Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19952

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Ed.
Pressure test your brand strategy
eyeforpharma.com 2006 Jan 26
http://social.eyeforpharma.com/marketing/pressure-test-your-brand-strategy

Full text:

The industry today, like all others, Makwana says, is about profitability. And for pharma in particular, the key to profitability is marketing, he says, so getting marketing right is essential.

Recent research from Accenture, Makwana points out, shows that for the average European pharma company with profits of $300 million, effectively gaining insight into the needs of doctors and other customers can add another $19 million to the bottom line. And Accenture reports that developing excellent relationships with customers can add another $13 million, while optimizing the effectiveness of the sales force and getting the right product mix can add another $11 million.

If you look at if very simplistically, Makwana says, our profits are driven by the people we have in our organization and the products we have.

But first and foremost, he says, the people we work with are fundamental to building effective marketing strategies because they define a company’s fundamental values.

He points to first hand experience at Astellas to illustrate his point. In the midst of merging Yamanouchi and Fugisawa to form the new company, Astellas decided to launch two new brands, Makwana says.

It was quite an interesting time to launch products at a European scale, he says. It was the first time we had formed a company with a non-Japanese name and we were launching two products. So what did we stand for?

The marketing teams had to work to turn that adversity into a keener understanding of the company’s customers and its value proposition in order to develop things like a positioning statement and target segmentation, Makwana says.

For teams to be successful, they have to have the right mix of people the right mix of experience and culture, especially in Europe, he stresses. Companies must consider whether members of their teams have the right strengths, although he warns that too much of a focus on weaknesses can eat valuable time, and the right resources.

Makwana also stresses the importance of brand teams having a fundamental trust and belief in what they are doing and the ability to develop relationships, particularly with key opinion leaders.

It’s interesting how many times pharma gets interested in opinion leaders after the phase III study has been done, he says. How many times does that team get involved in a phase I or II product to help decide the type of clinicians that are going to get involved?

So the team is absolutely fundamental, because everything they do acts as a genetic footprint in everything that happens consequently in terms of communications program, he adds.

The ability to translate company values into program planning is essential, according to Makwana. As is an execution culture that supports getting things accomplished with the right people, processes and strategy development techniques to ensure the desired outcomes are achieved in terms of profit.

In everything that happens in pharma, it is critical that senior management actually drive the processes down and make it very clear in terms of the requirements, he says. This, Makwana says, develops the openness, trust and transparency the team needs to get things done.

Does the team have the ability to have robust, constructive dialog and develop collaborative relationships? he quizzes. The processes are so important because the team will probably be developing things like positioning statements that they have to get everybody to buy into. And the positioning statement will only be as good and insightful and useful as the team itself.

Gaining emotional insight into the customer is also critical, Makwana says, since they are making emotional decisions. It’s critical that we find different ways to uncover what physicians feel, because they’sre very good about telling you about data, but very, very bad at telling you how they feel.

This insight into customers’s emotions, he says, allows teams to develop a brand essence.

But pharmas’s understanding of what the future holds for the industry seems to be, according to Makwana, a bit skewed from reality and may need some rethinking to drive future marketing in the right directions. He says a study by Innovex among more than 200 industry executives reveals that in Europe the industry thinks there will be growing involvement of insurance companies, regulators, governments, general practitioners and patients. But survey participants also predict reduced roles for hospital and practice nurses and fail to mention pharmacists

How wrong that is in many countries, Makwana says. But this is what the industry thinks. In fact, some of you may have heard, that the UK government has announced that pharmacists and nurses will be prescribing all drugs beginning in mid-2006.

Perceptions like those in the Innovex study, he warns, quickly go out of date, because decisions are being driven by governments that are desperate to drive down the cost of healthcare, particularly drugs.

So you can see that even when you ask industry executives, it’s a bit of guessing game, he adds. They’sre finding it very difficult to predict the future.

But the industry does recognize, Makwana says, that the sales model, marketing techniques and skill sets of the teams that are customer facing have got to change. And we’sve got to drive that, because now the key to success and this is what pharma believes for the future is that we have to do better research into some of the prescribers and into optimizing our marketing plans and optimizing sales.

But Makwana says there are some important things to consider to ensure that your strategy does not fail as you go into this changing environment. Making your strategy easily accessible to reps and simple to understand will be critical, he predicts.

Objective setting for the team is critical as well and the team that is execution oriented are the ones that are going to succeed, Makwana says.

He also warns companies to avoid loose implementation plans. I’sve heard a lot of ideas, but we need to be sure we turn those ideas into specific actions and then measure their effectiveness, Makwana suggests.

And the best way to measure effectiveness, he advises, is to compare your company to the competition. That way you get a feel for the impact of what you’sve been doing and whether it’s the right thing to do whether it supports your strategy, he says.

Genuine team leaders that recognize the people on their team and come armed with contingency plans are critical, too. What if your competition does X, Y and Z? Are you prepared for what you’sre going to do? Makwana asks.

He warns again reanalyzing everything and cutting costs and corners just before you’sre ready to implement your strategy. Companies have got to see through it and make sure they’sre quality-driven now, he suggests. And when you’sre successful, make sure you celebrate and recognize your team.

And lastly, he encourages companies to make sure their senior level managers spend a least a week out in the field each year not doing field visits but truly working as a sales rep. That teaches you more about what’s going on in the industry than any anything else ever will and it allows you to do more in terms of going back and fixing a few things in the office.