When 12 Vice Presidents of Sales from some of the world's pharmaceutical powerhouses get locked in a room together, you can expect mental sparks to fly. That is exactly what happened at theVP THINKTANK at PHARMAFORCE 2008 in Philadelphia.
Led by Greg Ciarelli of Walters Kluwer, an industry consultant, the assembled Vice Presidents tackled two pressing themes:
- Better methods for establishing long term partnerships with doctors
- An effective segmentation and targeting model for physicians
The agreed upon challenges faced by pharma concerned evolving and ever increasing specialization of products. The basic industry sales model (pound the streets/ make the calls) has not evolved to keep pace. Although the concepts of rep specialization and key Account Management were gaining traction at management level, filtering these down into the sales organization is a tremendous challenge. Some key areas of contention:
Should we move towards a Service Model? One where sales reps become facilitators of information, offer programs, are used as liaisons between prescribers and the pharmaceutical company they represent, and provide prescribers with information and tools that help them provide better care for their patients? The majority said yes. The industry is moving towards an account management approach, whereas a sales rep is responsible for supporting the needs of a practice by becoming viewed as a value-add resource who can "talk-the-talk" and be clinically relevant. The sales rep would provide information to support prescribing decisions, would work with nurses on helping them better educate patients, and be in a position to answer managed care questions.
They group also discussed a move towards regionalization where a general manager is responsible for running the business of a specific sales region. Discussion came up that some pharmaceutical companies have already begun to move towards this model.
During this discussion, the group also discussed the "total office call," meaning that a sales rep would service and treat everyone in the practice as "customers".This account management approach would lead to more effective discussions and longer sales calls, and enable the rep to be the "CEO of their territory".
How do we better prepare sales reps to deliver more valuable information and educational discussions to prescribers? The group discussed better training and going back to better education and training around the science of diagnosis and treatment in order to better prepare reps to engage in a more educational and scientific discussion. Reps need to gain credibility with prescribers, and a way to accomplish this is through better training around the science and biology.
Should the sales-force of the future be more consultative and less about "fitting-in" a 2-minute detail? The majority said yes. Again, it is about better training and hiring sales reps with experience in healthcare, possibly pharmacy techs and nurses. There was much discussion around the sales rep becoming the CEO of their territory with regional management supporting their efforts. Moving into an account management focus would lead to lengthier sales calls.
What is needed to differentiate your sales force from the competition? Being better prepared, providing more value to the practice, being able to engage in more effective educational discussions, and servicing the overall needs of the practice. They also discussed that sales reps should better understand the needs of the practice, understand the patient pool that the practice services, and delivering information and programs that benefit the overall practice. Its not about trying to get Rxs. It should be about being able to provide more value to the practice and being in a position to effectively educate physicians on the differences between their product and competitive ones and when to prescribe their product for certain patient scenarios.
Sales reps that truly understand the needs of the practice, the profile of the practice, and can deliver solutions that meet those needs will be viewed in high regard by the practice and be "invited" to become a long-term partner by the practice.
What are your opinions for new strategies to influencing prescribing behavior? The group talked about the many factors influencing prescribing behavior, such as managed care formularies and tier status, having reps being able to deliver compelling benefits and competitive differentiators, better relationships w/ physicians, and moving towards an account based sales structure.
There was also discussion that a sales rep who understood the demographics of the patients the practices services would be in a better position to support the practice with their needs. It was also discussed that reps should be able to have formulary related conversations.
What data, and how often should it be delivered, to assist the sales-force in helping deliver the right message to the right prescriber? There was discussion around more refined segmentation. Many companies are creating more segments, however, it is difficult for a sales rep to fully understand which physicians fall into which segments and therefore, they go back to their comfort zone and present the same messages for all physicians. Many thought this is what separates a good rep from a bad one. A good rep understands the needs of the practice and can deliver messages and information based on those needs. A bad rep delivers the same messages to all physicians in their territories. Patient longitudinal data was discussed and many are anxious to use it for targeting and compensation, but feel it is too thin, not projectible, and not ready to be used the way they want to use it, which is to measure new therapy starts, compliance & persistency, and the overall prescribing potential by diagnosis for each prescriber.
Is more in-depth segmentation needed to drive more effective discussions w/ prescribers? And, is it being done? Yes, and it is being done, but difficult to execute. Some have suggested that better physician profiling information be available to the rep through their CRM system. For example, profile information would include:
What types of patients does practice serve (patient demographics/most common diagnoses)
All organizational affiliations (managed care/hospital/medical school)
NRx/Trx/Refill/New Therapy Starts/Continued Therapy/Patient Switching
Method of Payment breakouts
Years of service
# of office locations
New patient flow
Why physician falls into a specific segment (any attitudinal or behavioral information)
What is the IDEAL sales model? The group said this depends on the type of product (specialty vs. retail) and where the product is in the lifecycle. It will be different for specialty products vs. retail products, if it is a newly launched product or a mature one, or a product that involves more patient education or less, and if your calling on primary care versus specialists.
The problem the industry is facing is that we have trained physicians simply to sign. Compounding this problem is that our sales compensation models and KPI metrics perpetuate the same expectations from doctors and sales reps.
On the compensation piece, it was agreed that IN ADDITION to the standard metrics of market share and call rates, there needed to be added more subjective goals like customer centricity (which could be achieved through physician customer satisfaction surveys for example), patient longevity, and profitability. A suggested model could be deriving a value to each prescriber based on historical data as well as future potential, and targeting the sales rep on achieving those goals.
However, some data needs were also identified by the group:
- There is still a lack of accurate daily and weekly rep data
- A lack of patient longitudinal data to derive lifetime value
Most participants were unified in their belief that segmentation was a key tool to input into adjusting call plans. If reps were deployed in an unprofitable region, it is critical to redeploy somewhere more profitable. This key decision regarding flexible resource deployment must be used by the Regional Manager to support the winning regions OR products. Again, meeting highly customized local needs with the same budget is an ongoing challenge.
However, how prepared is the industry to start change at the grassroots level? How can we bring in reps at the entry level with greater clinical knowledge, who will certainly demand higher levels of compensation and ongoing training? The future success and ongoing profitability of the pharmaceutical industry depends on Vice Presidents of Sales making these critical decisions. |
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