This article is about the structure of pharma’s sales organisations and the importance of retaining star talent.
In part one of two, Marie Crespo, CEO of SalesAssessment.com, explains why understanding your sales talent’s performance potential is fundamental to your business model.
The last few years have placed pharma sales firmly under the spotlight. Indeed, some commentators are suggesting that the whole business model needs to undergo a revolution.
A recent article in Forbes1 argued that pharmaceutical companies should look to other industries for inspiration and, for instance, learn from IBM’s story in the 1990s. As the hardware market commoditised, IBM transformed its product-centric culture to one focused on customers and services. Author Dave Chase writes: ‘Remarkably, IBM demonstrated how it’s possible for a large company to shift from a product-centric culture to a customer and service-centred company. The handwriting is on the wall for pharma companies: they will succeed or fail based not on how many drugs they sell, but on how well their offerings improve health outcomes.’
He asked: ‘Do pharmaceutical companies see themselves in the drug business or the disease management business? Or, where possible, in the disease prevention business?’
A major part of any transformation for pharmaceutical companies will involve creating new relationships with partners and drawing on the depth of engagement they have with the market, albeit that their sales force’s access to providers has already been dramatically limited.
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Dimitra Kontochristou