MEDICINMANmedicinman.net/download/MedicinMan_July_2016.pdf · 2018. 5. 7. · healthcare in India,...

“Reading a recent book on the topic of corruption in

healthcare in India, written by two Doctors, with tes-timonies from several other honest doctors, a ques-

tion struck my mind: if there was a hierarchy of professions corresponding to ‘needs’ in society (much like Maslow’s pyramid), where would Doctors figure?

Right at the base of the pyramid I would imagine (the phys-iological level in Maslow’s terminology). Yet, it suffers from an ‘image’ problem (mind you, not a ‘reputation’ problem). Is it a behavioural issue or an expectation mismatch? More of an expectation mismatch than a behavioural one I be-lieve.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a Professor at a premier B-School. During an executive training, the topic veered towards healthcare and the topic of “Doctors fleecing patients”.

I am not a Doctor, but I have worked closely with Doctors owing to my professional background (and I somehow en-tered the discussion taking their side).

I asked the students a simple question: “Students studying in this college will expect a seven digit starting package and an eight digit package in a decade, while a medical graduate gets a pittance during internship and is well into his or her 30’s when before establishing a practice.

Students at this B-School live in lavish hostels while most medical students’ hostels are a mess.

Many times medical students work over 18 hours a day on duty and do not have the luxury of vacations!

Don’t Doctors have the right to a good living and earning just like other professionals?”

The silence in the room was answer enough.

The truth, I feel, is that there are moral expectations from Doctors, although they too are professionals paying taxes.

The Hippocratic oath - the ‘reputation driver’ for Doctors that brings respect and admiration for them - is often un-dermined by the market economy that we are currently in.

Without getting into the structural changes taking place in the medical profession, suffice to say that there are indeed Doctors who are ruining the image of the profession. But, equally, there are those who go far beyond their responsi-bilities under the Hippocratic Oath.

MEDICINMANField Force excellence

July 2016| www.medicinman.net

Indian Pharma’s First Digital Magazine Since 2011

TM

DOCTORS STILL CONSIDERED NOBLE BUT IMAGE NEEDS A MAKEOVER WITH GESTURES OF MAGNANIMITY.

GUEST EDITORIALNoumaan Qureshi

“The truth, I feel, is that there are moral expectations from Doctors, although they too are professionals paying taxes.”

I had a personal experience when my sister was wheeled into the emergency room due to a stroke, at a respected private tertiary care hos-pital.

It was a Saturday. The neurologist was a good soul who waited for more than four hours, being present throughout the tests and scans till she was put in the ICU.

As her stay in the hospital continued for months, on many occasions he did not charge fee for his visits. I know other Doctors as well who have hu-manity as their first priority.

While many times Doctors defend the profes-sion, claiming there are black sheep in every profession, there is one quality - magnanimity - which I believe can bring lot of positivity to the Doctor’s image.

Doctors enjoy respect in society: their reputa-tion is intact; but their image keeps fluctuating.

A bit of behaviour change will course-correct this distortion.

HAPPY DOCTOR’S DAY!

GUEST EDITORIAL by Noumaan Qureshi

2 | MedicinMan July 2016

Noumaan Qureshi is a PR professional. Views expressed are personal.

“Doctors enjoy respect in society: their reputation is intact; but their image keeps fluctuating.

A bit of behaviour change will course-correct this distortion.

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LEARNING ON-THE-GO WITH THE THOUGHT LEADERS OF PHARMA

CONTENTS MedicinMan Volume 6 Issue 7 | July 2016

Editor and Publisher

Anup Soans

Chief Mentor

K. Hariram

Editorial Board

Salil Kallianpur; Prof. Vivek Hattangadi; Shashin Bodawala; Hanno Wolfram; Renie McClay

Executive Editor

Joshua Soans

Letters to the Editor: [email protected]

1. Five Disruptive Forces that are Shaking Up Pharma ...............................................................6

A curtain raiser on a few disruptions that will permanently alter the pharma marketing landscape in the near future.

Piyush Agarwal

2. The Dangers of Labelling Your Sales Team Members and Having a Closed Mindset ........12

It is easy to label your sales team members as inept but it closes the doors to improvement and progress.

K. Hariram

3. Leadership Lessons for Frontline Managers: Building an E2 Team ........................................17

How the pharma frontline manager can develop a high-performance team by fostering Empathy and Excellence in the team.

Vivek Hattangadi

4. How to Hire a Future-Ready Field Force ....22

As the pharma industry undergoes rapid change, the job roles and job descriptions of the sales force will also change. Hiring Managers need to keep this in mind.

Anjali Sharma and Chandan Kumar

5. Handling Sales Rejections Professionally ..26

How to handle sales rejections as a business problem to be solved rather than a personal affront.

RB Balakrishna

6. Deciding on a Business Expansion Strategy by Weighing the Risks and Gains ....................28

An introduction to the use of the Ansoff Matrix to weigh the risks and the benefits of pursuing a particular growth strategy.


Connect with Anup on LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter

Anup Soans is an L&D Facilitator, Author, Pharma Consultant and Editor - MedicinMan

Visit: anupsoans.com

Meet the editor

http://www.anupsoans.com

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HardKnocks for the GreenHorn is a specially crafted training manual to enable Medical Representatives to gain the Knowledge, Skills and Attitude needed to succeed in the competitive arena of pharma field sales. Medical Representatives joining the field are often not aware about the key success factors of their job and as a result they get discouraged when things don’t go as planned. HardKnocks for the GreenHorn is a powerful learning and motivational tool for field sales managers to build their sales teams.

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“6 | MedicinMan July 2016

Increasingly, industry executives are of the view that pharma’s age old marketing models are no longer returning predictable outcomes as they did in the past.

Times are tough for pharma marketing and they will get tougher. Increasingly, industry execu-tives are of the view that pharma’s age old mar-

keting models are no longer returning predictable out-comes as they did in the past.

DISRUPTIVE FORCES SHAKING UP PHARMA

A curtain raiser on a few disruptions that will permanently alter the pharma marketing landscape in the near future.

Hanno Wolfram

5

Piyush Agarwal

“Piyush Agarwal | 5 Disruptive Forces Shaking Up Pharma


In the past, marketing teams worked to create eye-grabbing communication while sales teams sweated it out to attract customers to the top of the physician funnel. For ages, pharma marketers excelled at managing systems that ensured mes-saging consistency and in-clinic foot-falls.

However, the past is increasingly becoming irrele-vant in a world of constant disruption. Return on investments made in traditional models have be-come unviable.

The take-home message is that pharma marketers are going to fail if they continue to make decisions based on intuition that was acquired a decade back. A clear need of the hour is to go back to the drawing board and redesign business models so that they give us a unique advantage to sustain growth in the future when these disruptions reach maturity.

DISRUPTIVE FORCE NUMBER 1: THE DIGITAL DEMOLITIONIt took about 75 years for the telephone to connect 50 million users but the Internet achieved this fig-ure in four years and Facebook in just two. Today apps like Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Angry birds and Candy Crush have already been down-loaded on more than a billion handsets.

The fact is, ‘Androidization’ of products and services is virtually demolishing every previously held be-lief and business intuition. Mobile is connecting the world in a manner and at speeds beyond hu-man imagination.

Physicians today are relying far less on Medical Reps and receiving more customized and quality healthcare information on their hand-held devices. Android services and start-ups are not just helping physicians connect with their peers but also in-creasing their referrals and consultations.

The take-home message is that pharma marketers are going to fail if they continue to make decisions based on intuition that was acquired a decade back.



If our customer acquisition blue-prints still lack dig-ital engagement strategies, we may well be burying our heads in the sand. The android platform opens up infinite possibilities for creating new marketing capabilities and execution platforms that can lever-age efforts in implementation, awareness, diagno-sis and treatment in times to come.

DISRUPTIVE FORCE NUMBER 2: THE CHANGING REGULATORY REGIMELet’s face it. Healthcare has always been a highly regulated industry the world over and it is bound to remain so in future. India being a developing na-tion, it is only natural that time-and-again we find ourselves in the docks with the regulators.

The government imposed an overnight ban on fixed-dose combinations, slashing a whopping 3,000 crores at one go. The intention is good but the manner of implementation of the legislation is questionable.

The Kokate committee shortlisted 963 combina-tions but only 344 have been banned at present. One can expect more bans to come sooner or later, likely sooner. For a healthcare marketer, the writing on the wall is clear: be proactive so as not to get caught off-guard.

Pharma marketers need to ponder on how they will cushion the loss when brands are forced to vanish from shelves overnight and what it will take to mitigate the risk of losing valuable customers and patients.

The Indian industry has seen a phenomenal adop-tion of combination drugs in contrast to developed nations. But as we increasingly align ourselves to global healthcare standards, the focus may well shift back to the use of single molecules or primary therapies over a period of time.

If our customer acquisition blue-prints still lack digital engagement strategies, we may well be burying our heads in the sand.



DISRUPTIVE FORCE NUMBER 3: A SUDDEN ETHICAL DETOX For diverse reasons, the implementation of an eth-ical code in pharma has been continuously post-poned. It is learnt that the government is now busy giving final touches to a set of binding principles to check malpractices in healthcare.

UCPMP will be one of the biggest disruptive forces in modern times and ‘transactional’ sales models will witness a sudden-death syndrome. Companies will be forced to seek alternate strategies to keep their customers engaged. Without a doubt, busi-ness is bound to suffer in the near term but the onus is on marketing and sales teams to redefine the rules of customer engagement and continue to deliver long-term growth.

DISRUPTIVE FORCE NUMBER 4: THE CHRONIC ILLNESS OUT-BREAKIndia is sitting on a cadio-metabolic time bomb. With increasing longevity and awareness of life-style diseases, the diagnosis of such diseases is aid-ing growth much more than the acute segment. Companies who identified the chronic opportunity early on are reaping the benefits today and now occupy formidable positions in these segments. However, competition is intensifying at the top of the pyramid. Further growth in these segments needs to be driven by moving down the customer pyramid to the mass markets by creating aware-ness, aiding diagnosis and impacting outcomes.

A case in point is Gliptins. They have already shat-tered long held dogmas and myths. In terms of val-ue, Gliptins have become the top group of drugs beating the age old Glim-met combinations to the second place. And this despite the fact that A1C reduction achieved by Gliptins is less than half of a Glim-met combination. The Diabetes treatment algorithm stands reshaped by an intelligent game plan.

UCPMP will be one of the biggest disruptive forces in modern times and ‘transactional’ sales models will witness a sudden-death syndrome.



DISRUPTIVE FORCE NUMBER 5: SFE INEFFECTIVENESS Traditionally, pharma has remained focused only on the physician as the single-point decision mak-er for generating demand. However since 2010, the rising power of alternate stakeholders in health-care is opening up newer targets in a Multi-Chan-nel Marketing (MCM) environment.

For instance, about 85 per cent of the market value is contributed by the retail segment today. How-ever, they will be severely challenged by the phe-nomenal rise of the corporate and chain hospitals who are aggressively making plans to penetrate at least 100 cities in the near term.

Creating a differentiated space in the future would now involve acquiring new skills to partner and ne-gotiate with a variety of agencies and service firms who are impacting drug consumption. Undoubt-edly, the sales force that would win battles in the future will be the ones who bust their own myths and open-up to face competition in the disrupted landscape. Of course, the training leaders will have to play the enabling role in injecting and nurturing a new SFE culture and rejig teaching modules to give the sales force new skills:

1. Shift the focus of training from managing ‘transactions’ to implementing long-term sci-entific engagements.

2. Train the field force to create new markets through a business development approach.

3. Re-train for partnering and negotiating skills with a wide set of new stake holders.

4. Reset managerial KPIs from chasing month-end target numbers and start measuring activ-ity-based customer enrollments.

5. Redesign compensation and reward systems based on multi-channel complexities and tal-ent requirements.

...training leaders will have to play the enabling role in injecting and nurturing a new SFE culture and rejig teaching modules to give the sales force new skills.

“


CONCLUSIONThere are no magic bullets to win in the new dis-rupted landscape. However, a few fundamental actions will set the ball rolling to your advantage.

First, it is important to recognize existing strengths and then begin to innovate and prepare for disrup-tive times. Understand that the focus of innovation will have to shift from messaging and coverage ex-cellence to how brands can prove to be innovative solutions to an existing need-gap.

Second, attracting customers to the top of the sales funnel will no longer serve the purpose of cre-ating a loyal prescriber. Unless customers are kept engaged throughout the solution value chain, they will be lost to competition mid-way.

Third, stop looking at the world through a rear-view mirror. Decisions based on intuition and gut-feelings of the past will lead to costly mistakes. In the new world, executives, leaders, and individu-als will need to boldly reboot their hard-drives and upgrade to the latest operating systems. This will become undebatable for organizations that have enjoyed great success so far and aim to do so in the future as well. M

There are no magic bullets to win in the new disrupted landscape. However, a few fundamental actions will set the ball rolling to your advantage.

Piyush Agarwal is AVP – Business Strategy at Intas Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

[email protected]

Piyush Agarwal | 5 Disruptive Forces Shaking Up Pharma


Recently, I was in a coaching session with my coachee client who is a General Manager – Mar-keting & Sales in a petro chemicals company.

The conversation veered around to some of his current challenges. He exclaimed in frustration: ‘My sales peo-ple just don’t get it! What can I do about them?”

I went about the session trying to help my coachee find direction with certain clear action points based on my practical coaching experience to a group of phar-ma Frontline Managers (FLMs) a few weeks ago.

Let me share one of my recent interactions with a group of FLMs and how the coaching took place. Here is a list of familiar questions posed by them:

“How do I…

Make my team members more responsible and account-able?

Work on under-performers effectively?

Motivate my team members during challenging situa-tions?

Know when and where to train and when to coach?

Make my team members stick to their commitments – especially the senior ones?”

And many more…

THE DANGERS OF LABELLING YOUR TEAM MEMBERS AND HAVING A CLOSED MINDSETIt is easy to label your sales team members as inept but it closes the doors to improvement and progress.

K. Hariram

“For me these are ‘COACHING” moments. So my typ-ical way of going further on this is to ask:

“Can you tell me more about it?”

If someone is handling a team of senior members (by age) or chronic underperformers, then the re-plies usually are: “they cannot be coached”, “the con-versations are not productive”, “they do not listen”, etc.

When such feedback comes up in a group setting with other FLMs present, it is not uncommon to see them nodding their heads in agreement and look-ing helpless.

My next question is “do you mean these people are not coachable or cannot be changed?”

A unified “YES” is usually the response.

I follow this with the question: “Tell me, why is there a feeling of helplessness? I am eager to know.”

This usually results in a lengthy explanation of all the efforts made and the gross reluctance of the under performer to take the help or support from the concerned manager.

Having understood the situation my next question is, “so based on all what you have experienced, would I be right in saying that you have come to the conclu-sion that they cannot be coached?”

“YES, absolutely”, comes the answer, with confi-dence. The others nod their agreement.

My next question is, “Okay. So, what other issues might we be dealing with here?”

This results in stony-faced silence.

Here it becomes clear that they are out of ideas and nothing is likely to change their beliefs.

For me this is a Eureka! moment. A change in ap-proach is what is required and that is what I did.

I asked, “Have you ever been in a situation where you or your Reps were making a difficult physician call and your Reps believed, with great certainty and con-viction, that there was no way the physician would prescribe the product?”


If someone is handling a team of senior members (by age) or chronic underperformers, then the replies usually are: “they cannot be coached”, “the conversations are not productive”, “they do not listen”, etc.

K. Hariram | The Dangers of Labelling Your Team Members and Having a Closed Mindset

“As anticipated, this question was answered in the affirmative.

I continued, “Have you ever dealt with a situation which your Reps thought was hopeless, as a chal-lenge? Did you plan your next visit along with the Rep, look at this problem as an opportunity, and convert the physician into a prescriber?”

Again, a nod of agreement.

“WHY do you think this happened and what made you look at the situation as an opportunity rather than an insurmountable problem?”

One of the FLMs jumped on his feet and replied, “Because the Rep had developed some pre-con-ceived notions based on his earlier experience and had closed his mind about the physician. That simply wasn’t acceptable to me.”

“Why do you think your Rep did that?’, I asked

The FLM replied, “Reps tend to make incorrect as-sumptions based on past interactions with physi-cians.”

“So what makes you convert these problems into op-portunities?’” I questioned.

“’Sir, good question. We tell our MRs not to make as-sumptions because it limits their ability to make an effective call again. All past experiences are not nec-essarily permanent and learning from the past and readjusting the approach may help in converting the physician to a prescriber. Am I right?”

As I looked around, I could see the FLMs in the room starting to fidget, as many of them started identifying their own gap and learning moment. They could now relate to their earlier conversation and see how the assumptions they make about others based upon their own judgment and past experiences impact their communication, relation-ship, and level of trust with their Reps.


... They could now relate to their earlier conversation and see how the assumptions they make about others based upon their own judgment and past experiences impact their communication, relationship, and level of trust with their Reps.


“Conclusion:

There is a human tendency to put limitations on progress by labelling people or situations as un-changeable. An awareness and understanding of this tendency is the first step in overcoming seem-ingly impossible obstacles.

This results in:

1. Change in approach and disposition

2. Change in communication resulting in better interpersonal engagement

Then you can create new opportunities, new pos-sibilities and positive outcomes. In effect, you be-come an effective coach and move forward to be-come a transformational leader.

“Labels shape more than our perception of color; they also change how we perceive more complex targets, like people.”

In my earlier write up on COACHING for sales ex-cellence (refer to MedicinMan March 2016), I had mentioned that, by definition, COACHING is “THE ART OF CREATING NEW POSSIBILITIES”. M


There is a human tendency to put limitations on progress by labelling people or situations as unchangeable. An awareness and understanding of this tendency is the first step in overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles.

K. Hariram is the former MD (retd.) at Galderma India. He is Chief Mentor at MedicinMan and a regular contributor. [email protected]


FFE + CEO ROUNDTABLE AND BRANDSTORM 2017will be held in Mumbai in the month of February 2017. More details to follow.

Field Force Excellence conference + CEO Roundtable is targeted at senior industry professionals in all func-tions. The CEO Roundtable is the highlight of the event and features some of pharma’s most well-known leaders.

Past topics include:• Practical Issues in Sales Force Effectiveness (SFE)

implementation• Role Clarity from Front-line Manager to National

Sales Manager• Role of Technology as a Field Force Multiplier• Social Learning for the Field Force• Data Analytics: Actionable Insights for Segmented

Marketing• Role of Marketing, Medical, HR and L&D in Building

the Rx Capabilities of the Field Force• Navigating UCPMP, MCI Guidelines and other regula-

tory issues• Reinvention of Doctor-Field Force interaction

through Digital and Social

Past Speakers include:• Sanjiv Navangul – Managing Director, Janssen India• K. Shivkumar – Managing Director, Eisai• Sujay Shetty – Partner, PwC India• CT Renganathan – Managing Director, RPG Life-

Sciences• YS Prabhakar – CEO, Sutures India• Ali Sleiman – General Manager India, Merck Serono• Darshan Patel – Partner, PwC• Vikas Dandekar – Editor Pharma, ET• Shakti Chakraborty – Group President, Lupin• Ganesh Nayak – (fmr) CEO and Executive Director,

Zydus Cadila• Bhaskar Iyer – Divn VP, India Commercial Operations,

Abbott• Narayan Gad – CEO, Panacea Biotec• Girdhar Balwani – Managing Director, Invida

BrandStorm is the annual MedicinMan event for Brand Managers. The event features thought leaders in pharma brand management addressing the hottest topics of the day.

Past topics include:• UCPMP & MCI Guidelines – Implication for Pharma

Marketing• Brand Building: Case Studies from the Indian Pharma

Market• Unleashing the Power of Digital Marketing – Case

Studies• From Brand Management to Therapy Shaping• Marketing to Hospitals• Case Study: Zifi-AZ• Field Force – Doctor Interaction through use of Digi-

tal and Social Media• How to Optimize Healthcare Communication Cre-

ative Agency Services

Past Speakers include:• PV Sankar Dass – CEO & Director, CURATIO• Darshan Patel – Partner, Pricewaterhouse Coopers• Daleep Manhas – General Manager & Associate Vice

President at McCann Health• Praful Akali – Founder-Director, Medulla Communi-

cations• Pankaj Dikholkar – General Manager, Abbott• Salil Kallianpur – Brand Director, Europe, GSK• Deep Bhandari – Director-Marketing & Sales Excel-

lence, UCB• Shiva Natarajan – General Manager, GSK• Shashank Shanbag – Business Unit Director, MS• Nandish Kumar – DGM and Head – Marketing, FD• Dr. VK Sharma, AVP at Unichem Labs

To partner at the event contact:[email protected] | +91-968-680-2244

An E2-TEAM is one that is both highly En-gaged and committed to Excellence at the workplace.

Before you start building an E2-TEAM, ask your-self a few questions:

? Is your team personally and emotionally at-tached to the organization?

? Does your team take pride in endorsing the organization as a good place to work?

? Does your team feel a close connection with the organization?

? Does your team excel in their job roles?

? Does your team have confidence in you as a leader?

If even one answer is in the negative, your team members are disengaged.


LEADERSHIP LESSONS FOR FRONTLINE MANAGERS: BUILDING AN

E2-TEAMHow the pharma frontline manager can develop a high-performance team by fostering Empathy and Excellence in the team.

Vivek Hattangadi

“Vivek Hattangadi | Leadership Lessons for Frontline Managers: Building an E2-Team


Here are the five steps to build an E2-TEAM. The foundation of an E2-Team is ‘Trust’.

STEP I – TRUST PEOPLETrust is the cornerstone of an E2-TEAM. Here are some ways for you to grow trust in your team.

ü Listen to your team members with full re-spect and attention. Show empathy and sen-sitivity to their needs. Trust grows when you understand your team members and relate to them.

ü Display proficiency and competence. Know your subject well. Whenever you do not have an answer to a query, admit that you don’t know. Explain that you will find out and get back. Nothing builds trust more effectively than admitting that you don’t know, when you don’t know.

ü Set high expectations and proceed as if you believe your team members are capable of liv-ing up to them. The demonstration of your faith in their abilities will likely result in superior per-formance.

ü Act with integrity. Keep commitments. If you cannot keep a commitment, explain the rea-sons without delay.

ü Praise and recognize team members. A cul-ture of genuine recognition can be a very pow-erful tool to improve trust leading to excellence at the work place.

STEP II – VALUE PEOPLE The next step is to demonstrate that you value your team members. One of the most important ele-ments of building an E2-TEAM is that every member should feel valued. How can you demonstrate this?

ü Give constructive feedback. While praise is to acknowledge good work, feedback is meant to be constructive to help team members devel-op and progress. Constructive feedback makes an individual feel valued. Giving feedback is an art which you can develop. Honest, meaningful feedback with the aim of helping your team members to develop, will engage their hearts and minds.

Nothing builds trust more effectively than admitting that you don’t know, when you don’t know.

“


ü Apply the principles of Servant-Leadership. True leaders serve. Says Robert Greenleaf, “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”1 Your team members will be personally and emotionally bound to the leader and the organization.

ü Take interest in their interests. If people know that you are genuinely interested in their wel-fare and career progress, they will feel valued. This will take them to the next level of engage-ment. Feeling valued is an important piece of the employee’s assessment of their workplace according to the American Psychological Asso-ciation (APA)2. Those who feel valued are more likely to report being and feeling motivated to do their very best for their employer whereas those who do not feel valued are less likely to recommend their place of work to others and more likely to report wanting to find a new job in the future.2

ü Communicate. If people are to be engaged and make the best possible contribution to the team, they need information that is timely, direct, honest, and easily understood. People crave for clarity in communication.

STEP III – PULL YOUR TEAM TO-GETHERPull your team members together towards a com-mon goal. Without a team, you limit yourself only to the effort each individual can make alone. Here are a few tips to remember.

ü A good team player can be an introvert. Be sen-sitive towards your team members’s unspo-ken feelings and emotions. Understand what is not being said.

ü Build trust and cooperation amongst your team members. This is as important as the indi-vidual relations you have with them. Take steps to encourage communication, cooperation, trust, and respect in those relationships.

Vivek Hattangadi | Leadership Lessons for Frontline Managers: Building an E2-Team

True leaders serve. Says Robert Greenleaf, “The servant-leader is servant first…

“


ü Showing respect is critical to maintain rela-tionships. Treat everyone in the team with re-spect and dignity. For this, you need to develop empathy.

ü Encourage social interaction amongst team members. Man is a social animal. Hence it makes good sense that he would want to be social at work, and be friends with the people he is spending so much time with. This in turn will help in building a strong team. Social rela-tionships between colleagues is at the root of an employee’s willingness to take on responsi-bilities beyond their formal job description.3

ü Spend time with your team members. Have lunch and tea breaks together. Speak to them about sports, IPL, Olympics and about other non-work related things or something which you have in common.

STEP IV – NURTURE A CULTURE OF EXCELLENCE

ü Move ahead from merely engaging your team members, to creating and building workplace excellence. Highly engaged people gravitate towards, and stay with leaders who encourage excellence at the workplace.

ü Provide your team members with a compelling vision of your organization and goals. Make cer-tain that your team members understand the objectives and results they are accountable for achieving – make them look beyond numbers.

ü Make sure you have the right people – includ-ing people who are better than you. Says David Ogilvy ‘If each of us hires people who are small-er than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs, but if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we will become a company of giants.”4

ü Hunt for the thoughts and opinions of your team members on how to improve team per-formance. Truly great ideas come from the peo-ple doing the actual work.

Move ahead from merely engaging your team members, to creating and building workplace excellence.



STEP V – BECOME A TRUE ‘SER-VANT-LEADER’Although the concept of servant-leadership new and has its roots in India, it is Robert Greenleaf who took this concept to the next level. “The ser-vant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”1

ü Focus on the growth and well-being of the team.

ü On the Blake-Mouton leadership grid, become a 9,9 leader. Have high concern for the people and an equal concern for performance.

ü Recall the inverted pyramid of hierarchy? Your team members are at the top of the hierarchy. Your frontline employees, the medical repre-sentatives are at the top of this pyramid. This is the leadership mindset which can take your company to the top.

ü Become a One-Minute-Manager. Set SMART Goals, praise people when they achieve these goals, and reprimand them in the correct way if the goals are not achieved. Follow this import-ant principle: “Catch people doing things right or even something approximately right”.5

A blend of all these qualities and actions, makes you a perfect servant leader.

Why should you care about an E2-TEAM? High lev-els of employee engagement lead to lower attri-tion since there is a close link between company image and individual self-image in highly engag-ing workplaces. Without close attachments to the workplace, people feel alienated, may not excel in their jobs and eventually may seek greener pas-tures elsewhere.

Building an E2-TEAM is not a single one-time activ-ity. It is a process. Keep these activities moving. M

References:1. Greenleaf, R. (1970) The Servant as Leader. Westfield:The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership:.

2. Harris Interactive. Workplace Survey. American Psychological Association. Available from: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/phwa/work-place-survey.pdf [Accessed 30th May 2016]

3. Shriar, J. 10 ESSENTIAL PILLARS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT. E-Edition. Available from: http://hs.officevibe.com/hubfs/ebook/10-essential-pil-lars-of-employee-engagement.pdf? [Accessed 30th May 2016]

4. Ogilvy, D. (1985). Ogilvy on Advertising. Ran-dom House: New York.

5. Blanchard, K and Johnson, S. (1983) London. Harper Collins


Vivek Hattangadi is a Consultant in Pharma Brand Management and Sales Training at The En-ablers. He is also visiting faculty at CIPM Calcutta (Vidyasagar University) for their MBA course in

Pharmaceutical [email protected]

“22 | MedicinMan July 2016

In the pharma industry, the quality of Medical Reps is a critical ingredient for achieving standout sales performance. However the industry often falls sig-

nificantly short of having competent and motivated individuals who are suited to perform sales functions.

Hiring for the pharma industry continues to be a chal-lenge as only about 30% of graduates from Pharmacy and Management institutions possess the skills sets needed by the industry.

Some of the talent acquisition in the recent past goes to show that the pharma industry is now simply seek-ing Reps who can obtain sales from healthcare practi-tioners by any means.

HOW TO HIRE A FUTURE-READY FIELD FORCEAs the pharma industry undergoes rapid change, the job roles and job descriptions of the sales force will also change. Hiring Managers need to keep this in mind.

As per the current system of recruiting Medical Reps, recruiters and functional managers follow an elementary rule—“hire to fit” policy—that compares candidates with certain customary roles and descriptions for the sales position. These roles and descriptions might have been formulated ages ago and not be relevant today.

Anjali Sharma and Chandan Kumar

“As per the current system of recruiting Medical Reps, recruiters and functional managers follow an elementary rule—“hire to fit” policy—that com-pares candidates with certain customary roles and descriptions for the sales position. These roles and descriptions might have been formulated ages ago and not be relevant today.

The industry should understand that Medical Reps should have an effective blend of scientific and business skills. The Industry as a whole should for-mulate “must have” competencies to choose the right entrants for the industry, based on qualifica-tion and technical and soft skills. Formulating these standards will not only decrease the turnaround time between screening and selection but will also ensure a quality recruitment.

Talent acquisition is one of the vital aspects and poses a big challenge for pharma companies be-cause frequent job change is a common practice – Medical Reps tend to do this to get quick monetary benefits. The cost of hiring new Medical Reps and then training them for practical skills and acclima-tizing them to the culture is astonishingly high. A Rep who leaves in six months is actually a financial loss to the company.

In the current scenario, the mammoth challenge to the pharma industry is “attrition,” which is increas-ing, and causing a severe dent to the industry in terms of image as well as commercially. Though there may not be any perfect recipe to curb it, it can be reduced by providing a friendly atmosphere – something that is not difficult to implement, pro-vided the leadership is ready to understand the challenges faced by the bottom line.

Adequate “rewards and recognition” programs are crucial for employee retention, but they should not just be restricted to mere commendations and cer-tificates. Rather, they should help in engaging reps through skill development and creating alignment between management and field force.


The industry should understand that Medical Reps should have an effective blend of scientific and business skills. Industry as a whole should formulate ‘must have’ competencies to choose the right entrants for the industry, based on qualification, technical and soft skills

Anjali Sharma and Chandan Kumar | How to Hire a Future-Ready Field Force

“Strategies for hiring an ideal candidate for pharma:

EMPHASIZE YOUR USPsYou need to make potential hires aware of your company’s best practices and employee-friendly policies, which is as important to them as any other aspect of their sales job. So do not simply describe what you need but also what you as a company have to offer them!

HIRE POTENTIAL BRAND AMBAS-SADORSBecause of regulatory norms, Pharma companies do not have the option of high-profile publicity or social media promotions. Medical Reps are the most important channel to promote products to customers. So you want your brand to be repre-sented by knowledgeable and refined profession-als, not by Ken and Barbie clones!

DO YOUR HOMEWORK Prior to sourcing or job-posting, bring together the entire recruiting team, HR, and functional manag-ers to define an appropriate job description. For example, if you are seeking for some specialty pharma sales function, such as oncology and gas-troenterology, then brainstorm what key attributes candidates must possess to perform their function in a particular specialty. Simultaneously, under-stand what kind of constraints exist that hinders the performance of these functions efficiently and how as an organization you can provide the right environment to retain top-notch talent.

GIVE IMPORTANCE TO SCIENTIF-IC ACUMENDoctors need Medical Reps to give them the latest scientific and clinical data related to drugs and dis-ease management. To achieve this, you need a Rep who can display an in-depth understanding of the basic sciences like anatomy, physiology, and other biochemical functions. This will shorten the hire-to-results cycle.


Medical Reps are the most important channel to promote products to customers. So you want your brand to be represented by knowledgeable and refined professionals, not by Ken and Barbie clones!


DESIGN A PROPER TESTING & EVALUATION PLATFORMEvery Pharma company conducts screening tests before the interview process, but these tests are not standardized. The current testing system is more or less confined to basic sciences and some apti-tude questions. The need of the hour is to design a proper testing and evaluation platform, where not only science and general aptitude is evaluated but and in-depth profile of the candidate is obtained through psychometric testing, case studies, and solving a real-time situations.

EXPERIENCE SHOULD NOT BE THE ONLY YARDSTICK TO MEA-SURE TALENTRecruiters and Functional managers should look for talent over experience. Hiring experienced can-didates comes with its own risks and challenges as these veterans are always being at risk of being poached by competitors. These candidates might also behave like stars and be resistant to learning and coaching. A frontline manager or HR personnel should not shy away from roping in young profes-sionals with a fresh perspective. Often someone from a different segment may possess better skills than an old-timer who has been associated with pharma and has been doing the same thing.

In closing, the key to hiring and retaining top-notch talent is to differentiate by seeking and of-fering greater value to professionals. For acquiring a robust field force talent pool, the pharma indus-try has to stand out and move away from old ways of thinking, which may sound difficult initially but will ease all the hurdles in hiring and retaining the desired talent. M



Anjali Sharma is a Human Resource Generalist with experience in acquisition and retaining candidates from IT, FMCG & Pharmaceutical sector.

[email protected] | in.linkedin.com/in/anjali-sharma-148645ab | @anjalis2304

Chandan Kumar is working in healthcare publishing as an Acqui-sitions Editor. His area of Interest is Healthcare Marketing & Value Innovation.

[email protected]://www.linkedin.com/in/pharmtech@pharmacrat

“My job starts when the Doctor says “NO”. I am ready to face this challenge and taste success in my pharma sales career.”

This should be your attitude in handling a Doc-tor Call rejection.

‘NO’ does not always mean ‘NO’. Usually, a rejec-tion means that your Brand was not what the prospect needed at that point. Perhaps his pa-tients could not afford it.

In any case, it is hardly personal, so don’t take it personally. Instead, ask yourself: “Why is the prospect rejecting or putting off writing my Brand?”

There is nothing wrong in asking the prospect the reason for rejection. But remember, the way you ask matters a lot. Often the reason given and actual intention could be different. Share the de-tails collected with your field friends, colleagues, peers and mentors and get their feedback. By this you can sharpen your selling skills.

Eventually you will get a clue as to why your brand was rejected. Before the next visit, learn as much as possible on the medical and marketing aspects of your brand. Share the same with your close prescribers and observe their response. By this time, your will be confident enough to meet and probe the prospect to open up even more.


HANDLING SALES REJECTIONS PROFESSIONALLYHow to handle sales rejections as a business problem to be solved rather than a personal affront.

RB Balakrishna

RB Balakrishna | Handling Sales Rejections Professionally


Handle the objection after understanding the reasons for rejection fully. It will take time, but pa-tience is a virtue. Be persistent. Resilience is an im-portant feature of a successful sales professional.

Eventually the prospect will open up. If the pros-pect cannot support your brand fully, ask for share of prescription and be a second option, next to your competitor. If the prospect makes a medical or logical objection, deal with it with the utmost care. Take the help of the Medical and Marketing team at Head Office to convince and convert the prospect to a prescriber.

Thank the prescriber. Build rapport by understand-ing his profile and by this you can convert the pre-scriber to a loyal doctor and from there to an advo-cate, so that he can recommend it to his peers and colleagues. M

RB Balakrishna is in PMT at a reputed pharmaceutical company.

The Product-Market Expansion Grid was developed by H. Igor Ansoff and first pub-lished in the Harvard Business Review in

1957, in an article titled “Strategies for Diversifica-tion.”

The tool is used by marketers and business lead-ers to systematically evaluate different strategic options to grow business. All of us know that for sustainable long-term growth, one cannot live in status quo mode even when things are hap-pening as desired. We need to find new ways to increase top and bottom lines by reaching new customers.


Pankaj Mehrotra

DECIDING ON A BUSINESS EXPANSION

STRATEGY BY WEIGHING THE

RISKS AND GAINS

An introduction to the use of the Ansoff Matrix to weigh the risks and the benefits of pursuing a particular growth strategy.

Pankaj Mehrotra | Deciding on a Business Expansion Strategy by Weighing the Risks and Gains


Before committing resources, it is important to evaluate risk and gain. The Matrix outlines four possible avenues for growth with different risk and gain parameters:

1. Market penetration

2. Product development

3. Market development

4. Diversification

To use the Matrix, the options are analyzed, classi-fied in 4 categories for plotting in the appropriate quadrant.

MARKET PENETRATION: The safest option is to increase sales of existing product in existing mar-ket. The familiarity with the product and the mar-ket minimizes the risk. Customer loyalty is used to increase returns.

Market or Need-based Segmentation is used to reposition the brand to target different customer segments (different age, gender or demographic profiles).

Some commonly used tools are:

Loyalty scheme: Display, bonus, gifts and freebies

Increase your sales force coverage and reach

Buy a competitor company with strong marketing and/or distribution network in existing markets.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: Slightly risky as com-pany introduces a new product into an existing market. The new product may be a brand expan-sion or launch of a new brand to meet customer’s related needs.

Product development is one of the most popular methods used as it enables a company to use its leverage with existing customers to increase re-turns per customer. Examples include: Brand ex-tensions and variants like new dosage forms, com-binations.

“


Portfolio expansion - allied products can be in-troduced for same customers- Diuretics brand by a company marketing cardiac products and an-ti-hypertensives; Respiratory antibiotic along with cough and cold range.

Examples of companies using innovative methods to augment current offerings include GlaxoSmith-Kline and Novartis, who swapped their oncology and vaccine assets to enable both to focus on their core strengths.

MARKET DEVELOPMENT: Expands the custom-er base into new market by launching an existing product in an entirely new market. The new market may be new geographies or a new user segment.

New User segment such as Patients and Physicians: One can add new features or benefits like new SKUs, tastes, strengths and innovative product variants.

New Geographies: A company can use franchisee model to minimize risk and develop familiarity with new market.

DIVERSIFICATION: Most risky, as introduction of a new, unproven product into an entirely new market which is not fully understood, has its own surprises and roadblocks. You do not have advan-tage of using existing leadership and expertise or economies of scale.

The resources used may divert the attention and energy from core strengths.

Acquisition of new brands and companies may ex-pand the brand basket and reduce the new prod-uct development lead time. Indian market has seen plenty of acquisitions in recent past. E.g. Abbott and Piramal Healthcare, Torrent and Elder and Dai-chii and Ranbaxy

To minimize risks, one can explore possibility of alliances: different sales channels, such as online, agents or intermediaries.

Examples of companies using innovative methods to augment current offerings include GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, who swapped their oncology and vaccine assets to enable both to focus on their core strengths.


“


Diversification enables business expansion and re-duces risks by spreading risk across different seg-ments – if one segment is under adverse circum-stances, the other one may compensate.

You will agree that external factors like competitive intensity and regulatory environment needs to be evaluated before taking decisions. An evaluation of the challenges associated with each option en-ables you to develop an appropriate contingency plan to plan for growth.

There are rewards and risks associated with each of the 4 growth strategies. In a nutshell, the analysis has following 3 steps:

1. Analyze all Options: Take feedback, listen to others

2. Risk management: Protect core, allocate re-sources judiciously

3. Choose the Best Option: Assess core business leaders risk appetite

Important factors:

1. Market size and growth

2. Competition intensity

3. Management risk appetite

4. Resource allocation between core and new segment

Additional reading:

1. SWOT

2. PEST Analysis

3. Risk Impact and Probability Chart

4. Decision Matrix Analysis M

Diversification enables business expansion and reduces risks by spreading risk across different segments – if one segment is under adverse circumstances, the other one may compensate.

Pankaj Mehrotra is a Product Group Manager at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals. His views are personal.


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