Cloud Computing and iPad based selling

We have seen before in this blog: the mad rush of pharmaceutical companies to develop sales force selling "detailing" materials on the iPad. A nice perspective on this is provided by Eye for Pharma The appeal in terms of cost, ease of use, and the flash factor is irresistible. The initial wave has been primarily in the guise of developing nice visual detail presentations. The CementBloc is one agency that is developing iPad based selling capabilities

The first wave of iPad based selling has been divorced from other sales functions.
But what about more complete sales force automation (SFA) systems? Since the iPad is so new, and not directly compatible (yet) with traditional pharma infrastructure and databases, it is not surprising that SFA would be delivered via cloud computing. What is cloud computing? -- internet based servers, using software as a service rather than infrastructure investments. The WSJ has a nice overview of cloud computing, or for more technical, see Infoworld.

A case study from cloud computing developer Veeva, on Millenium Pharmaceuticals sites a sales rep solution, to save IT costs. But this was using more traditional PC based clients.


The latest, according to Medical Marketing and Media, iPads will in February be enabled with sample signature capture using aVeeva systems new sales platform called iRep. The company reports it is compliant, and that several pharma companies have already signed on for the February launch.

Once sample signatures are solved, the rest of SFA on iPads in the clouds will not be far behind.

IMS acquires SDI: the data firm nesting continues

The news that IMS Health is acquiring SDI (see IMS press release here) is a jolt to those of us who have worked in the pharmaceutical data industry for ten years or more.

Both companies declined to discuss the acquisition beyond a joint statement released last Friday afternoon. Unnamed company sources told Ed Silverman, who first reported the deal on his Pharmalot blog, that as much as 15% of SDI's staff could lose their jobs as a result of the acquisition.

Gary Gatyas, an IMS Health spokesperson, declined to speculate on timing for the completion of the deal, citing pre-merger notification requirements with respect to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.

SDI itself was made larger by the acquisition of Verispan in 2008. Verispan was in fact a conglomerate formed by the 2002 combination of multiple data vendors like Scott-Levin, SMG, and Kelly Waldron. This reminds me of the Russian nested doll pictured here, the matryoshka.

Why have there been so many combinations in the data, and informatics consulting business? Driven in part by profitability issues, intense competition, adn the mergers of the pharmaceutical manufacturers themselves,

If this deal goes through, With this latest IMS acquisition there will come a short term hassle for major pharmceutical clients in 2011 as the landscape gets sorted out. Then longer term, there will be less competition for information sources, and perhaps slow down the rate of innovation.

No see and appointment physicians fairly stable

The latest update of the SK&A physician access survey,as reported by MM&M, , shows some stability of statistics over the past few years. 20 sales rep calles per week for physicians on average (4 a day, is this alot?)

The latest results show 23% of physicians said they wouldn't see reps at all, in June of 2010, not much change from 23.6% in 2008.

The rise has really been in terms of physicians requiring an appointment: roughly half the physicians surveyed said they prefer or require an appointment to see a rep (up from 38.5% preferring or requiring an appointment in 2008),

There are some access differences by practice demographics: smaller practices, Southern offices, and certain specialties (including allergists and orthopedic specialists) are more accessible. Practices owned by hospitals or health systems are tougher to get into than private practices. See the article, or contact SK&A for more details.

What does this mean? While overall access trends may have stabilized, depending on your product specialty, non-personal promotion and PRM should still be a critical part of your healthcare professional mix.

Tablets - An ever more crowded market

There is a near explosion of the number of electonics manufacturers delivering tablets to market. This Wall St Journal article and table points out how the market for tablet hardware is getting ever more crowded.

What does this mean for pharmaceuticals and healthcare. We have spoken about sales forces delivering messages on tablets, and there will be more options. Lenovo is present for multiple pharma companies. Screen size is an important factor when showing sales visual aids and KOL videos to a physician. But ultimately the winner of the sales presentation race may be based on software adptation -- the SFA contact managment systems, as well as the presentation software, and the feedback loop systems. Which platform allows for the development of these sales force utilizities with continual enhancements and intelligence?

From a consumer standpoint, patients are acquiring tablets like IPads and health related apps are incrasingly coming to market.

From a physician practice managmenet standpoint, if electronic medical records and billing systems can become tablet compatible, then we may have convergence. Patients and doctors can share "apps" and clinical results as their health dialogues become more quantitative and more meaningful.

These developments will be rapid over the next several years.

Sales Reps and Customer Relationships

A recent news item in Medical Marketing and Media pointed out that GlaxoSmithKline will reward its sales reps for the relationships they forge with doctors, and is developing tools for these evaluations.

There are already several approaches to evaluating a company's sales force, such as the Scott-Levin survey of sales rep performance. However, this new approach by GSK is geared toward evaluating individual representatatives. There may be several methods to the tactical measurement:

* The first that comes to mind is a direct survey to a represenative's called on physicians, asking about that rep's performance and added value. It could be conducted online, via phone, email, or even within the sales rep tablet after calls. One challenge may be the busy nature of the physicians' day, which can impact expected completion rates of the surveys.

* An alternative can be development of business plans by sales representatives for their key accounts, including insititutions and group practices. The business plans are scored at year end by achievement of valuable activities with these customers, perhaps correlated with sales figures.

* The more fundamental question is "what is customer satsifaction" for healthcare professionals? The same types of questions come up in developemnt of PRM: often this means helping the professionals grow their practice, handle bureaucracy, manage their time, and better educate their patients.

This taxonomy of healthcare professional needs is a good place to start, whatever the evaluation tool and channel may be.

E-sampling versus Rep Delivered

A recent report from MMM cites a DTW Market online research study claiming that primary care doctors prefer personally delivered samples to E-sampling . While this may be understandable, E-sampling is an irreversable trend.

It is not surprising that for PCPs favorable to both, rep delivered samples are preferable, as the physician can request directly from the sales rep how many samples, and may get other clinical information, education, and services as well. It is a passive endeavor for the PCP, even if it comes at a busy time of the day.

Not all companies are currently offering E-sampling, and the distribution is not standardized. The implementations can come with restrictions as to who can get samples, and how many, as well as a workflow process that physicians or staff members need to step through. For that reason, the electronic version may be less preferred, even by online doctors liek those PCPs surveyed in the study..

But E-sampling is here to stay, and its usage should grow. It allows for more control, and in the long term should more cost effective, for pharmaceutical companies.

Apple IPhone and Company Sales Forces

The Wall Street Journal notes this week that Apple IPhones are increasingly being used by businesses, including the Bausch & Lomb Inc. salesforce of 1200 people. Some corporate I.T. departments are now supporting Iphones at similar numbers as Blackberries. This is due largely to enhanced security features, as well as employee demand.

This may be a significant turning point.
There are already consumer IPad applications available: for patients to manage chronic conditions like diabetes and their associated medications.

I am occasionally engaged in consulting projects on PRM and sales force tablets, and am asked about new platforms like the Apple IPad for professional selling. As soon as we see more sales force related applications, and with assured information security, this is likely to come to pass within the next two years. Which sales force automation companies will lead this development? And which pharmaceutical sales clients will be the first in the field?

Closed Loop Promotion - Overview, Audience, and Challenges

Last week, my colleague Jackie Sanders from The CementBloc and I sponsored and presented a CBI webinar on pharmaceutical closed loop professional promotion
Click here to access the full presentation slides and video.

We were delighted at seeing 96 registrants across a wide range of disciplines, pharmaceutical manufacturers, drugstore chains, pharmacy benefit managers, agencies, technology vendors, and consultants. This audience truly illustrated how widespread the interest is, and how the professional promotional landscape has been changing.

The key components were straightforward to explain:
- promotional planning, personal and non-personal
- tablet based selling
- digital website portal
- tracking behaviors and the feedback loop
- segmented messaging

However, the hottest topic for questions and comments was the various challenges to overcome: organizational alignment, investment required, coordination between personal and nonpersonal promotion. Yet all of these are solvable, and a phased approach over two years or more is critical.

Reinventing Web Analytics on the Sales Tablet

Brand and business goals remain the best way to measure impact of a promotional tactic. However, this truism is not always applied with new technologies

Many pharmaceutical companies are now selling with digital tablets, where almost every click the sales representative makes can be measured, and time tabulated. These tablets generate sequential data streams, which are sometimes measured with basic KPIs like time spent, and the order of tablet slides used.

This is reminiscent of the early days of website analytics ten years ago, where the metrics often cited were page views and time on website. Back then, those were used as KPIs because they were reportable in the elementary "web log" systems.

However, whether it's websites or sales tablets, the objective of engagement within a channel is to achieve a business goal. Therefore on websites, we now measure funnels to goal pages like CRM registrations, and consumption of segmented content areas.

The same should hold for sales force tablets. Think about your brand goals,and what particular sections of the tablet presentations are most aligned toward achieving those goals. Measure consumption of those sections as a valuable indicator of success.

Increase in generics, Decrease in Big Pharma Reps

The almost concurrent newswires underscore the continuing shift in branded Rx and promotional channels.

A recent IMS 2009 Rx report points out that now 75% of all U.S. prescriptions are generics, up from 54% in 2004.

While shortly thereafter, both sanofi-aventis and Abbott have laid off hundreds of U.S. Sales reps.

IMS's Murray Aitken, SVP healthcare insight, inoted that “While the 32 innovative products launched last year brought important new treatment options to patients in a number of disease areas, including cancer, thrombosis and atrial fibrillation, they drove only a limited increase in drug spending."

As generics become more prevalent in chronic diseases, and newer branded launches are in specialty areas, there may be a decreased volume of sales representatives required to call on primary care physicians. Furthermore, those sales reps that remain must present a meaningful value proposition to healthcare professions.