Breaking down what the changing commercial business model entails, 40% of respondents identified the increased focus in market access strategies as the biggest change to the business model. Other factors cited as the biggest change to the commercial business model include primary sales force realignment (20%), increased focus on managed care (17%), increased focus on key opinion leaders (11%), and increased use of e-detailing channels (6%).

Beyond the changing commercial model, the Cegedim Dendrite survey found pharma execs anxious about pipeline growth (24%), the impact of regulatory reform (16%), generic competition (16%), cost, capital, and funding issues (3%), and patient involvement (2%).

Survey respondents stated that new product innovation and profitability growth are the most important business objectives in 2010. New product innovation and successful launch was cited by 67% of respondents as the top objective for 2010 and 51% cited profitability growth.

Not surprisingly, most survey respondents view prescribers and patients as their most important primary and secondary customer groups. What may be somewhat surprising, however, is a full 36% of respondents ranked patients as the primary customer over prescribers. Meanwhile, 27% cited managed care organizations as the primary customer and 24% cited government. Cegedim Dendrite analysts anticipate seeing the balance continue to tip away from prescribers as a primary customer toward these other groups.

The survey also sought pharma executives’ opinions on social media. Respondents are aware of and use social media, but it generally does not receive a large appropriation of their marketing budgets. Almost all (97%) of respondents indicate that they use at least one social media site on a daily basis, though whether that is for personal and/or professional use is unclear. The majority (51%) invest less than 5% of their sales and marketing budget in social media channels.

Social media is primarily used for external applications such as marketing and PR but is also used to a lesser extent for internal communications and human resources. Fifty-nine percent of respondents list “marketing” as the top way their company is using social media.

Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing only seem relevant to a relatively small number of respondents. Only 7% cite the technology as “very important”, and 15% cite it as “important.” Many respondents do not appear to understand the topic, with 45% responding “Don’t know” to the question, “How important is SaaS or cloud computing in your sales and marketing initiatives?”

China was cited as the most strategically important BRIC country. Thirty percent of respondents chose China but 27% did not know which country was most strategically important for their company.

In reviewing the results of their survey, Cegedim Dendrite analysts came to the conclusion that the next six months of 2010 will most likely show pharmaceutical companies remaining focused on changing business models and product innovations. And as market growth in China and other BRIC countries has more of an impact on the industry, Cegedim Dendrite analysts expect to see pharmaceutical companies making changes to become more global-minded.

OneKey is a telephone-verified database that provides customers with healthcare practitioner and organization data including affiliations for group practices and hospitals. Following the acquisition, the OneKey service will now also allow customers to benefit from updates by SK&A research associates who make 6,000 telephone calls each day verifying and maintaining healthcare data.

“Customers will receive a strong combination of access to high-quality data with continual proactive updates to the data,” says Bill Buzzeo, VP and general manager for compliance and OneKey Solutions, Cegedim Dendrite.

According to Mr. Buzzeo, SK&A has stood out from its competitors as the only U.S. data provider to pharmaceutical companies that uses this type of model.

“It is generally recognized that between 15% and 18% of healthcare professionals will change locations in a 12-month period,” Mr. Buzzeo told Med Ad News. “By adding SK&A’s healthcare contact and site data and unique, proactive methodology utilized to ensure the high quality of this data, Cegedim Dendrite has a strong complement to our existing U.S. OneKey service offerings, further solidifying our customers’ effectiveness in the market.”

Founded 26 years ago, SK&A researches and maintains contact profiling information for more than 2 million healthcare practitioners, including 800,000-plus prescribers. Executives believe that the integration into the Cegedim Group will enable SK&A to significantly expand its market opportunity within the life sciences industry.

The newly acquired company will be commercially branded as SK&A, A Cegedim Company, and will be integrated into Cegedim Dendrite’s OneKey business unit. Dave Escalante, SK&A’s current president and CEO, will continue to lead the unit. SK&A will maintain its current operations headquartered in Irvine, Calif.

“Based on the opportunities and business plans ahead, we don’t anticipate any major or large scale changes to the number of staff,” Mr. Buzzeo told Med Ad News. “However, as with all companies, certain limited actions may occur to avoid duplication of roles as the business landscape changes and the operations of the two companies become integrated.”

The deal was finalized Jan. 7, 2010 by internal financing. These activities represent annual revenue of about $15 million and will be part of the consolidation scope of Cegedim Group for 2010.

Physicians value clear, concise, and relevant calls with pharmaceutical representatives,” says Denise Woltemath, senior consultant, specialty/bio, Health Strategies Group. “Representatives can achieve this through effective pre-call planning.”

Pharmaceutical representatives must incorporate information from multiple sources to build a pre-call plan for each physician. Ms. Woltemath recommends the following tools and techniques (click image to enlarge):

While pre-call planning has always been important, every area of the industry’s business model and sales and marketing approach is being reevaluated to optimize ROI, according to Rick Keefer, president and CEO, Publicis Strategic Solutions Group.

“We are seeing a number of marketplace factors driving the renewed interest in pre-call planning,” Mr. Keefer says.

The decline in the total number of traditional field sales representatives is one major factor. The other is the fact that physicians are saying they want “better trained, higher value” sales representatives calling on their practices.

In conjunction with the physician social networking site Sermo, Publicis Strategic Solutions conducted a physician survey called “What Physicians Want!” The survey results showed a resounding request for a “higher level” of sales representative that was more experienced and better trained.

“These physicians also wanted representatives who knew enough about their practice to have an intelligent discussion that relates to their practice environment and patient population,” Mr. Keefer says. “In order to have this type of discussion, pre-call planning is a must.”

According to research conducted by Cegedim Dendrite, the No. 1 reason pharmaceutical sales representatives make use of the company’s customer relationship management software is to conduct pre-call planning. This tracks with the fact that according to Cegedim Dendrite’s Sales Representative Attitudinal Study, sales reps reported that their biggest issue was spending enough time with prescribers (81% reported this as an issue).

Therefore, planning on how to maximize the time spent with a prescriber is a critical task for sales reps. In addition, as pharmaceutical companies use more channels to reach prescribers, it’s vital for a representative to know all of the interactions that his company had with that prescriber prior to the call.

For example, if the representative knows that a doctor he is calling on has recently been invited to a peer-to-peer meeting, or that there has been a high usage of patient adherence programs like co-pay assistance cards, the rep can tailor his message to include a reminder about the meeting invite and re-stock the prescriber with more co-pay cards. Also, given the dynamics of managed care and the latest government health revamps, the representative may want to check the pull through message for a particular physician, comparing plan level data and formulary wins.

“The CRM systems that sales representatives use should provide a 360 degree view of the prescriber to facilitate a valuable interaction between the pharma company and the prescriber,” says Mark Fleischer, senior VP and general manager, North America CRM, Cegedim Dendrite. “The CRM platform should also encourage communication between sales teams to enable a collaboration during and post the call planning effort. Most important of all, the system needs to match and support the unique workflow of a sales representative. The key here is that focusing on CRM usability will enable a sales representative to maximize his/her potential.”

Cegedim Dendrite spent months observing how sales representatives from all company sizes interacted with general technology. The company made changes to its system based on those observations to ensure that its Mobile Intelligence CRM system supported and enabled commercial teams to reach their maximum potential.

“This process is called Human Centered Design,” Mr. Fleischer says. “It has made a significant difference for our users. Based on a study conducted by IDC in 2007, there was an increase of nearly 12% in sales representative productivity.”

Technology within the sales force automation system is key, according to Mr. Keefer. A good SFA system should allow representatives to get a true picture of the physician before walking into the office.

“Training is also essential,” Mr. Keefer says. “Pre-call planning is the foundation upon which a successful call and the call continuum is built.”

Mr. Keefer outlines eight key questions effective sales representatives need to know:

• How to analyze the information they have on a physician during pre-call planning, eg: What type of practice does a physician have? (patients’ age range, third party/managed markets influence and make up, urban/rural, etc)
• What therapy is the physician currently prescribing?
• What “adoption orientation” does the physician have? (eg, late adopter/early adopter for new products)
• What concerns or other issues does a given physician hold? (eg, particularly sensitive to safety issues)
• What do you do with that pre-call planning information once you’re in an office? (eg, What information can you gather from the staff? As part of the total office call, who in the office do you need to speak to in addition to the physician?)
• What do you do with the pre-call planning information when in front of the physician?
• And finally, once you’ve left that office, how do you record that call so you are able to have an effective pre-call plan and call on the next visit?

As an outsourced sales services provider, PDI Inc. has always stressed the elements of pre-call planning with its reps to insure the company provided high quality sales teams. Now that outsourced reps are being used more strategically as frontline promotion rather than just as back-up, PDI is in a good position to trade on this planning experience and its strategic understanding of the marketplace to help clients gain physician access.

“Pre-call planning has always been a key element of the selling process,” says Richard P. Micali, senior VP, sales services, PDI. “Great, successful reps have always done pre-call planning; average reps not so much. Today, no one can afford to be average and survive.”

To be successful in the current environment, Mr. Micali believes that a rep needs to be customer-focused and engage in consultative selling. “The market is demanding that the rep bring something of value to the table,” he says. “The reality is high prescribing doctors may have several reps lined up each day to present their products. They only have time to see a few as they are being forced to see higher numbers of patients each day and document those visits in comprehensive charts or electronic medical records. If a rep wants to get quality, they need to be prepared.”

According to Mr. Micali, good pre-call planning starts right after the previous call as part of the selling process continuum. Understanding what worked and what did not work is important to determining the key points to be addressed in the next visit.

“This should be coordinated with an overview of your call history to that targeted physician/practice along with a review of local market conditions and the formularies existing for yours and competitive products, and any particular issues facing appropriate patients within the practice area,” Mr. Micali says. “Good [sales force automation] tools are essential to do this properly. A rep should be able to examine trends for each of their targets in terms of NRx, TRx, and call activity. Some SFA software are providing managed care information and formulary status, which is tremendously helpful. We are currently working with one of our clients, a major pharmaceutical company, in providing local managed care information.”

The discussion of the company’s first quarter of this year brought up an interesting industry trend. Cegedim Dendrite has three primary business areas: CRM and strategic data, healthcare professionals, and insurances and services. In the CRM and strategic data area, the company saw a slight decrease in revenue of 1.3% in the first quarter of 2009. According to Chief Investment Officer Jan Eryk Umiastowski, this decrease was a result of pharma clients cutting costs by neglecting to update their market research.

I’ll be interested to look into this further. To what extent is pharma relying on stale data? And at what cost for this so-called cost-cutting measure?