Edition Quarter 3, 2007

20/09/2007

Its the way that you do it

Sir Winston Churchill once famously stated: However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. No, he wasnt commenting on the traditional model of selling deployed by pharmaceutical companies in the modern age, but he might as well have been. The halcyon days when vast quantities of representatives descended on GPs to detail their products are over. Noise and frequency is an ex-model. It has ceased to be.

This issue, PSM focuses largely on strategy. It asks the question: is the current pharmaceutical sales force fit for purpose? The UK market has changed. The customer-base has grown and the number of influences on prescribing has increased. So too has the pressure on the prescriber. Such change is forcing pharmaceutical companies to take a different approach, and to look for new ways to ensure the uptake of their products. But what should that strategy look like? And an equally important question how should it be implemented?

According to Percy Barnevik, former Chair of AstraZeneca, strategy is 10% vision and 90% execution. So why is it that over half of the strategic decisions made by organisations fail? PSM offers you some pointers. We also look at the environmental issues that are driving change in the UK market, exploring a customer-centric model that engages with all the major channels to market. And, before your next strategy becomes an attempt to reinvent the wheel, we also examine some of the more traditional sales techniques to assess whether current sales forces actually have a competitive mindset or have simply become complacent.

Sales is, of course, a results-driven business. And only the best approach will bring success. So maybe Sir Winston was only half right? Perhaps an inversion of his words is more appropriate for the modern pharma industry: if you want beautiful results, you should occasionally look at the strategy. Starting now.

Have a great quarter.

Chris Ross
Editor, PSM