Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - (Page 8) Building a Winning Sales Force Pharm Exec Europe speaks to Andris A. Zoltners, co-author of Building a Winning Sales Force, about how sales teams can be made more efficient in a time of recession and sweeping cutbacks. What are the most urgent sales management challenges affecting pharma at this time? Shrinking product pipelines and increased price pressure from payer groups in different parts of the world are some of the most urgent sales management challenges affecting pharma today. The commercial sales environment is evolving quickly and companies are struggling to adapt. As differences between countries continue to increase, the efficiencies of standardisation are lost, and companies must adjust on many fronts. Pharma sales leaders must reinvent the commercial sales model in the context of shrinking pipelines and increasing payer power. They must think across their customer channels to integrate multiple customer facing roles in their selling model. Account managers must work with increasingly powerful payers, sales managers with opinion leaders, and traditional sales reps must generate pull-through. These new roles require new skills. For instance, sales reps that supported massmarket selling may not be well suited to account selling, where the emphasis is on product-centric rather than value-based messages. Transitioning the sales force to support its clients’ outcome-based thinking will be important for success. Chapter 16 of our book outlines ways for companies to adapt their sales strategy to meet these new challenges. We describe how sales strategies are never stagnant; they evolve constantly as external and internal pressures fuel a need to be versatile and build the most effective connections between companies and their customers. How can sales teams be made more effective in these times of sweeping cutbacks? Large-scale reductions in pharma sales forces around the world are largely in response to a lack of sufficient new products in therapy areas treated by general practitioners. Downsizing skillfully will enable companies to preserve sales effectiveness and protect revenue. Executives, however, must pay particular attention to five key elements of sales force design as they take necessary steps towards downsizing. Namely, retention, account assignment, training, goal setting and compensation. In Building a Winning Sales Force we describe these strategies in detail. First, companies can make good retention decisions by using a datadriven, rules-based approach that is legally defensible. When assigning accounts, companies should preserve customer relationships where possible and consider proactive account handoffs in other cases. If the selling process has changed, training will play a critical role in ensuring effective execution. Finally, setting appropriate goals and providing competitive compensation will enable companies to retain their top performers. With fewer sales reps in the field, it is more important that the remaining reps do the right things in the right context. 2 FROM THE EDITOR / NEWS 3 11 PHARMA MBAs NEWS 6 BIO-ENTREPRENEUR SCHOOL 8 SALES FORCE EFFECTIVENESS 10 GSK’S PRICE CUTS 13 CALENDAR 14 ON THE MOVE http://www.winningsalesforce.com
Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 Contents From the Editor Training and Development Sales Opinion Calendar On the Move Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Contents (Page 1) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - From the Editor (Page 2) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Training and Development (Page 3) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Training and Development (Page 4) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Training and Development (Page 5) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Training and Development (Page 6) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Training and Development (Page 7) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Sales (Page 8) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Sales (Page 9) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Opinion (Page 10) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Opinion (Page 11) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Opinion (Page 12) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - Calendar (Page 13) Pharmaceutical Executive Digest Europe - March 4, 2009 - On the Move (Page 14)
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.