Getting reps to master digital tools is a big opportunity, according
to Nancy Phelan, head of the customer engagement center, worldwide customer
operations for Bristol-Myers Squibb. In a recent keynote speech, Phelan talked
up those tools and their positive effects on pharma brands, Medical
Marketing & Media said in coverage of its leadership exchange
conference.
“I don't think we should be asking ourselves, ‘Are we ready?,' because
it implies that digital transformation is still in front of us and that we have
time to get ready,” said Phelan, referring to the title of last Thursday's
MM&M Leadership Exchange event, “Digital Transformation of Product Launch:
Is Biopharma Ready?”
“Actually, we're in the middle of significant structural change,” she
said. “Digital transformation can be a key enabler of success in some really
challenging and very fiercely competitive markets. But it's going to [require]
us to do things very differently.”
Phelan, whose company is launching seven drugs in the US and close to 30
globally, was the keynote speaker at the Bridgewater, NJ, event, which was
sponsored by Cadient, a Cognizant Company.
She explained how today's new drugs—often specialty drugs that are
targeted and meet an unmet need for a smaller patient population, with a higher
price tag to the patient and generally more complexity, whether in
reimbursement, administration or clinical data—require a different launch
approach. “Although there are some things we can pull from previous mass-market
launches, I don't think it's a cut-and-paste," she said.
Digital can be integrated in many of the traditional areas of launch.
One area where she sees it playing a bigger role: reps. “I don't think they're
being disintermediated," she said. "They need to be integrated.
They're more relevant than ever before.”
Getting reps to master digital tools and to be comfortable conveying
clinical data is a "big opportunity," in her view. Message impact,
recall and brand preference increase when reps are well-trained and using
digital tools, she said.
Digital account tools can also help reps manage the growing number of
stakeholders they call on."Digital data and speed really matter in
customer interface," Phelan stressed.
The industry is not known for moving with rapidity, but it is blessed
with mounds of data, which can be leveraged to greater effect. For instance,
industry has always done speaker programs to communicate clinical data. She
urged listeners to think about them differently, and to try on-demand and
remote formats.
"If you're a patient and there's a breakthrough in a disease where
there hasn't been anything for 15 years," she said, "it's frankly
unacceptable that we're going to take two weeks to wait until we do a
face-to-face training of a speaker. We have a responsibility to do it as fast
as we possibly can, as completely as we possibly can." Relevance means making it easy for people to find and to digest
information. "Let's be really clear: we're never going to be a destination
site. we are where people come because they need something." Thus, "We need to find a way to make it really easy for [patients
and doctors] to be able to navigate across our clinical information, access
teams and some of our branded properties," she said.
That requires taking more of a customer view, in addition to the
predominantly product view which the industry is known for. “Customer planning
can happen when you have an organization that understands that you win and lose
at the customer interface,” she noted. “I don't think we've made that epiphany
yet. We still think we win and lose solely on clinical data.”
Phelan pointed out some other obstacles, namely the inconsistency of
digital investment across the industry: "It's got to go from being a
'project,' to 'base operations' and a competitive advantage for us."
Better talent on both brand teams and IT teams is another significant
gap, one that seems to grow wider with every technological advance. Said
Phelan: "I think it's perhaps the biggest challenge we face."
In the same conference, Wendy Blackburn, executive vice president at
Intouch Solutions, said: "Despite
pharma's efforts to provide appropriate and robust sets of tools like
outfitting sales reps with iPads, closed loop marketing and big CRM platforms,
and pouring a lot of money into them, reps tend to still do the face-to-face
traditional things they're used to doing. You'd be surprised how many sales
reps are not using digital tools at some of the major pharma companies."
Some of the problem are the tools themselves, she acknowledged, which can
be difficult to use and don't always add a lot of value. Better digital sales
aids are needed, Blackburn said. Tools that tie marketing materials to sales
data are the ultimate goal.
The upside of sales rep tech is that "message impact, recall and brand
preference increase when reps are well-trained and using digital tools,"
Phelan told MM&M.
Blackburn said pharma customers simply expect digital sophistication now,
in part because they have it in the rest of their lives. Whether the customer
is a patient, physician or payer, they expect information and tools that are on
par with personal technology. For pharma, it's the manifestation of "beyond
the pill" in which customers expect more than just a drug, such as
lifestyle tools like apps that help keep patients compliant or mobile data that
can help a doctor personalize patient care.