As the industry changes in shape and size, the pharmaceutical consultant is developing a new role. Recessionary forces have caused some significant developments in almost every major industry and the healthcare business was certainly not immune. Indeed, the recession has forced pharmaceutical sales companies to change the way that they approach their clients. Budgets were coming under increasing scrutiny and this meant that there was a trend away from hiring sales representatives. The pharmaceutical consultancy business recognised that innovation was necessary and that healthcare professionals were beginning to turn to other ways of educating themselves and reaching out for their pharmaceutical needs. The major companies needed to understand the social media revolution, at the same time as they found less expensive ways to pitch their products.
The market research firm Cutting Edge Information tells us that a quarter of all healthcare professionals are really interested in pursuing the concept of e-detailing. This result has increased dramatically from just four years ago. It’s possible that doctors could be far more accessible this way, and that they could be less resistant to communication, consequently.
Pharmaceutical marketing training needs to change in line with the media revolution and the outgoing effects of the great recession. Indeed, they may well need to focus more on training and education based around social media and the Internet and less on hiring and training of new sales representatives.
In the past, it was not uncommon for a typical doctor to be inundated with communications from sales reps, often from the same company. When you think how different reps may have different levels of training and may not all be able to communicate as effectively, it’s easy to understand why the average doctor would become overloaded. This approach to communication was, after all, far from efficient and we can now see why there has been so much backlash. Doctors have started to retreat into their offices, especially as sales representatives seemed to grow in number. If you add into the mix the slowdown in the number of products on the market, it’s quite easy to see why we are now seeing a reduction in the number of sales representatives. Indeed, it is estimated that in the last three years, the total number of pharmaceutical sales representatives in the United States has shrunk by 20% or more.
Not surprisingly, pharmaceutical marketing training must recognise that the newer sales representative is far more likely to be in touch with his or her generational approach to communication. They are likely to feel far more at ease with modern Internet-based communications technology. As these new reps infiltrate the company, the pharmaceutical consultancy should help company bosses to change the way that they approach their marketing, so as to not fight this ever emerging trend.
Considerable challenges face the industry as we all know, and we’re yet to see how the US federal health-care changes shake out. There are certain to be more pressures on companies to cut their overheads and as such, we can expect the pharmaceutical consultant to concentrate more and more on “e-detailing” and the way that this wave of the future can help to restructure pharmaceutical sales.
Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of L2L Consulting, specialising in enabling pharmaceutical companies to achieve new heights of productivity and performance, throughout all levels of management and revenue generating activities.