Death of the sales force unlikely
May 14, 2009 – 12:51 pm by Steven NilesIs the pharmaceutical sales representative an endangered species? I’ve been hearing whispers that such a thing is possible. With shifting physician attitudes and tighter sales and marketing budgets, some probably do believe that the traditional pharma sales rep could be on the way out, to be replaced by something else. Like an expanded use of medical science liaisons, for example.
While conducting interviews for my June installment of Med Ad News’ sales force effectiveness series, I decided to pose the question to some of the industry experts I was speaking to: what’s the long-term viability of the pharma sales force?
Rayna Herman, principal and practice leader for specialty market, Health Strategies Group (healthstrategies.net)
We don’t see the need for physicians to interact directly with the manufacturers of the products actually going away. In our work, we know that physicians value their interactions with expert representatives, and the keyword there is expert. The effective reps actually help them make better decisions on how to treat their patients, they help them support these patients and their treatment, whether that’s through patient access programs or whether it’s patient education materials. The key for the industry is to insure they understand and can equip their representatives to deliver this. That for me gets back to a level of customer intimacy that just doesn’t exist today.
Todd Evans, director, PricewaterhouseCoopers Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences Advisory practice (pwc.com)
The challenge is retooling, retasking, and recasting what we have traditionally called the sales force. Then understanding where best to deploy them so that we get full value, both in terms of the target audience experience as well as the up front investment we’re making as an employer.
Sandra Jennings, senior VP, Ventiv Sales & Marketing Teams (inventivhealth.com)
What I find to be the most exciting piece of the times we’re in right now is the ability of organizations to think more innovatively. I’m not suggesting that the model that was used historically is broken. I think we have to understand and use our resources differently than we have before. With that being said, I think there’s going to be ways we can enhance the way we address and reach our stakeholders. That means we can have a more open dialogue and communication channels, more so than we’ve ever had before with the technology we have today. When we understand the way our audiences want to be communicated with, we now have tools that can reach them differently.
The sales force will always exist. Personal promotion will always exist because there’s a significant impact in building that relationship and delivering that message and having that interaction and investment by the pharma industry to their stakeholders. But in addition to that, I think we’re going to be able to utilize technology.
Matt Wallach, VP, sales and marketing, Veeva Systems (veevasystems.com)
The pharma sales force will not go away. Two things will happen. One is that the industry will start to experiment and start to find some success with more multi-channel strategies.
The other thing I would predict is that there is going to be a reverse bubble. We’re going to see dramatic contractions of pharma sales forces for another probably two or three years, and then it’s going to start going the other way. Doctors are going to start saying, “I need this. I can do without the gifts and we can regulate the samples, but I need this information.” And when they start to get that information from more highly trained sales professionals, they will crave it.
It’s going to take a couple years for the pharma industry to shed a lot of the primary care, to get good at specialty selling. And when they’re good at specialty selling, you’re going to have people adding a lot of value in the doctor’s offices, and the doctors are going to want them there.
The number of reps probably peaked at about 110,000. Some people say we’re about 90,000 now. We’ll probably get to 70,000 or 75,000 maybe even less, and we’ll start to creep up again. Because when you think about the kinds of products, they’re in smaller, more specialized markets. You simply need people to cover lots of different types of physicians. And if they’re good at it, the physicians will want them in their office.
