Integrating pharmaceutical sales and marketing to increase market reach

Many companies are already beginning to orchestrate change within their own organizations and throughout the industry.

By Editor on Oct 26, 2006

Many companies are already beginning to orchestrate change within their own organizations and throughout the industry. There is still much progress to be made, but there are signs the industry is moving toward new implementations and strategies that drive real effectiveness from sales models.

Improving the effectiveness of the sales force is rapidly becoming just one integral aspect of total operational effectiveness and with the shift, the sales and marketing functions within most pharmaceutical companies are working closer together than ever before. According to Olivier Delannoy, Vice President, Infertility Business Unit
Ferring Pharmaceuticals, despite advanced tools and strategies, the human factor remains critical to successful interactions between the two camps.

If you don'st have shared goals, understanding and mutual respect between sales and the marketing, whatever tools and strategies you try to put in place will never work, he says. It's impossible to hit a bull's eye on strategy every time, so the key really comes down to the strength of your team.

On the most fundamental level, Delannoy believes that a shift in the industry's mission from a product-oriented focus to a customer-centric one will allow it to best address customer needs in competitive manner. If a physician feels from the get-go as though he's our top priority, we'sre certainly more likely to get an endorsement from him, he says.

The moment a pharmaceutical company defines itself as a marketing and sales organization, then the underlying value of the company means that each business unit within the company is going to share the same sense of priorities of making sure we'sre addressing customer needs in a manner that offers more value than our competition, he adds. We know they don'st have to choose us.

Delannoy believes the best way to achieve a valued feeling among physicians is to ensure that every contact with an individual doctor whether it is with sales, medical affairs, clinical development or marketing is linked and shared to build continuity in the customer's experience with the company.

The only way to look global is to ensure that everyone talking to a customer is informed of what others have said, Delannoy suggests. And that really can only happen if it's part of the core values of the company.

Marketing's mission, Delannoy says, is to shape up and assemble the facts in a way that creates differentiation and perceived value. Then, he says, the field force must promote that message and give feedback on it so that the message adapts.

Physicians are always trying to do the right thing for their patients, so they must have a sense that there's something new and better that they can do, Delannoy says. It's marketing's role to be sure the wealth of clinical data that we have is always best presented in a way that addresses that need.

Successful sales and marketing also come down to trivial things that are so basic that they are intuitively obvious, but are still often overlooked. Customer-centric starts with knowing where they are, Delannoy says.

You have to be sure doctor's addresses in the SFA system are correct, he points out. With at least one huge mailing a quarter, there's no excuse for having more than 2% wrong addresses. We call on these physicians; we should have a perfectly correct address for each of them. If their address is wrong a customer might as well not exist.

Capturing lots of call data also is crucial, according to Delannoy.

People worry that reps don'st really tell you what happened, but the truth is, there's truth in volume, he says. Once you have accumulated data on a large number of calls, whatever pattern needs to emerge, usually does. At some point, with enough data, you get the truth.

But Delannoy stresses the need to codify call results to effectively pick up trends and patterns.

Gain more keen insight into cutting-edge sales force effectiveness strategies from Delannoy and a host of other industry though leaders scheduled to speak at eyeforpharma's 4th annual Sales Force Effectiveness USA conference, November 13-14 in Philadelphia. For more information and to register, visit www.eyeforpharma.com/salesusa06 , or call the eyeforpharma team at +44 (0) 20 7375 7575.