Realizing the future of sales and experience
Less in-person access drives digital engagement
Customer-facing pharmaceutical sales representatives (reps) have been navigating a changed landscape driven by multiple factors. Customers have been increasingly restricting reps’ access, which was further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Burnout is affecting 51% of HCPs, and finding time for reps has become challenging. Pharmaceutical companies are under pressure to demonstrate the value and effectiveness of their products as there is greater scrutiny on lowering drug costs.
Reps have been using digital tools to drive remote engagement during the various stages of sales, from initial conversations to detailing and relationship management. Digital interactions with customers have jumped from 5% pre-pandemic to 30%. Digital tools have also increasingly been adopted for internal collaboration, as customer-facing roles have diversified and multiple stakeholders from medical, commercial, and patient services engage with a single customer. Without alignment, messaging can appear disjointed, and customers can be inundated with an excessive number of touchpoints. There is a need for real-time information sharing within an organization and cross-functional collaboration to deliver a consistent customer experience.
Data analytics and AI personalize customer interactions
Because customers, especially HCPs, see little value in generic sales pitches that don’t directly relate to their challenges, data analytics and AI are being leveraged to target and personalize customer interactions. Data analytics can identify market trends and the prescribing behavior of HCPs and help reps identify customers who are more likely to receive the product positively. Additionally, reps are increasingly using AI algorithms to draft personalized messages based on historical conversations about customer needs. 84% of marketers across all industries were using some form of AI by the end of 2020.
The importance of education increases as treatments become more complex
Organizations have been focusing on transforming their reps into more advisory roles in response to the dynamic healthcare environment. There are more launches of complex products now than ever, with over ten total regulatory decisions on cell and gene therapies alone in 2023. Reimbursement and coverage of these products are becoming more complicated. Reps and other customer-facing teams are expected to upskill in the therapeutic areas, understand the reimbursement models and market access strategies, and demonstrate their products’ cost-effectiveness, especially in cost-conscious healthcare.
Changes in the CRM landscape
Veeva’s decision to migrate its flagship customer relationship management (CRM) product, Veeva CRM, off the Salesforce platform and onto Veeva Vault is shaking up the landscape. Veeva Vault currently has a 2.2% market share, indicating that over 97% of Veeva customers will undergo a migration to Vault. This change is anticipated to impact over 90% of their customers. The CRM’s availability on the Salesforce platform allowed customers to customize and integrate ancillary systems easily, and this migration jeopardizes pre-built integrations, customizations, and access to complementary Salesforce products like Health Cloud and Marketing Cloud. Veeva customers may need to rebuild their technology architecture and make the difficult decision to stay with Veeva or explore alternatives to best fit their future strategy.
Navigating technology transformation
To optimize this force capital expenditure, life sciences organizations should align on the commercial strategy and priorities and then invest in the technology that will best enable it. Identifying, defining, and aligning the field activation strategy can enable a focused, more efficient roadmap against which companies can begin to mobilize on this transition. The current and future customer, HCP, patients, and field rep experience is critical to informing the strategy and delta of change across teams, processes, and the enabling technology.
Several emerging technologies can support new commercial approaches to execute the strategy, such as:
AI-supported sales tools to quickly surface relevant insights during customer interactions
Predictive analytics to identify adherence risks and personalize patient outreach
Automation of repetitive administrative tasks to boost field productivity
IoT connectivity and wearables to provide real-world evidence back to commercial teams
Augmented reality and virtual reality to enable immersive product demonstrations and medical education
Natural language processing to analyze unstructured data from contact centers and social media
Many factors will be included in a company’s vendor selection, notably a capability map benchmarking solutions against desired functionality, total cost of ownership weighed against benefits, and ease of integration into the enterprise architecture. Tradeoffs, change saturation, organizational strategy, and culture will impact openness to emerging innovations versus pragmatic, more transactional functionality.
Companies that get this technology transformation correct will sustain their competitive advantage for the next decade. From the future state design to migration, life sciences leaders can catapult ahead of competitors and secure their commercial advantage through technology transformation.
Slalom contributors: James Hemsley, Haein Huh, Blair Kerr
