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Predictive Analytics- Better means for effective pre-call planning
As pharmaceutical companies shift to multi-channel approaches and scrutinize promotional
spend, it is more important for the sales force which has the most direct customer contact to
maximize their effectiveness during sales calls. The way to improve direct customer
interactions is to use mobility—mobile tools and predictive analytics that provide real-time
information and productivity-enhancing features at low operating cost.
To achieve the full potential of analytics and mobility, pharmaceutical companies need to follow
a broader and interconnected strategic approach with a core set of execution activities.
Defining, developing and implementing a holistic analytics led mobile strategy for the sales
force can help pharmaceutical companies drive sales efficiency and productivity, improve the
customer experience and maximize cost management initiatives.
This white paper provides answers to many of these key questions including how to define a
comprehensive strategy to integrate mobility and predictive analytics into sales processes and
to develop a detailed implementation roadmap.
Introduction:
The days of turning up for a sales call with no advance planning and not much knowledge about
the physician are long gone. To compete and succeed solid pre-call planning information is
critical. Pre-call planning enables the representatives to qualify sales leads, target physicians,
and have an efficient engagement.
According to the Miller Heiman effectiveness study1, 63.4% of sales leaders agree that their
teams do not qualify leads as well as they should. Additionally, 55.9% of sales leaders agree
that their sales team wastes time pursuing poor sales leads and opportunities. Good Pre-call
planning is essential to qualifying leads and ultimately garnering better prescription share.
Today, pharmaceutical sales forces primarily use laptops or traditional tablet PCs to access
enterprise CRM solutions, read e-mail, or present digital, interactive promotional materials.
But these tools have their limitations—namely weight, portability, and costly hardware and
software support. Mobility provides added flexibility and new features that can significantly
improve medical representatives’ productivity.
The Increasing Cost of Sales Calls
Based on data gathered by Cahner’s Research2, as reported by the Direct Marketing
Association, the cost of a sales call has been steadily climbing by an average of $9.60 a year
since 1980, when it was just $126.00. At this rate, it is reasonable to expect the cost of a
sales call to reach $580.00 by 2020. As this cost continues to rise, it becomes increasingly
important to find ways to maximize the return on the investment in sales calls. Apt pre-call
planning helps to minimise the time to close, shrink sales cycles, and increase close rates
thereby playing an important role in increasing ROI.
Pre-Call Planning: Why it’s Essential to Sales Success Today
Mining the right information about a physician is the key to establish physician’s
mindshare. And it’s at the core of the solution-selling sales strategy, an approach that
stresses a high comfort level between physician and medical rep is essential.
Diligent pre-call planning enables to learn about physician’s concerns, requirements
and other key influencing factors that can play an important role for a productive
discussion with the physician. As complex products and services drive longer sales
cycles and cost per call continues to climb, this ensures that calls are productive for
both the medical representatives and the physician.
Online Business Information Resources: The leading edge of Pre-Call planning
today, online business information resources are playing a pivotal role in enabling
sales organizations to obtain better, faster, more pertinent information for qualifying
leads. Less time-consuming than networking, attending seminars or other ways of
getting business information, online business information resources include all the
statistics and information salespeople need on one web site, which they can find them
instantly. Representing the latest evolution of pre-call planning, these resources have
become essential for an effective Physician-Rep interaction.
Predictive analytics of Pre call Planning
Multi-dimensional analytics can help the marketing team to react immediately to the needs
from the sales force with instant alerts and actionable insights, greatly improving efficiency and
productivity. Capturing how long physicians are observing the detail, the ability to accept
requests for extra information in real time and respond to these instantaneously can help to
measure the detail’s effectiveness and potentially the return on investment.
With an integrated CRM system, Pharma sales reps can record the information that shapes
the direction of business and establish effective pre-call planning. Information on physician
prescribing pattern and molecule choices captured from structured and semi-structured
databases allows the representative to have a 360 degree view of the physicians in their
target list.
Medical Representatives will have an opportunity to influence physicians with improved quality
of detailing, personalised messaging, faster fulfilment of needs and instantly reverting with
desired medical information requests and latest clinical trial reports with the help of mobile
applications.
Summary:
Pre-call planning with the power of analytics and predictable insights can be a winning weapon
for the medical representatives. This aids in capturing and using information gathered in the
field to optimize resource allocation, cross sell and efficient asset utilization. Previously unseen
data trends and insights helps the sales force to access and quickly deliver insights and
relevant information to physicians.
References:
1. Mulcahy, Susan (2002), Evaluating the Cost of Sales Calls in Business-to-Business
Markets. Newton, MA: Cahners Research. 2. Miller Heiman Effectiveness Study, 2004
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Physician Data
(Structured)
Physician Data
(Unstructured)
ERP
KOL
IMS
CRM
Case
Mgmt
DAMS
Consultative Sales Representative
Physician
visit plan
Improved Rx
Journal Subscription
Samples / Gifts
Conferences
Clinical trial Support
360o Pre-call View
Effective Engagement
Network, Cloud & Social Mobility, Analytics
Collect data from digital sources 360° Pre-Call view about Physician Deliver personalized message during call
Personalized Message
About the Author
Dr. Palakodeti Ratnakar is Asst. Vice President, Life Sciences. With over 2 decades of
experience in Strategic Planning, Market Intelligence and Portfolio Management in companies
like Dr.Reddy’s, he has expertise across the Pharma value chain with particular focus on new
commercial models, design and delivery of strategic initiatives and large transformation and
change management programs in Pharmaceutical industry. He holds a PhD in Business
Management from JNTU. He can be reached at [email protected]