Four steps to an effective CRM model
Simon Gineste, Novartiss field force effectiveness and CRM head, on how new approaches to CRM can help achieve market differentiation
Selling pharmaceuticals effectively requires personalization with customers. Pharmas must not only differentiate their clients but also foster partnerships and offer services that are relevant to their practices and deliver value. Simon Gineste, field force effectiveness and customer relationship management (CRM) head at Novartis, says his company has completely realigned its philosophy to focus on such customer specificity.
We dont want to have a customer-centric organization, says Gineste. We want to put the customer at the beginning of everything. What the customer wants and what the customer needs we want to put at the beginning of every strategy we are elaborating.
A new CRM pyramid
Many of the mature markets in which Novartis is active are characterized by increased generic penetration, an influx of specialty products, highly regionalized healthcare policies and reimbursement lists, and increased customer expectations of reps. In response, Novartis has created a new CRM pyramid based on three dimensions, the first of which is collaboration.
Pharmas, says Gineste, need to better collaborate with their customers by sharing information and building trust. All Novartis sales reps now carry Blackberrys so that they can facilitate the flow of information on the fly. If you want to impact your customer, says Gineste, you need all the information for your customer in the point of contact with the customer.
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Internal collaboration is also key. Novartis has crafted coordinated marketing plansin 2009, it started marketing by medical specialty instead of by brandand has better aligned its internal objectives.
We usually have individual sales objectives, says Gineste. Now we are trying to look for team objectives to make sure were aligned around the customer.
A 360-degree view of customers
Novartiss CRM platform provides a 360-degree view of customers: the rep involved, the last time they went to see a specific doctor, how many times theyve visited, the products theyre detailing, and the services theyre delivering. So now you can start to have real customer management, says Gineste. Its Novartis with the customer, not individual reps with the customer.
The second dimension of Novartiss new CRM pyramid is added value. How do you make the customers experience more personalized and convince them that your product provides the value theyre looking for?
Added value
One answer is to leverage new channels. Novartis has created a new online site for physicians called Premium Doctors, where doctors can learn about Novartis products and services. Roughly 5,000 doctors already have joined.
We want with this platform to adopt a pool strategy, says Gineste. We are not pushing a product. We let you choose what you want to learn about Novartis.
When doctors log on, theyre asked five questions, which Novartis uses to personalize their online experience. Layout, content, and services all differ depending on the doctors profile.
Customer management
The third dimension of the Novartis CRM pyramid is customer management. Novartis wants to achieve higher personalization, and higher personalization means higher complexity. To manage this complexity, Novartis first moved from classic segmentation to adoption curves to achieve better differentiation.
However, says Gineste, the company still found the segmentation to be insufficient. Adoption curves are much more elaborated, but if you look at the segmentation, were still looking for the Novartis interest, the industry interest, says Gineste. Im interested in the speed of adoption, but does that mean something for our customer? Probably not.
So Novartis has embraced ethnographic studies and behavioral segmentation to analyze doctors more thoroughly. Conducting such studies necessitates better organization of information, stronger analytics, and select services to provide to customers once theyve been profiled and differentiated.
Gineste says that although Novartis is still early in its adoption of its new CRM pyramid, the company has seen positive results that promise excellent return on investment. He offers companies considering a similar transition the following advice:
Four steps to a new CRM model
First, prepare yourself for a challenge. Its easy to put on slides of how we want to work. When it comes to the field, when you come with your brand managers, when you come with your sales reps, and you say we want to work in a totally different way, forget the traditional way, do things differently, it is quite hard. But you start breaking down the walls.
Second, get busy in a hurry if you want to achieve market differentiation. Its a long and difficult journey, but probably we dont have much time to get there. We want to move fast to be sure we will be differentiated in the market.
Third, keep alignment among your new strategies. We have seen so many examples of how we can leverage new technology, what I would recommend is keep alignment, with Web strategy, with email, with face-to-face with customers. If not, its going to be a mess for your customer.
Four, acquire talent. Its not about a concept or strategy. Its not about the best platform. Its all about talent. We need talented people in marketing to create different services. We need talented people to listen to the customer to deliver different messages to the customer, and thats the most important way to change the way were working with them.