Sales Force Effectiveness in Pharmaceuticals

Thursday 9 August 2012, Amsterdam

Knowledge is key for pharmaceutical sales forces, who should be offered training and incentives to increase sales and improve productivity, says the new Sales Force Effectiveness in Pharmaceuticals - Targeted Sales Models such as Enhanced Key Account Management (KAM) and Closed-Loop Marketing (CLM) Strategies Drives Sales Force Efficiency report.

The new report states that the importance of internal training cannot be understated, with the significant investments, advanced training techniques, and use of external training consultants by major pharma companies playing testament to this.

In recent years, the sales industry within the US and Europe has recorded sales job reductions as a result of the global economic recession, and this has led to a greater demand for effective selling methods. Companies forced to downsize their sales forces still aim to secure high sales figures, and are therefore pressurized to develop their sales people to continue to deliver profitable sales growth.

The short term motive behind sales force training is to increase sales and improve productivity. However, the long term motive is to motivate the sales force, build better customer relations and effectively improve employee retention rates. Incentive management is a significant tool that encourages sales activities, but also helps to improve longer term sales force effectiveness.

Incentive management has not always been implemented as a high priority, and was not always properly integrated into the sales management process. However, a large number of companies are now implementing incentive management solutions that provide the flexibility to quickly adjust compensation plans in order to improve sales force performance. This solution has the ability to adjust to specific company needs, and allows for the integration of existing processes and systems.

Performance dashboards are an important and powerful agent of organizational change, translating organizations’ strategies into objectives that are customized to every individual in the organization. Dashboards contain various performance indicators which are used to monitor business processes through analysing the performance of sales representatives and customer response. This allows sales representatives to compare their benchmarked performance against peer averages, and can help shape training and incentive schemes to improve certain aspects of sales performance.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of trends and practices adopted to improve sales force effectiveness in the pharmaceutical industry. It provides a comprehensive insight into the strategies adopted by pharmaceutical companies to improve their sales force effectiveness, and gives case studies and sales force strategies of pharmaceutical companies and IT solution providers. The report also analyzes the opportunities and challenges that could play a role in shaping the future of sales force effectiveness. The report finishes with a detailed analysis of 12 key pharmaceutical companies, with respect to their sales efficiency.

This report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, primary and secondary research and in-house analysis by a team of industry experts.