an entire weekend. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are spared the expense of ferrying attending physicians to the conference site and paying for their accommodations. Moreover, meetings of this sort may be arranged and registered for much more expediently online than under the traditional format. Searle and Glaxo Wellcome, two major pharmaceutical companies, have already signed contracts with iPhysicianNet to make use of the firm’s eDetailing services. Approximately 2,700 primary care physicians have already registered, and the company has contracts in the works with 21 professional organizations representing over 50,000 individual providers. Other Companies An up-and-coming player in the eDetailing market is MyDrugRep.com, the winner of the 2000 Hummer Winblad Venture Partners Business Plan Competition. The company was founded by Quang X. Pham, a former pharmaceutical sales representative, and targets small and midsize drug companies. According to a profile by Michelle V. Rafter, located in full-text format here, “the company plans to work with drug companies to provide doctors, physician assistants, and other health care workers with information on new and existing drugs, as well as a mechanism for ordering samples online.” The firm’s creators believe that “they can dramatically cut what pharmaceutical companies spend on marketing.” Other sites offering or currently developing eDetailing solutions include Innovex, RxSheets, and RxCentric. Provider Reactions In addition, web-based detailing allows more interaction and attention to specific physician concerns. Notes Bruce Kent, Executive Director of e-Sales for Novartis Pharmaceuticals, “Doctors aren’t thinking, ‘When can I use this drug?’ They are thinking, ‘I have Mrs. Smith, a 57-year-old housewife, who has these problems. What drug is going to meet her needs?’ There has to be a discussion, so that if a doctor shares a challenge he is dealing with É the pharmaceutical industry can give some recommendations if a drug is or is not relevant for that particular patient.” Equally important is the immediacy with which eDetailing information can be delivered. Stated Dr. Winston Price, Medical Director, Aetna US Healthcare, “Many interactions I’ve had have ended with, ‘I’ll get that material to you.’ The ability with eDetailing to say, ‘I will download it for you or show it to you on the computer screen right now’ far outweighs [the value of] any scheduled meeting.” However, there are concerns about potential problems with eDetailing. A significant number of providers have historically been opposed to large-scale shifts in practice policy due to technology. The voice has been the primary medium for information transfer since the health care industry began, so the changes discussed in this article are likely to be approached with caution. Some professional detailers also fear that doctors will miss the “personal touch” associated with the present system, the sense that they are dealing with someone they know and trust. Furthermore, argue opponents of the technology, the increased efficiency of Internet-based information transfer may not outweigh the requirement it places on the physician to be proactive. While under the traditional system, information is brought directly to the provider’s doorstep without request, under an eDetailing system the physician would have to actively seek the information. This puts the onus on providers to take the initiative and learn about new drugs, which creates some risk for the pharmaceutical companies dependent upon their business. Because of these concerns, it is unlikely that eDetailing will completely replace the traditional sales call in the very near future; some estimates place this date 10 to 15 years in the future. In the interim, providers can expect eDetailing to augment, not replace, traditional sales methods in much the same fashion as journal advertisements, direct mail campaigns, and the like. “We are trying to take an existing paradigm and enhance it,” noted Peter Moriarty. “We’re not causing a revolution here. We’re causing an evolution.” Implications for the Future Meanwhile, the new technology, along with other health care-related Internet applications, may have long lasting implications for the realm of eCommerce as a whole. Historically, the federal and state governments have been reluctant to stringently regulate transactions taking place online, whether they be online auctions or Napster music exchanges. However, the health care industry has, for the obvious reasons of security and safety, traditionally been highly regulated. Therefore, the movement of so many aspects of health care onto the Internet may create a window for the government to increase legal standards for web-published material. For example, there are currently no standards regarding the quality and accuracy of information placed on the Internet, and so incomplete, inaccurate, or outright fraudulent material purporting to be solid health care or drug information may be printed by anyone and distributed to millions. This represents a substantial public health hazard, and as a result the government is considering comprehensive regulation requiring review and approval of sites offering medical information. In May 2000, MD net guide ran a cover story entitled “Regulating Online Pharmacies.” This article described the efforts to curb unscrupulous individuals and entities that were selling drugs under inaccurate labels, with improper indications, or without prescriptions. Conclusion According to industry commentator Dr. George Poste, CEO of Health Technology Networks, Scottsdale, Arizona, “as doctors become more at ease in using the Internet, in-office visits by sales representatives will become an expensive, unproductive anachronism. The convenience to the physician of 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year access to a company’s eSales channel will make eDetailing routine.” eDetailing and eProfiling - Leverage Emerging Technologies to Improve Physicians Loyalty and Share Voice September 24-25, 2001 – Adam’s Mark Philadelphia – Philadelphia, PA Leverage Live and Interactive
Technologies to Improve Sales Channels The number of online users accessing
healthcare information will increase extensively for the next 5 years. This
growth trend is forcing companies to develop integrated Web-based strategies to
build brands, improve physician relationships and create disease leadership on
the Web. These trends provide pharmaceuticals marketers with a tremendous
opportunity to interact directly with a willing audience of physicians to foster
long-term relationships that can directly impact their bottom line. In this
session learn what avenues the Internet provides for maximizing the lifetime
value of every physican.
Richard Trio, Director, Internet Selling/eDetailing
Emerging Technologies,
Pharmacia
Promotion Trends with an Internet Twist Pharmaceutical promotion spending has been increasing steadily over the past five years. With ever increasing sales force figures, detailing continues to be the backbone of these promotional efforts with over 60% of all promotional spending in this area. Pharmaceutical companies have expanded their efforts to reach new audiences - nurse practitioners and physician assistants, and are now transitioning to the Internet to reach both traditional and “new” practitioner bases. In this session learn the current trends in total promotion with a focus on traditional and Internet detailing trends. Kelly Sborlini, Director Associate Promotional Audit, Scott Levin Online Detailing: How Can it Help Your Sales Representative More and more pharmaceutical companies are
embracing the Internet as an effective tool to complement their traditional
sales and marketing efforts. A greater understanding of the potential of online
detailing may help insure the long-term success of your product. Online
detailing is not only a means to reach and reward physicians—it is also the
perfect medium to continually grow and sustain relationships your sales force
builds in the field.
Sharon
Callahan, Senior Vice President,
Medsite,
Inc.
Jeff Freedman, Executive Director of
Business Development, PDI,
Inc New eBusiness Solutions for Physician
Profiling – Determine the Sweet Spot for Your Product to Yield High ROI
Effective ways to cover vacant territories, hard-to-reach and
“no-see” physicians
Getting documented feedback on your product from targeted
physicians
Successful physician targeting
Identify relevant content that
optimizes online ROI
What resources are necessary for a successful Interactive Product
Education program Don Q. Paullin, President,
Physicians Interactive
Collin Hadley, Product Manager,
TAP Pharmaceuticals
ROI
Programs to Evaluate Success of eDetailing and eProfiling Campaigns
Richard J. Findlay, President & CEO,
RxCentric, Inc. Beyond the Pilot Programs – The Future of
Pharmaceutical Sales
Pharmaceutical companies have been using
eDetailing since 1999. Several have launched new products targeting thousands of
physicians; others merely experimented with small, pilot programs designed to
test the waters. In this keynote address, learn the valuable lessons from the
industry and peek into the future of pharmaceutical sales.
Quang X. Pham, Chairman and CEO, MyDrugRep Rx
e-Volution – Use of Patient-Level Data to Profile Physicians
Pharmaceutical
companies now have access to information regarding therapy patterns for their
products derived from prescription data. Using this new data, new insights will
become available regarding commencement of therapy (new patient starts),
compliance with medication schedule, concomitant product
prescribing and comprehensive therapeutic class profiles of their
physicians. These new insights will allow sales and marketing organizations to:
Ashish S.
Vazirani, Director, Consulting Services,
Analytika Use Patient-Level Data to Increase Market
Share – The Sales Force Perspective With
the increasing quality and availability of de-identified patient-level data in
the pharmaceutical industry, a whole new realm of sales force targeting and
management tools are emerging. These new applications allow the rep to get
beyond mere prescription data to better understand the patient behind the
prescription. This type of information is vital to understanding
prescriber-level switching patterns, indication-specific market share and new
patient start dynamics – key leading indicators for the market.
Michel Denarie, Senior Director, Sales Optimization Product Line,
Quintiles
Informatics
Integrated
e-Marketing: Optimizing Your Product’s Promotion Mix Pharmaceutical
companies spend billions of dollars each year in promoting their products to
physicians. These promotions include sales representative detailing, product
samples, dinner meeting programs, events, and continuing medical education
grants. To maximize returns, pharmaceutical marketers target their promotion
effort to physicians who have the most potential to prescribe more of their
particular drug. Pharmaceutical marketers use vast amount of data including
prescription data, anonymous patient data, and promotion history data to
determine physician profiles and make targeting decisions.e-Detailing will be
most effective when marketers will be able to integrate it with the product’s
other promotion channels. One needs to looks at the complete promotion mix to
identify opportunities where e-Detailing can be more efficient and effective in
extending the “frequency” to valuable physicians and extending “reach” to more
physicians. e-Detailing is shifting the marketing
paradigm by changing the traditional “push” based promotion to increasingly a
“pull” based promotion. The pharmaceutical marketers can no longer plan to use
from “batch-mode” promotion planning process of sending a sales rep to a
physicians office a certain number of times. On the Internet, marketers will
need to value their physician customers, determine promotion offering, and
deliver it to physicians ¾ all in “real-time”. They will also need online
analytical tools to track measure and optimize e-Detailing ROI.
Jassi Chadha, President & CEO,
MarketRx Understand Physician Needs to Maximize
eProfiling, eDetailing ROI Pressures on the medical community have led
to significant changes in physician needs and how pharmaceutical companies can
help improve medical care delivery. The factors affecting the physician/pharma
company relationships are reviewed and key conclusions studied via a
meticulously researched case study. In this panel, learn how to maximize
eProfiling, eDetailing to realize the full potential of technology to educate
and influence physicians.
Mark Gleason, Partner HyGro Group, Inc. Panel Participants: Collin Hadley, Product Manager, TAP Pharmaceuticals Greg Flesher, eBusiness,
Amgen
Kenneth J. Herman, Product Director,
Marketing, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals,
Inc.
Going Mobile – Capture Real-Time Physician Prescribing with Clinical Information
at the Point-of Care
Hand-held devices are dramatically changing the way physicians practice medicine.
Today, approximately 15% of physicians are using personal digital assistants (PDAs)
for reference purposes. It is estimated that by 2002, 50% of physicians will
carry PDAs in clinical settings and have them available to run clinical
applications. This session provides valuable insights into the e-prescribing
marketplace and discusses how PDA use will enable pharmaceutical manufacturers
to gain new insights into physicians’ prescribing behavior. Learn about
development efforts, geared toward capturing real-time physician prescribing
with clinical information at the point-of care and examine the implications of
this growing trend in e-prescribing on your business.
Douglas A. Gentile, MD, MBA, VP, Business Development,
Allscripts Healthcare Solutions
Lisa
Tercha,
Senior
Director, ePrescribing Information Services,
IMS Health Put PDA
into the Hands of Physicians
to Build Strong Customers Relationship The rapid uptake of
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) within the health care industry represents an
exciting new opportunity for marketers of pharmaceutical products, as well as
the physicians they serve. Learn how mobile detailing can complement existing
on- and off-line channels and provide relevant, dynamic, easily accessible
information to health professionals and true customer segmentation for
pharmaceutical marketers.
Antoine Goulet, Vice President, Product Strategy,
Aptilon Health
Leveraging
Mobile Technologies to Enhance the Productivity of the Field Sales Force The field sales
force has traditionally been the foundation for most pharmaceutical sales and
marketing strategies and companies continue to look for ways of increasing sales
force productivity and representative satisfaction and retention. A complete
eBusiness strategy should not ignore available "mobile solutions", including
wireless and handheld technologies. These emerging solutions are providing
represenatives with tools to reduce office downtime, minimize call reporting
errors and provide convenient access to full customer information and history.
Pharmaceutical companies can expect to achieve the following benefits:
This presentation
reviews some of the latest technologies and point to future mobile applications
and functionality that will enhance the productivity and contributions of the
field sales force.
Paul Shawah ,
Product Manager,
Siebel Life Sciences The return of the living dead - Rumours about the demise of the sales rep have been around for ages but the rise of the sales force monster continues... Since the start of the 1980s, the future of the medical rep has been called into question, asking if the sales force is going the way of the dodo. Industry soothsayers pointed to ever more restrictive lists and formularies as a force which would erode prescribing choice for doctors, making the cost of a sales force too high for the dwindling number of calls and contacts. The end was nigh and getting nigher. Some reps joked that the Sword of Damocles should be their coat of arms. Despite all the doom and gloom, however, there are now 10,000 medical reps on the road in the UK compared with 6,000 ten years ago. But reps don't come cheap. The top 50 companies spent 15 per cent ($30 billion) of their revenues on sales and marketing in 1999, with 75 per cent going on detailing and rep support, according to Datamonitor's Sales Force Structures and Strategies 2001 report. Big companies like AstraZeneca have up to 1,000 reps in a number of large sales forces with a few smaller specialist teams. Mid-size players like Roche or Wyeth have about 400. Contract sales company, Innovex, has a field force of 2,000, although this varies according to demand and around a third of their reps are part-time. Trading places Most markets in the UK are in mature stages of 'trade polarisation', where buying and influencing power is becoming concentrated in fewer hands. The result is the emergence of strong key account development teams and the downsizing or even disbanding of large sales forces. It is not surprising that the demise of the rep has been forecast as few other sectors have sales forces as large as pharma, so how long can this last? "The NHS has long been saying that they would restrict prescribing freedom and we believe them," says Neil West, national sales manager at Organon. "Without prescribing freedom, there is no role for the medical rep." However, someone still decides what goes on a formulary and they are still open to persuasion by sales people. As power continues to be focused in the regions within the NHS, clearly many decision points exist inside PCTs, all of which present opportunities for the sales person. Puzzling evidence It was thought that evidence-based medicine would dictate
prescribing. Medicine is such a complex science, the human machine so intricate and the range of pharmacological interventions so vast, that prescribing algorithms and formularies can seldom be totally prescriptive. Options must, and are, made available to be chosen through informed judgement. That 'informed judgement' is open to influence; the job for the medical rep. Once a product is approved there is a massive role for sales people to inform prescribers that they now have a choice and to educate doctors in the correct use of the product. With sales, access is always a key issue. Hywel Evans, managing director of Innovex UK, agrees: ''Call rates are being sustained but it is costing more and more in support to keep them at that level." Rep bashing The view that all doctors would give up seeing reps does not take into account the multifaceted role that a good representative can play. At one level, some doctors will agree that spending 10 minutes with a rep in the middle of a surgery can be a welcome break from a constant stream of demanding patients. However, in the medical community 'rep bashing' is an easy and popular sport but if you dig deeper, many doctors, particularly hospital specialists, will admit that reps can be, and are, useful. The pharmaceutical industry supplies the healthcare industry with an outstanding free educational service. The human touch It is increasingly tempting to place your faith in the seductive promise of technology rather than human beings. Exhibit one, the WAP phone. Most people just want a mobile phone to talk to others while on the move. Despite telephone, fax, e-mail, video conferencing and the shadow of September 11, why is so much time and money spent flying people around the world? The answer is obvious but worth stating; when two people meet face-to-face, the quality and power of interaction is in a different league. "People buy from people," says Innovex's Evans. Neil Copping, sales and marketing director at Schwarz Pharma, adds: "There will always be a role for people selling to people. What will change is the role; the way people sell, the people they are selling to and the 'things' they are selling." Crossing the threshold In all things, there is a return on investment (ROI) threshold to be reached, and an argument doing the rounds at the moment is that it is easier to justify higher sales costs because the average product cost is higher. The medical rep will survive so long as 'personal selling' is the most cost-effective way of influencing the market. Chris Doyle, senior product manager at Napp, believes that reps "will never go away as long as they remain the single most effective influence we can bring to bear on a doctor's prescribing." It is imperative that every effort is made throughout the organisation to ensure that the last possible drop of output is squeezed from this resource and that the appropriate type of sales resource is applied in the right way at the right point. The Top Ten There are ten key issues that marketers and sales directors need to consider: Leveraging existing assets Mirroring fragmented customer bases In-house or contract out
The ability to switch on a sales force in one region while leaving others untouched is something contract sales organisations (CSOs) are currently taking up. Innovex believes that 30-40 per cent of a company's sales force should be outsourced, but will companies totally outsource their sales functions? For the biggest pharma companies, the answer is probably no as they can maintain a flow of innovative products, but what of other companies? The main challenge for the CSOs is to deliver high-quality specialist reps rather than being left supplying bog standard primary care/GP reps. Targeting Is targeting marketing a way to hide poor coverage? Companies are increasingly targeting the same high-prescribing doctors, resulting in increased competition for their time, as well as lower contact rates and thus lower ROI. Most targeting systems incorporate an element of accessibility.
Consider for a moment what your target list might look like if accessibility
were not taken into account? Do most target lists put too much weight on
accessibility? It may be wise to consider investing even more heavily in
accessing the 'no see' doctors. If we lived in a world without printing and suddenly Johannes Gutenberg popped up with the printing press, I wonder if we would all be busy setting up p-marketing departments, write p-marketing strategies on how we can do p-detailing and get into p-commerce! Economics guru, Michael Porter, emphasised last year: ''Internet initiatives need to be integrated into your company's strategy and operations so they complement, rather than cannibalise, your established competitive approaches." Use of electronic sales aids is an essential weapon in the sales rep's arsenal (and may improve cost-effectiveness), but is that e-detailing? The internet, electronic media and e-mail are just additional tools available to the marketer. How these are harnessed requires imagination. Using the right brain The problems sitting at the door of the pharmaceutical industry will not be solved by a total reliance on left-hemisphere, logical thought. Companies must nurture a culture of right-hemisphere creativity and put as much effort into training their key staff in the proper use of the right side of their brains as they have in developing traditional left-brain skills. There were plenty of 2002 marketing plans written without a section entitled 'The internet' (was yours?). Is this due to the establishment of separate e-marketing/ business functions or was there a need due to conservative marketing? Marketers must get their full brains engaged and search for new ways of using technology to leverage a sales force. Sales process re-engineering When was the last time your whole sales process was pulled apart and audited? Is your sales process fully effective? It's worth regularly reviewing everything, and an external pair of eyes can bring fresh insight. Business management tools The pharma sector was one of the earliest into electronic territory management (ETMS) and many companies will be on their third or fourth generation. However, a word of warning for anyone about to up-grade their systems. A common mistake is for new CRM (customer relationship management) systems to be designed around existing sales processes; what if that sales process is sub-optimal, flawed or out-of-date? The flawed system is then enshrined for the next five years in the new CRM system. Before making a CRM upgrade, examine, audit and, if necessary, re-engineer your sales process. Increasingly sales reps are going to become business managers and they must have the right tools. Make sure that whatever system you have delivers more than just call rate and activity reports. Identify and share best practice Avoiding any witch-hunts; stunning insights can be generated by analysing what the best performers in a sales team are doing differently to the average performers. Done properly such an audit requires computer-based multivariate analysis, but you will invariably uncover transferable practices. Beware, however, this is only valuable when done with a meticulous eye for detail. Collaboration It takes two to tango, so put on your dancing shoes and engage the health service in a constructive dialogue; abandon the adversarial approach. "The ability we have to affect a PCT's prescribing shouldn't be ignored by the health service, we could help to turn tides in their required directions," says Napp's Chris Doyle. Andrew Deller, national sales manager at Roche, agrees: "The future rep will have multiple skills; they will be treated as a partner, as part of the multi-disciplinary team." Future shock The medical rep will be with us for many years to come but there will be many changes. As buying structures become increasingly complex, there will be many more types of rep – and more of them. The total head-count will rise slightly, as companies come to terms with the new NHS structures, then level out. GP rep numbers will decrease but will be replaced by higher power business manager. Marketers will be affected by these changes and will have an even tougher job implementing marketing strategies for local circumstances. Regional product managers are an inevitability and more sophisticated tools will be needed to ensure that their sales process is engineered to optimal effect. The Author |
|
