Mals Musings: Where are the marketing mongrels?
Pharma is overdue for a major revamp. Lets start with the marketers
The media is dominated by the change agenda, as the world comes to terms with the post-financial crisis reality.
The healthcare sector has to do some deep soul searching; unlike during previous crises, it has not managed to avoid scrutiny.
We are slowly coming to the conclusion that our world has changed and may never be the same again.
In truth, this may be a blessing in disguise for the industry, since we are well overdue for a major revamp.
While we may debate whether we need a revolution or an evolution, at least we accept that we need to accelerate change.
How can we accelerate the change required to set us up for the next phase of growth and productivity?
Fresh perspectives
What got us here will not get us there. Change is uncertain and resembles nothing we have witnessed before.
So how do we answer questions that have never been posed before?
Certainly, fresh perspectives would be useful in times like these.
There was already a strong case for diversity of thought before we entered the crisis; coming out of it, we will have to address this.
Today, the industry is a little monotone and lacks the range of thought required to formulate credible debates.
Consider the background of most of our marketers, typically sales people promoted into marketing who learned their new roles on the job.
The learning-on-the-job approach to developing our thinkers and planners is a great strategy when tomorrow is an extrapolation of today.
However, when the future stops playing ball, this approach can quickly unravel.
Other sources
There are other sources we can tap into.
For example, our marketers do not all have to come from or have had successful sales backgrounds.
It might well be this very fact that has meant the question planners always tried to answer was, How do I use the sales force? In the end, we know where that led us.
There were not enough people asking, How can I serve my customers? Or, Do I need the sales force?
Apart from the scarcity of marketers with non-sales backgrounds, we also rarely recruited marketers from other sectors.
We were very insular and failed to encourage or recruit those with different thought patterns.
On the few occasions when we did, they either adapted to conventional thinking or they were spat out.
We can answer the question the future poses if we break down the barriers and silos and embrace a more diverse group of planners and thinkers.
The answers we need are around us, albeit not within us.
We need to look outside and build a more diverse team.
We now know that just because a group of individuals agree on something does not make it right.
In fact, we can feel more certain that it is right after it has been debated.
Variety is the spice of life; it is time to introduce some mongrels into the system.