Hello, everyone! And welcome to another
engaging episode of Pharma Insights,
the talk show brought to you by Platforce.
Our series as you may know
is dedicated to building a global community
of professionals eager to network, exchange ideas
and deepen their industry knowledge.
I am Juliana Kreisel
and it is my pleasure to be your host
for today's discussion in one of our exciting topics
which is emerging GTM models in Pharma
and how Omnichannel strategies
can effectively support go-to-Market initiatives
Together we will explore
the nuance of new GTM models
and discuss how Omnichannel frameworks
can be tailored to enhance these strategies.
Get ready for a session filled with
insightful discussion and experts perspectives
As you know if you are a frequent viewer
I'm not the only moderator for today
so let me introduce
my co-host Mr Stefan Repin,
Head of Marketing here at Platforce.
Hi, Stef! How are you doing today?
Hey, hello! Hello, everyone. Beautiful guests, beautiful people.
I'm so glad to see you this summer
that you've decided to hang with us
on this Wednesday and not go and drink some mojito or sangria
or lemonade or spend time with your family
You can do both. We will not judge!
Yeah you can put us in the background, as long as you can hear us
it's great!
But we're here not just for the two of us.
We, in fact, try to enlighten the experience that our guests have
and today we have some really like fantastic guests.
And we have two new guests which
haven't been on this show before.
These guys are influencers. They'll knock your heads off.
I'm really excited to start the webinar today.
because it's really special for me, I want to
get better numbers for the viewership
that we had in in June so hopefully we can get that.
We actually had a little bit of a...
Well not say conflict, but a little argue with Juliana
that July is not the best month
but I want to challenge that and
You want to prove me wrong! Just say it! haha
Well let's see, you know. I hope our viewers will like it.
and we'll have a lot of viewership
and the engagement will off the roof
So, yeah let's welcome the other speakers.
It's enough speaking ourselves.
Yeah! So, we're honored to have with us
this distinguished panel, so I will introduce
our first speaker, first-time speaker here at Pharma Insights: Morgwn Shaw
HI, Morgwn! How are you doing today?
Hey! Great thanks, Juliana and Stefan.
Glad to be here, thanks for the opportunity.
The sun is out so I feel like maybe
it's been a few days here in Munich
Should I introduce myself?
Yeah, please. Do it, do it!
I'm gonna um...
kill the first question that I'm going to get
before they even start, that is how my name is spelled. It's not a typo.
I've been spelling it for a long time, but it's Welsh so
I'm the associate director, Omnichannel strategy lead
for Bristol Myers Squibb in Germany.
and yeah I'm looking forward to a really engaging chat
with yourselves and my colleagues this afternoon.
this evening, this morning, depending on where you are.
Great to be here!
Thank you, and we really like to let our guest know
how the weather is in different... like wherever we are
So in Argentina it's sunny, it's cold.
but not that cold so just
giving the Weather Channel as well
We have a very diverse information to share.
Our second guest for today is
a speaker that was with us
if you are following our Pharma Insights show
which I hope you are
So let me welcome Chris Wade.
Hi, Chris. How are you doing today?
Hey, Juliana. Hey, Stefan. Hi, Morgan.
Great to see you all.
Happy to see you! How's the weather on your side?
Where are you?
I'm in London and it's so bright I've had to close the curtains.
so otherwise I wouldn't be able to see anything! So we're having a very very nice day at last.
Having had what felt like a month and a half of rain.
hahaha so good!
I'm happy to hear that! I will introduce another guest.
She is new to our series
so I want you all to give her
a bright and warm welcome Chiara Bolognini. Hi, Chiara. How are you doing today?
Hi, Juliana! I'm good thank you for your patience. Wi-fi issues!
haha don't worry, don't worry!
We always cover. If you have Wi-Fi issues, it's okay.
we are all over the world so the idea is to
just keep going.
You're international leader at Rocher, correct?
If you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself.
where are you at? how's the weather over there?
Yeah I'd love to be holidays, not yet
The weather is good.
And yes ha ha
I wish you all to be on holidays right now or very soon.
Everything is fine, working well
leading omnichannel marketing strategy across a few days
Thank you, thank you for that.
And now I will introduce our last but not the least
speaker for today, she was with us already
so welcome, Susana, another
a second time with us. Hello, how are you doing?
Hi, there! Good afternoon and good morning everyone.
My name is Susanna. I work for Grünenthal.
I'm an omnichannel operations lead globally.
I'm based in the UK, where we are having actually a row of sunny warm days
not sunny but warm, which in the UK is always remarkable.
So after what seemed like
a lifetime of rain and cold and winter
we are actually having summer
which is fantastic and it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you. Thank you, Susana.
I want to thank you all our panelists for being here.
We are so honored to have you on board.
And I also want to thank our attendees for taking the time and being here.
Again if you want to have a margarita, sangria, lemonade, whatever it is
you're more than welcome to have it. We will not judge.
I'll be back in a minute haha
Just let us know so we can all share, I mean
I can go and find some wine over there.
As you know, we would love to hear from you
so don't hesitate to leave your comments, your questions
or anything you want to ask our panelists
My colleague, friend, and social media guru Malén D'Urso
is going to be moderating the chat section
so you know, you know how it works.
Leave your questions. We will be more than happy to answer them.
Without any further delay
I would love to start this webinar.
Welcome all! Stef, the microphone is yours I think.
I think that I've been hovering too much.
No, it's okay. So we've been discussing about
the omnichannel approach
and how it basically reflects on the go to market strategy in different countries.
And we were talking about the effect,
about well... We were talking about
think global, act local, right?
And Chiara came with a very interesting
perspective that basically yeah
although you have, actually Chiara and Susana,
that although you have a global omnichanel initiative
the last steps of the action,
the last piece of the action has to be always local.
Right? Always local.
Oh there's Thomas. Hi, Thomas.
Susana is here, yeah!
So I was super
I was super interested in basically in the fact that how
do basically...
how do you measure the local engagement?
and how do you explain it maybe to the global
to global board, to your Global Leadership?
that this is your local strategy and how...
this is how it works locally and this is how it should work locally
maybe how do you translate these KPIs into
maybe the global strategy, how do you
talk in between local and global?
I'd like to start with that and then we'll see where the discussion goes.
Who wants to take this? I see Chris nodding. Chris? Chiara?
It's a topic that I faced in different ways at different companies.
In some companies there was more creativity
and freedom and others it was like the police.
ha ha ha
How are you doing what we told you to do? ha ha
ha ha If not, you get punished.
And others are really understanding absolutely that
markets locally need to of course
localize and adapt content according to their culture
and they need to do it in that way
to be able to engage with customers
in an optimal way
but that's my answer, but um...
I'd be curious to hear other experiences here from my colleagues.
So if I can build on that,
I think that's
another one of the many million dollar questions
we traditionally have
so in my experience
the best model is a model where we work
based on co-creation, meaning
the global team sits at the table
with a few of the key markets, and when I say key markets
I say big markets strategically important markets
and they actually develop
together the strategy
so that the key markets have some scheme in the game
and they are part of the creation of the strategy.
And then the roll out the implementation,
the last mile goes together
to the other markets who are not part of the co-creation
but it gets a stamp
that it doesn't come from the ivory tower
of the global police force
It goes with some validation from the markets.
So I don't have a clear answer
or a magic wand
that makes all the acceptance
but I think it's always tricky to find
the right model
so what I see working really really well is
having this co-creation
and having obviously like
everything we do having clear kpis
what does success look like?
is having all the messages adopted?
is having all the deliverables adopted?
80% adopted?
is having some snippets adopted? That depends.
But certainly
and as we discussed previously,
we need some sort of global
synergies to make sure we are also more efficient.
Yeah and I was thinking what Juliana said in he biginning
regarding the modular omnichannel, actually, the omnichannel frameworks
and then adding now modular omnichannel frameworks
we could actually consider
to create those in ways that they can
distributed to markets
right? that we have previously identified
in ways that they can work already
with that package that is right for them.
It could be a region, a cluster of markets,
or somebody sharing a culture or language.
So there are many many ways
to speed up a go to market strategy with efficient marketing operations.
You've both piqued my interest.
there because I realised that
amongst or a little bit differently
to Chiara and Susana I'm not in a global role,
I'm in a market role.
and in fact my time with Bristol Myers Squibb has always been market focused
and I can say it's nice
the theory and the opportunity of having a global campaign
you know as detailed as you like, or as granular as you like
rolled out from a global perspective
and fully adopted locally
the reality is quite different.
I don't tell this story much
but and I won't name names
but I have brand teams that use global campaigns
as team building.
like a rage room so they take the global campaigns
they lock themselves in a room for two or three hours
and they literally shoot holes in it
they restorate the global campaign
and that makes them feel a lot better
and then they go off to allocate their budgets and build everything locally.
So you know something in that local to global translation
is not working there.
But I want to give you a little bit of a
a little bit of a silver lining or a bright spot
because we have seen exactly with your model, Susana,
some real success
with creating a global campaign
that is adopted and is usable
outside of the mothership
and what has happened, I mean, we were speaking earlier about the US
based pharma companies, you know,
which I think BMS is one
where we you choose an early launch market
ex us
and then bring that local team and other
close to launch markets very close to the global
the global brand strategy, the global omnichannel strategy
and work hand in hand with that
and we see much more compliance because
what comes into the market has the fingerprints of the market all over it
and there's then much greater adoption
and a clear focus on the type of customers
that we focus on x us as well.
Of course, thanks, Morgwn for the insight.
You made me think of adventure rooms.
hahaha
This was not a escape room. It was a rage room you know
where they throw plates and stuff this is like just putting vision on the wall
and then all of them just going "what is that? this is rubbish"
It's in escape room
but more violent.
A more violent one!
Let me find the mistake. There needs to be something wrong here
because I'm sure I'm not going to like
I mean, to be fair, I started my pharma career
many many moons ago in a local team
so I've been there, I've done that so
It's... But... and again
I go back to my starting point
there is no model, there is no right answer
but there is a balance that can be achieved.
and ultimately that it all
comes back to the nitty gritty detail of
and it's... I hate to say this but in many cases
it comes back to
how do you have your operation assembled?
because in big companies
if you have a Content production factory
and if you have your content being centrally
produced and centrally paid for
for a lot of these works differently because the...
what you enforce into your local teams
is much more
it's much bigger than in smaller operations.
but there is no one size fits all of course
Yeah, that's true.
However, I want to share an experience of building international value work
there are ways, right?
It's not going to be perfect as Susana said
we need to find a balance, right?
there is always going to be a little bit of adaptation.
But if you build
things of affiliates markets, right?
markets representatives already to build that work and co-create
you involve them deeply
in the creation or you capture the insights from the markets
the needs again
then basically bringing back
that international value work is really possible
I'm not striving for perfection, striving for learnings, right?
continuous learnings and refining
until we find the perfect formula
however, for sure relying on the people locally is key
to build international value work and omnichannel frameworks
as we want to say strategies
that can feed to the local customer and patient landscapes.
but do you think that if we kind of look at the topic and sort of spin the topic on its head
if we know that
that omnichannel
approaches work best
when they're locally conceived
when they reflect the nature of customer
in that market some of the...
you know the nuances, the dynamics of that market
which the local team will understand
then sort of working backwards
if you know we are ultimately a go to market model is
supposed to be there to deliver commercial success.
It's not an instruction book
and equally it shouldn't be a set of dictates
"you have to work like this because we say so"
because we're global
The idea of a framework appeals to me because
I think it marries to, I guess, the journey that I've seen companies take
from a technology standpoint
when I first started working this space
every single country had its own CRM system
every brand team had their own content players
It was just chaos
so there was no consistency
anywhere on the organization even though they probably
still had a global system in play
but when you actually spoke to the people in country
they had any variety of different sort of local tools
being used in practice
because they couldn't get the global one to work
and these are big organizations
which had huge variation across their business
what content
essentially every agency delivered their own content player
so think about it, that level of messiness
where we've got to now is
clearly we have lots of globalized
capabilities but if I look at companies which I sort of
put on the pedestal of
great performing companies when it comes to omnichannel
one of them very close to Susana
is part of that is they have
identified the need to centralize
the infrastructure
so there is sort of... who writes the checks
you know, this is what we're going to deploy
but we're not going to centralize the creation.
We leave the creation
of the plan, the formulation of what is
our go to customer approach
in the hands of a local teams
and of course when we talk about things like generative AI and stuff like that
this becomes much more easy
to sort of equip a local brand team
or a local, you know, customer operations team
who don't have huge amount of
endless list of resources to work with
These are the guys who say
"I know what the problem is. I know what I'm trying to do. I just don't know how to do it."
Generative AI can clearly can help them formulate
an approach that sort of works backwards
here's my market, what's my challenge?
how can I make this work in a way that actually I can then report
you know back up in the organization to say
"We're doing this. This is how it's going"
Rather than just that top down, you know,
Global decides this is the full brand, the full playbook.
and there's no
ending up in Morgwn situation where
the best they can do it is throw axes at it
as sort of a team building exercise.
It's a very interesting point, Chris.
and I was also thinking in this scenario
you are depicting which will be perfect at the same time
how do we ensure
these messages you know
that brand presence is consistent across
the markets
if creativity is left
to the market, so I'm making assumptions that
in any case there are guidelines, there are inspections
let's say a direction that ensure that.
Is that correct?
I have to imagine that yeah. You've got a global brand team that are defining
the brand, the medicine is the medicine
here's your evidence and here's the messaging that we
that any... that that company
believes it can safely use to support
the prescribing of that medicine
and all of the imagery and standards around the brand
That's, you know,
the bread and butter of the branding.
But how that relates to local customers
is a whole different thing
and I guess that's one of those disconnects
where the difference between a brand approach
and a go to Market approach in my mind
is that the go to Market approach
should start with who is the customer.
What is the market?
What is the nature of the market for this medicine in this country?
It's not going to be the same in every country
because you have different healthcare systems,
different reimbursement models and so forth,
different levels of just
deliberate Health system maturity
in terms of can they actually handle
a more advanced treatment?
if they don't have... outside of a handful of
highend treatment or private centers
if the general healthcare system isn't equipped
to handle it, it's probably not going to work.
but, you know, enough for me
That's very right
but we shouldn't also... we shouldn't...
We need to keep in mind that especially Global Brands
the global brands have their core,
their core message, their core values, their core
principles and when those are established
there needs to be some sort guidance,
there needs to be a framework
which guides what can and cannot be localized
Otherwise, the brand stops being local,
sorry stops being a global brand
and I personally as a
as a marketeer
and I completely believe that we need to be customer-centric
however, as we build our strategies
from global to local our go to Market models
as much as we are customer-centric
we shouldn't lose sight
of what are the core values of our brands
otherwise we lose the value of
having global brands
And those are essential, those are bread and butter
in our company's strategies
if you work for global companies.
But the point that Pauline makes
I guess this keeps circling around the
the conversations on LinkedIn and stiff like that
is we are incredibly wasteful
as an industry
most of what we produce never sees a customer
so is that okay?
is that level of waste something...? It's like saying actually you know what
the bit we do use is used really well
so maybe it's you know there is always going to be a level of waste
and friction in any process
it's just for us it's higher but relative to
the cost of content relative to the revenue from treatment
it's probably not a very big percentage when it comes to it.
We haven't touched on operations
how do we actually deliver, right?
the global strategy
which is a very important element of
as well achieving that customer centricity, Chris,
you are talking about
if a global strategy it's delivered properly
and not overwhelming haha
deliver it to our markets
then they are able to pick and choose, right?
and are able to actually then build their own local strategy
in the customer-centric way you just depicted so
it's always convenient to have
material that is already ready
to go right with some changes and adaptation
let's talk about the value of reviews
and I understand Chris that
if Japan is creating a campaign
another country in LATAM can reuse it
for sure but I've seen blockages coming from
"oh this is in Japanese I leave it"
why? wait a moment I mean
I'm sure also that with AI
with new tools we will be able to
translate a content, localized much more easily
that it was before
and so also mentioned before
we have of course
the opportunity with language model also to localize images
with localized texts
according to culture so
what we're talking today about will change and become faster
in terms of go to market so
I will still consider the work done at global very important and also
there are digital Asset Management systems
that can be shaped in various ways
horribly or perfectly
I've seen companies not having those at all
and relying on other types of
distribution of assets like G sites
or any type of community
it's important that we make extra communication, right?
we reach out to smaller communities
somewhere people that don't have time
even to join the global call
and we are able to actually test the water
understand where they are, what they need
etc, so probably we need more
International roles
the people who are able to reach out to
the fates and help them
achieve what you are not seeing them achieve increase
and I understand that there is a challenge
and you are totally right
Another way could, but surely, another way could also be
to strengthen capabilities in market
because I guess we have seen a lot of movement
of resource, people, teams
out of country first into regional
we've left with a lot of affiliates
the customer,
local customer and brand teams
are very small
and they probably struggle to keep pace with
all the help that they're receiving from global.
Morgwn, you're on that end of the pipe
Yeah, and I mean I think
Chris, Chiara, Pauline to your points and questions
I think a global implementation
of a local strategy can go
too far and I wouldn't want to be in a situation
representing Global or a global brand
sitting with a brand team giving them a list of tactics to choose from
like that's where the waste is
because if global are designing a strategy and
executing all the way to here's the email templates
you can use and here's all the different content bits
pieces that you can translate
and put in a picture of
colleges wearing little horse
and if that's culturally relevant for your market
you don't want to take it that far
to Pauline's point and to address some of the waste
I think you know the brand is the brand
and the data is the data
one of the things I like about pharma is you're limited in
in the amount that you can say, and what you can say
because it has to be backed up by data
and so your core claims the messaging
that you can deliver I think
this is something that can be developed
collaboratively at a global level
but what I do see is when it hits the market
the prioritization of those
messages in particular varies between
customer segments and so there's obvious
variation between markets so you can't
say that something in the UK that is a
top priority objective is a key
objective once you get to Germany or
Spain or Italy
so as long as there flexibility and engagement
with the local market that they can prioritize
the key messaging in segments
for their segments and stay true to the global
brand strategy in terms of positioning
and the high level objectives
then it's at that point that local
can engage with global and say well actually
we don't care about these two or three
messages they're not relevant they don't
resonate with us but based on our research
and our segmentation these are our priority messages
and these are the objectives we want to achieve
and that can then derive what the messaging is
and again this is where, you know, I could
I could go either way in terms of having
that operational capability in Market or
offshore I think as long as you're aligned
and you've got the resources for it
and the capability we can build and
execute in market, I mean, half of my team
are dedicated to actually project
managing and in most cases delivering
the actual tactics but equally that
could be offshore that could be
delivered by global but I think
the key thing is it needs to be efficient
and it needs to be relevant for the market
it needs to be something they'll actually use
the waste comes from Global or
making assumptions, making tactics for
channels, making strategies for
platforms and messaging that don't resonate
and aren't prioritized for the market
so bringing local into that conversation
considering their prioritization
and their unique
placement or the unique position
in terms of what the objectives and what the channels
what the channel priorities are
that's where you can reduce waste
and closen the relationship between Global and local
Or maybe what Global needs to consider
besides all the strategic
thinking about the brand values
and the brand elements when it comes to
execution the closer the brand should go
is thinking about the Omnichannel framework
the Omnichannel personas
journeys,
experiences, leaving them as the framing
for the execution The Last Mile to then
be executed by the local teams, therefore
the global team still looks at what
serves the brand in terms of content and
in terms of if eventual customer experiences
and customer Journeys
and then based on the local insights
the markets will execute
that might be
omnichannel world approach to what used to be the
Strategic versus tactical plan of 15 years ago
who knows?
yeah I'm sure if you look at other industries
for sort of as a
direct setting that you know most brand
teams at a local level
they will have data skills in that team
so they are doing things of data around
their brand, in their Market, which
traditionally were done centrally so
the tools to handle
diverse sets of data to draw
meaning from it, to drive insight
from structured,
nonstructured
information that is helped by
that local understanding but you've
got people in that team who know what they are looking at
and are asking questions
which, you know, the question
I'm going to ask in France is going to be
very different to the question I ask in Estonia
so why would I expect
somebody at a regional or even Global level
to be able to anticipate all those
questions what I want to do is say
we've doing our homework, we've
we've developed a great brand
we've got great messaging around
here's evidence, all of this stuff
we've touched on but when we come to
execution, that's local
and that's Omnichannel capability
Omnichannel or whatever the terminology you want to use for it
it it starts with
what is the data that helps us
to understand how the market and customers
interact with each other here
what is going to work?
is it pricing? is it safety?
what other factors are going on?
which are going to help to be ultimately be more persuasive
and a lot of that starts
with having a lot of
the teams I talked to these days you know
they put a real focus on either upskilling
the team internally or of
making their existing marketing teams
more data Savvy, you know, more
happy to you know explore and
and uncover their understanding
as well as bringing
expertise into those local teams
rather than just having a
a centralized bi team either in country
or above country who are kind of
mostly focused on creating reports
you know rather than actually
exploring data for a much more
tactical advantage
Yeah and you Chris made me think of
diverse competitive Landscapes
as well so that is critical also
to consider because some products are
approved in some countries first
some others later, we have different
pipelines and we have totally different
stages in the various markets
also in terms of launches, as some markets
have pre-launch phase SE also two years
or negotiations that never never end
while the others are
running very very fast so timing is also
a thing in my opinion because a campaign
that was launched two years before
can also be obsolete two years later so
haha there are a number of elements to
consider as well digging deeper into
the localization
I think Benjamin's just made a really interesting point in the chat.
that it's very
difficult to change local Market
operating models particularly when
they've had a status quo
they've had a way of always doing things
and the implementation of a global strategy
around Omnichannel and tactical execution
does to a large extent turn
the local teams into a filter
they're just a filter for Global stuff
and nobody wants that in their job
that's not a... that's not a...
future proof job that you kind of just
take what Global gives you finesse it
around the edges a bit and then export it
and deliver it and hope that it
matches your globally mandated kpis
but perhaps to put a different few
words around that something we're seeing
and I don't think I'm alone in the pharma industry
representatives
here is that the budgets from markets
are shrinking particularly large markets
and so what we're seeing is a bit more
pull from local brand teams in
that they don't have the same pots of
money to play with that they used to
and that is forcing them albeit positively
to engage with what's already there,
what's coming down from Global because
why, you know, as much as you want to
engage a local agency and get creative
and get your hands dirty and own the process
and the creative from end to end
when you don't have
infinite budget or near infinite
sometimes it seems quite infinite
like when you don't have all the money
in the world to execute then maybe you should
use a bit more of what you're
being kind of served from Global
I think to reference the
conversation we've had so far it's on
global to then engage with the markets
throughout the process to make sure that
what comes from Global is actually
valuable and impactful in market
but changing the mindset
and the operating models locally is
is a huge challenge, absolutely huge
challenge because a lot of this conversation
has been theoretical and I love
theoretical and how things should be
but I don't know about you guys
but I'm going to go back to my desk
and execute a global customer
Centric datadriven Omnichannel campaign
is a million miles from what I'm
actually dealing with in my inbox, you know?
I've got I've got field forces that
don't know how to use Veeva approved email
despite the fact it's been active
here for seven years and is a core channel
like there's really practical
considerations that are getting in the way of
executing omnichannel
Let's be more hands on.
Sorry to interrupt. Let's be more hands on.
Let's talk about like day to day problems
I really like this conversation, let's...
Like therapy haha
We offer therapy as well, so we will not charge you at all but haha
here is your sofa please
tell us your problems ha ha
I think... I think it's a very legitimate point because
it has happened to all of us and on the
speaking about therapy who never? it has
happened to all of us and I think my
biggest learning is it's whenever you
want to drive a change and this is a
huge change especially when you are
impacting on the ways of working we need
to dedicate time, resources, and thinking
to do proper change management
I've learned recently and I've made this
conclusion and it's now a driver of
everything I do that change management
has been underrated and
underestimated for a long time in many projects
and if you don't put time and
structure behind how you drive the change
you will certainly put yourself
in a situation in which you end up
needing therapy because you need to
communicate the change, you need to train people
you need to address the questions
you need to bring the people with you
otherwise you do a huge effort
you invest time, money, resources
and six years from there you look back and
nothing change because the people will
still go to their comfort zone because
it's comfortable and sometimes
and in my experience we tend to be very very
careful managing the change when it
impacts the field force
and we are not as careful when the
change impacts the marketing teams or
the Medical Teams or the market access
because we assume they will organically
change just because we told them to change
And Susana you made me think of
and also going to increase of Knowledge
Management challenges, this is what
I was refering to as well when I was
talking about International roles so
people checking with their
Affiliates understanding, taking
the pause, understanding what has come
through all those calls and deliverables
from Global has been overwhelming or
understood, what has passed through
that communication, that done in many many ways
and if it does not work yet
what can be done to transfer that knowledge
so that's also very relevant
because then Morgwn will not have to
succumb to...
email inbox anymore, he can focus on what is needed to be done
for his own Market
because somebody's also helping with the
knowledge transfer so that's also was my point.
Checking with affiliates.
Yeah I mean I think Susanna makes an amazing
point there and I'm glad it's not
something that is
is emerging from my own therapist's
couch about the change management
piece and how the industry has a huge
focus on the field force
and is incredibly sensitive to managing
the workloads and administrative burden
and tasks on the field force and rightly
so it's an incredibly
powerful and impactful channel
but it's becoming less
no, I'm saying our focus on other channels needs
to broaden and our breadth and depth of
attention and resources dedicated to
channels other than the field really
needs to evolve and that's an
incredibly difficult conversation to have
and change management
is absolutely part of it
I feel like the Field Force are almost
protected and anything that's not
customer facing, a human customer facing
a human representative be it an MSL or a rep
is seen as a threat to that
relationship I hope there not too many
like you know I have to struggle some
weeks and months to send an email via
marketing Cloud right because there's so
much resistance from the Field Force
to having anybody other than themselves
contact their customer and you've got a question
you've got a question
when a rep and I'm going to make up some
numbers here these aren't related to my company
but putting a human in front
of a human costs hundreds of dollars
when it boils down it costs hundreds of dollars
why are we dedicating that
resource? most of them are doctors
and phds, and pharmacists highly paid
highly trained professionals
why do they have to sit in front of their customer
to invite them to a webinar or to capture
their consent to send them an email or
to give them you know depending on the
the profile and hearing of that customer
why does a rep have to sit in front of them
them to tell them about a new product launch
when an email could tell it to them
15 seconds after it happens
for zero cost to the brand
was that message being delivered by rep, it is hundreds of dollars
See of cost, yeah
We've been...
I think quite successful in that
transformation and since Quarter Two
this year we've got to a point in which
we have actually more digital
interactions, more digital touch
points then face to face touch points
especially on our mature Brands which is
amazing we still have Field Force across
Europe and Latam
however, the number of touch points
in our digital ecosystem is higher than
the number of
human touch points and that's not
without a huge change management and a huge
tension management with the field force
and it's not all rainbows and
flowers but the truth is we have a very
good level of Engagement by
creating the ground to have this sort
of Engagement with our customers
but a a lot of change
management and transformation has
happened since
2021 roughly
2020
that was the rep acceleration, excuse me
that was obviously taking
the covid opportunity
and never looking back
Yeah yeah but we were... look at it
We hit the high water mark of
rep numbers, what? early 2000s
it's been down, it's been heading
it's not a Covid thing, Covid just
accelerated it so, you know, the global
number of reps in you look across Europe,
look across developing
markets at the US and Europe it's been heading
downwards and that's not to say
that the Reps individually don't do
a really tough job and do it very well
but clearly people at the sea level
are looking at the numbers and saying
it doesn't make sense, if it made sense
the numbers would have stayed
where they were, I think the nature
of what the rep's role is, that has
changed too, they're seeing a much
broader range of customer than they used to do
and they're doing probably a more
complex job because the nature of the
the medicines has in many cases
become more complex as well
detailing an Ace inhibitor
is very different to detailing
a oncology treat
and we... yeah yet but
that's what they have to do
but I think you've seen a lot of
organizations this my hobby horse
is on the account side of the operation
I think we've seen that's moved slower
in a lot of organizations that they haven't
really
embraced the business
to business, part of the market model
at the same Speeders to embrace
the business to hcp side
we're still very hcp Centric at the same time as we
keep, if we go to conferences
and everyone's talking about diminishing access
diminishing autonomy and
decision-making power yet the answer is
never well maybe we should doing more on
the account side because that's actually
where the buying is done and that
does seem to be one of those I guess
when you sort of look at
the challenge of having and
obviously we're talk about Omni channel here
but you have is sort of you know
two-speed organization
you've got a a legacy organization which is physical
you know they're out there focusing on
Target customers very tightly defined
and the number of people doing that is
relatively low that compared to what it
used to be and then you've got a
then you've got a digital
organization which is focusing on
non-target audiences focusing on mature
products increasingly overlapping the
two to sort of pick up to your point
Morgwn, that when I when a rep does
something why should it be on the rep
to send 15 emails when that could be just
done automatically it makes no sense to
just load you know orchestration
sort of overhead on the rep
when that orchestration can be done entirely
automatically and probably done a lot better
it's this sort of bit which to me
goes comes back to we're
talking about go to market
it's like there's more to the
market than an hcp
and we sort of often in a lot of
settings we see a struggle to kind of
break out of that you know rep hcp
that's the kind of
beginning in the end when clearly
it's a more complex Market that we operate
Chris, I might... we might be
looking at two sides of the same coin
so one of my you know bug
bears and therapy topics that we've been
sort of touching on is our over reliance
over
prioritization of sales
traditional sales Channel being the rep
and I think one one thing that you're
noticing is the same thing but from a
flip side, from the flip side in that
it's sales, human in front of human,
not taking a broader view of the account and
I think there's been conversation earlier about
you know marketing and
commercials involvement in the entire
product life cycle and even shaping
the features and benefits messaging
earlier on the fact that we don't
we have a relationship with hcps
well prior to approval a lot of them are
investigators and principal
investigators and they're touching
different silos within the business and
I think for me I see a skills or
capability or experience Gap in anything
outside of sales, you know there's
there's marketing departments that well
they're called marketing departments
my experience prior to pharma
which I've been in for the last six years
prior to that I worked across very
high Performance Marketing Industries
Financial Services, Automotive, health
insurance, fmcg, luxury goods, and they
would not call what we do in Pharma
marketing and I think maybe it comes
from our insula nature and our over
Reliance on the sales channel so the
actual people that work their way into
different positions within the business
are coming from sales broadly and
there's people working their way into
marketing and marketing director
positions to b u d positions to GM
positions that came up through the sales channel
and there's no criticism here
but they know what they know
or they only know
and so whole industry is overly sales
focused and they can't help but hang on to
the power of this one to one relationship
all the way, all the way
they go back to head office up the chain into
Global positions quite often but we're
missing that true marketing digital
actual Omni Channel mindset and a lot of
leadership are coming up through the sales channel
as well so they don't
understand it and they can't prioritize it
and it's hard to make change when
senior leadership within a local market
aren't advocating for something that
they don't necessarily understand the
the power, impact of and I guess that's
our job locally and globally is
to communicate that message
and may I divert also
attention a little bit to the chat
as we are heading towards the end of our discussion
we have seen Stefan Turnwald
talking about the rep as it's not a
communication Channel
it is a relationship and trust your engagement
platform if not used as such
it's just for the message delivered as it is
...resources with critical questions
whether digital channel content is supporting
or hindering their web in fully leaving
up to the potential personal engagement
I think our conversation has been a lot
also about that we were talking only about
the sales rep but of course when it
goes down to the sales rep which is
our face to the customer, right?
if this person is overwhelmed
It is really a problem and
I usually create omnichanel ecosystems
where the sales rep is in the center
and is empowered by who we are
delivering to this person but it's also
empowered to choose so that should be
the approach in my opinion
not to overwhelm but again
managing, making him a leader of the omnichannel
strategy and so this way also we solve
the fear of the Technologies
the lack of understandings of leadership
of everything else because we empower
the right person, so thank you, Stefan
for the insight
Is there anybody else here in our group
who wants to comment to the chat
messages?
I can't remember the last time a car salesman came to my door trying to
sell me a new BMW
hahaha
so... the analogy is we put
and you know I respect, I recognize that
what the field sales team does is a very
difficult job and it plays a critical
role in the mix but we do put them on a pedestal
there are many situations where
it's not appropriate and it's not feasible
to take a rep led approach in
how we're engaging our markets
yet that seems to often be kind of like
"oh you can't say that, you can't criticize
the role of the field in the Go to market model"
when actually the market model itself
has shifted
you know, where is the autonomy at the prescriber level?
who is making the drug decision?
but again it goes back to the Strategic decision
of go to Market model, where do
I position the rep? and that depends on
the market, that depends on the brand
that depends on the therapy area and
those are decisions that
shouldn't be taken by global, global can
offer a framework, a thinking framework
however, in my opinion the decision needs
to be taken locally because the rep can
be of high value in some situations or
the rep can be an orchestrator of the
other channels or the rep can be simply
a representative of the company for
specific targets, so again the go to market
the go to Market strategy
needs to be a local reflection based on
insights, based on data, based on this
deep knowledge of that market but
probably needs to be articulated from a
global framework and no one likes
framework, I don't like them at at all
but they are useful for Christ's sake
and to Benjamin's point I totally get and
respect the importance of the
rep's relationship for trust building
and the resonance and
relevance of getting the message to our
customers and I think that actually
needs to be the focus is that in the
right circumstances the rep is the right way,
or the best way to ensure that our
customer gets the message correctly but
it can't be the only way because I know
you know I've got hcps and
specialists in my friendship and family group
and our overreliance on
that one channel means the customers,
the hcps don't have that many options and
the last thing I want as a potential
patient is to be prescribed the wrong
medication or a sub optimal medication
because my hcp doesn't like their rep
from the right company or vice versa
and there's simply no other options out there
and I actually have a thought like
I do know explicitly about an hcp
that I know that has no information or
data on a particular product because
they don't like their rep and that's not
an omni Channel environment we want to
operate in, we need to build the muscle of
our non-rep channels not to threaten the rep
but to augment the relationship
and enable us to deliver the content
that we need to via the channels that
the customer does trust and does engage with
I really like that perspective.
Morgwn, thank you for sharing
of course potentially the rep is
augmenting another approach altogether
they're part of the pull through
mechanism of what those
those engagements that you're having at
at the system level,
at an institutional level
Guys, before we continue
I just want to let you know that we are
one minute away so I don't want to take
more of your precious time
I know you're super busy so if you want to
give some closing remarks and our
attendees, we promise that we are going to
to take a look to your comments and
your questions and direct them to the
the speakers as well, Stef, I don't know if
you have something to add
uh I like the comment, it came from Stefan
both Stefan haha
Not me! Stefan Turnwald!
He says: and do not project your negative sales experiences on the field force
better think of how whatever
you're putting together in marketing and
digital to allow reps to deliver better experiences
It's striking the differentiation
of field and omni is
nowhere more disruptive as in Pharma
maybe due to the complexity of the
pharma Market space with multiple
stakeholders haha
or maybe due to the entrenched Empire of sales you know
take your pick haha
However I would like to close with a remark
to answer the question how can
omnichannel support different GTM strategies
going down locally, right?
into personalization, markets know their
customers and the patients so let's not forget that
and if anybody else
wants to add some please be free
I can add a closing remark which
is when considering Omni Channel as part
of your go to Market strategy
please please please do not
jump into the next Shiny Toy to the next
new platform to the next more advanced
without considering the basics
the good oldfashioned way of considering your
strategic thinking know your Market,
know your customers, get your insights right
and then consider the execution please
don't think platform is everything
with all respect haha
don't go and look for Susana, platforms,
she is very respectful of you haha
I am, I am, we need the platform. It is only
the tool if you don't have your ducks in a row
there is no platform that can say
I agree with. Morgwn?
I'd wrap up by stealing a quote I saw
probably on LinkedIn um
I know I've talked a little bit about
and I think we've all been a little
bit kind of critical of the rep and the role
of sales and they overly large
influence on the organization the
idea is that these two things Omnichannel
and the rep or digital versus the rep
it's not a conflict, it's not an either or
and the quote I saw was
Omni Channel won't replace reps
but reps that Embrace Omni channel
will replace those who don't
because it's about delivering a holistic experience
and we haven't really even touched on
the data that is generated from digital
and Omni Channel and how that can
massively augment the rep experience and
some of the best projects we've done
have been where we've taken online
activity and insight and delivered it
into the hands of the rep to make sure
that highly expensive, highly
important interaction is as relevant and
targeted and personalized and impactful
as possible not purely what's in the rep's head
but what's sitting in our CRM
what's sitting in our analytics platform
what's sitting in our profile databases
to make sure that
that critical point is as impactful as possible
and that's what we want to get to
but for now with sending emails
and go into therapy with us haha
Therapy is always good, you know
We need to create the therapy group
Let me know and I will create the group
Isn't that what Linked In is?
sorry I've been misusing it
That explains a lot ha ha ha
Chris, do you want to give a closing remark?
Yeah just I mean I think
if we recognize that Omni channel has
a role to play then that is to me that
is all about connecting the different
business functions so that it's not
it's not a sort of
one part of the business versus another part
versus local versus global
should be ultimately the customers at
the center of this, their needs and
ultimately the patients needs are what comes first
then we have to work backwards from that
but in working backwards
we just need to be honest about
what is it that's driving decision making
what is it that's going to actually
best help patients receive treatments
their clinicians better understand those treatments
that to me is you know that's the driver
for designing a go to Market approach
as opposed to
following just a purely
commercial outcome because
optimal use of medicine has to be
the goal of our industry
If we can do that and Omni channel's sort of
part effectively be the sort of
engine for making that happen
across different functions in the business
then we've succeeded
Thank you, thank you for that
I want to thank you all for being here
and taking the time. It was really interesting.
and I also want to thank our attendees
for taking the time
if you had a margarita, let me know so I can make one and join you.
Spiritually ha ha
To everyone that is watching, thank you for joining. It was a pleasure.
We will see you in our next talk show
Don't miss it, it's going to be about CX, user...
CX for customer experience.
Sorry, I confused the name
Keep an eye on LinkedIn and you'll see when it's post.
So, thank you all for joining. Thank you so much
and I will see you all on our next Pharma Insights
Bye for now!
Thank you!