RIDING THE CHANGE: PHARMA SALES MANAGERS MUST STEP UP
- Sweeping regulatory interventions in the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industry are changing the industry landscape
forcing companies to quickly re-align their marketing strategies and business operations. The Medical Council of India is clamping
down through legislation on the product management and sales promotion avenues used thus far, and regulators are closely monitoring
the efficacy and safety of medicines sold across the counter. And these are only a few of the challenges.
- The enforcement of the Drug Prices Control Order (DPCO) leading to a steep decrease in prices of several essential medicines,
the impact of changes brought by the Intellectual Property Policy and Conduct of Clinical Trials, and the entry of 100% FDI Entry into the Sector
have put further pressure in an already fragmented market. On the manufacturing front as well, it is only natural that the USFDA has sought to monitor
and ensure compliance with US law and stringent manufacturing standards & operating procedures (eg. Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP)) that ensure production
of high quality medicines, given that India is one of the topmost suppliers of generic drug products (accounting for ~40% of the generic products in the US market).
- As these pressures continue to mount, the Government and Pharmaceutical Industry will no doubt need to work together to support the ambitious future growth plans
chalked out by companies. However, at an organization level, it is the sales managers who will be pivotal in riding this wave of change and who will have to move swiftly into action.
They will need to use the telescope to view disruptive forces, the microscope to manage near term shocks, and the stethoscope to maintain their business health. Three aspects will require
critical attention and swift action – the shifting focus from doctors to patients, the increasing need for sales effectiveness and the importance of harnessing talent in implementing change.
- Customer Centricity is the need of the hour calling for a shift of focus from fulfilling the needs of Doctors to those of Patients through effective education and disease management programs.
The power of patient peer groups will have to be recognized and effective communities will have to be built through social media for better communication and engagement. In a departure from the ways of the past,
value proposition and tangible benefits will be as, if not more, important as emotional appeal.
- Sales Managers will need to set performance targets/metrics and closely monitor their prescriber base – acquire new customers and recover the lost ones, increase retail penetration,
drive the digitization process, ensure a strong supply chain management system, connect with the Key Opinion Leaders and Key Business Leaders and encash the Relationship Index developed over the years.
- New customer acquisition will require market segmentation and identification of untapped/emerging markets using concepts and tools like Strategic Planning, Blue Ocean Strategy,
Competitive Benchmarking, etc. Proper Interpretation of market intelligence and sales data should help monitor performance and drive success. As always, in the short term, it will be imperative
to have a strong focus on enhancing secondary sales while controlling inventory and credit notes that drain profitability. The team will need to look for good institutional deals, launch new products
successfully to build big brands and use resources efficiently to achieve the right brand mix.
- In the people management domain, sales managers will have to attract, hire, engage and retain the right talent. With the increasing importance of value proposition and return on time invested,
it will be critical to enhance the quality of in-clinic sales interactions with Doctors (through effective pre-call planning, opening, probing, detailing, objection handling, closing) and post-sales touch-points
(through prescription demand fulfillment and follow-ups). To enable change to effectively penetrate through the organization, sales managers will need to demonstrate success and add value in every interaction that
they have with the sales team. 'Management by Support' will need to replace 'Management by Authority', and those team members who are rigid and refuse to accept the changing market realities preferring to operate in their
comfort zone will have to be managed appropriately to ensure timely strategy execution and business results.
- The mandate to the pharmaceutical industry is enormous: on the one hand, tomorrow’s challenge for pharmaceutical companies is to develop medicines that can prevent or at least cure currently incurable diseases;
on the other hand, in the short term, as disease patterns shift from acute to chronic (requiring longer durations of treatment), there is increasing pressure from the public and government to improve drug affordability.
The stage is therefore set for the ‘survival of the fittest’ and the challenge for the sales manager today is to avoid getting into a state of panic, but instead to shift to action gear and enable the organization to get to tomorrow!
