Pharma Insights 🩺

Hi, everyone!

And welcome to a new episode of Pharma Insights

the talk show brought to you by Platforce.

As you may already know, our aim

in this series

is to connect professionals from all around the world

and create a community based on exchange, network and

meet colleagues from all over the world,

from everywhere, and if there is a possibility

create new businesses and deals.

As you may already know, my name is Juliana Kreisel

and I will be one of your moderators for today.

In this episode

we will explore how to integrate sales and marketing

in order to generate an enhanced HCP engagement.

We will explore also how the CRM can enhance it

and the benefits of the digitalization in the

fieldforce activity.

So, without any further delay,

because everyone is anxious for this talk,

so let me introduce my co host and colleague

Stefan Repin, the head of marketing here at Platforce.

Hi, Stef. How are you doing?

Hey, hey! Here's Stefan.

The head of -for now-

the head of marketing at Platforce.

Really glad to meet you.

I'm really glad to meet you guys.

Well, anything can happen.

I'm really glad to see you guys

everyone, guys and girls, see you here

I'm really happy to be delivering this podcast.

Your joy,

your experience is what we love the most

so feel free to comment, give suggestions to the show

anything like that, so your comments is our air, okay?

So the more comments we'll have

the more air we're gonna have.

So please be kind.

Thank you and I will love to introduce our panel.

Our first speaker for today is Harmeet Seth

Harmeet, how are you doing today?

Hi. Good, thanks.

How are you guys?

We're good.

Do you want to...?

I know our audience would love to hear more about you

so, if you want to give us a brief introduction.

Yeah, sure!

Thank you for inviting me to speak.

Super exciting topic!

So, yes, I'm Harmeet.

Nice to meet everybody who's joined.

My background is quite varied

but in a nutshell

I've been in the industry sort of over 12,

13 years now within healthcare.

Funny enough, I started off

doing social media marketing

for clinical trial recruitment.

So I was seen as the great new shiny toy,

digital, social media, when it wasn't even at its peak.

So my whole background has been sort of

digital engagement, multichannel,

omni channel, whatever you wanna call it.

My strategies, tools,

methodologies,

have been integrated into the agencies I've worked for

and also within

in-house in pharma.

Lots!

Well that's a good thing!

And I know our audience really love a very diverse

and a nutshell let's say of experience.

So thank you for being part of this talk show.

And our second speaker for today

in this beautiful panel is Mehrnaz Campbell. Hello!

Hi there! It's good to see you.

How are you doing? How's everything today?

It's really good and I'm really excited to be here.

And thank you for inviting me.

It's a sunny day in Pennsylvania, so yeah.

ha ha ha ha Jealous, love it

Same here!

So we will love, same as Harmeet,

if you can give us a brief of yourself

that will be very helpful for our audience.

You're asking Harmeet or me?

No, no.

You you, yeah okay.

You said Harmeet that's why I got confused.

I'm Mehrnaz Campbell

I've been working in the healthcare sector for 37 years

I initially was a nurse. I worked for NHS in the UK.

And in 1992 I joined the pharmaceutical industry

worked in various sales and marketing roles

with GSK, Pfizer and Takeda.

and in 2017 I founded my own company Cheemia

and during lockdown we developed our own digital

global brands and called Cheemia ReSET and Cheemia REInspire

and our purpose really

is about unleashing the human potential

to create a healthier world

and my vision is to inspire pharma

commercial teams and marketing teams

to shift from being the message bearers

to becoming the HCP Advisors

and we do this through our market access

and sales pull through strategies

that we provide for our clients

but we also do this through our digital brands

and we help individuals and teams to achieve

expedential growth both professionally and personally

and help them feel proud

and whilst they're having fun doing the work

that is really valuable

Thank you, thank you.

And thank you all for being here.

Thank our panel and

I will also like to thank the attendees

for being part of this talk show.

We wouldn't be able to do it without you guys.

As Stefan is saying in the comments

if you have any questions or any comments at any time

please let us know, write it down and we can

and we will definitely bring it up here

so we can ask our experts about it

so without any further delays

Stef,

do you want to start with this?

Yeah yeah.

I'll start yeah

I mean ladies always comes come first but I'll start

for now, well okay

so um I'll... full disclaimer

I'm reading Mehrnaz' book about omni channel

and it's really interesting

it's a very good read for me and

before actually starting with pharma I used to do

I used to be in saas,

different industry, and in saas a very big point is that

alignment,

marketing and sales alignment.

And as far as I know in the pharma

it's been popular,

been very popular that the model

where marketing goes and pays money for

market research which costs a lot of money

maybe a million, millions whatever

and then they come with certain trends

and then certain words and and

and um

branded strategies that

they go to the sales people and they say

"okay, look

now you have to use this

because this is what we saw in the market"

Well, sales people maybe try it

maybe they don't, but they come out and they say "look,

this is not working what you're saying"

it's too much too, much brands there

there's too much me me me me

me in it, right?

Like it's not like doctors don't

don't get it, they don't understand it

so for me

the question would... The first question would be

since Harmeet is here

like I'm really happy that we have Harmeet here

cause she's like... she's all engagement

she's all about HCP engagement

Am I right, Harmeet?

Yeah pretty much.

but I'm scared now haha

We got only rock stars here so

so my question would be

how can you generate content that will serve

combine that will give you the

the user engagement

the HCP engagement and will also well

work for marketing?

and how can these two areas work together?

and

Harmeet, can you in the start?

yeah sure

It's a great question.

To be honest there's quite a few things

and I think

having the privilege of working with different clients

different pharmaceutical clients

I've seen quite a lot of variety

when it comes to how much we're engaging

and getting the sales reps involved

or the sales force involved

um

and to be honest I think

I mean even recently

I'm just working on a project

and we're actually having

for example the salesforce go through the content

whilst it's being developed for a new launch

so simple but it's still not being done often

so I have

like a couple of rules in my head

and things that I would advise

um also one of them being like treat your

treat your field force a bit like KOLs

if you like have a paddle

get them involved early. I've seen pharma companies

where they're getting them involved in their quarterly

cycle meetings

monthly reviews,

reviewing briefs, reviewing first stage content

so

I think we need to be getting them engaged a lot more

the second thing that I always focus on is

when we're producing content

be sure to provide the flexibility for the reps to use

what content they need

and I think that's really important

I make sure that we have a modular content strategy

approach where

based on what we know about audiences

and their personas etc

but I give the content in a way that's bite size

and flexible to allow the force to use what they need

they know the audiences the customers well

so I think that's really important

and then

I think another thing is definitely

having the feedback between the two

and learnings I've worked at a pharma company

I'm very impressed with how they're integrating

the data taking learnings from the CRM

as well as automated

so getting... Oh that always happens!

cause I always do so many hand actions haha

So yeah

I think it's yeah

it's really

it's really important to also the collaboration

I go off on a tangent, I'm sorry

Well I think the computer also agrees with you

because you had balloons

Guys I will love to hear more

but we have a question from the audience

and if you guys want to bring it up or...

but I think we should

we should go audience first, you know

we're moving just about it

okay one second

We have a question from one attendeee saying

hello everyone greetings of the day.

can you explain

what channels and formats are most effective

for reaching and engaging with healthcare providers?

Who wants to take all that?

ha ha ha I'm all quite happy to

go for it

I think

channel is important

but it's not the most important thing

I think the content needs to be relevant

it needs to be at the time that the HCPs needed

then channel becomes the key thing

and I think

it was last year, the conference asked the audience

amongst the marketeers and leaders

do they honestly think their content is relevant

to address the HCP's pain points?

and half of them didn't think it was,

and the other half

that thought the content was relevant

I asked them

do you deliver it at the time HCPs need it?

and nobody did, so the channel becomes a bit irrelevant

if your content is not relevant

and is not delivered on time

so I mean I always say

go back and make sure that those things are taken

and then

in terms of what channel is the best or most effective

it all depends who you're talking to

HCPs are not using one single channel

all of us are multi channel

I mean think about your own purchasing decision

anything you wanna buy, you probably look online

you probably look at reviews

you talk to a friend, you reach to your network,

and maybe you talk to somebody or salesperson

but you just don't use a single channel

and HCPs are the same

use various channels

to find out information to make decisions

and I think as an industry

we need to be more

fluid to flex and use the channel they prefer

and even with a single Hcp

if you look at it

like a pattern of flow of conversation

you have with them it might start from an email

then it would go into a Teams meeting

then it would be exchange of emails

then it might be a face to face

and then go back to email

depending on where they are on the journey of adoption

and what they need

but the most important thing we need to think about is

customer

is the one who needs to be able to demand information

and then we orchestrate ourselves around

to meet their need and flex

I like it yeah

and I just yeah

I just wanna add to that really quickly

I wanted Mehrnaz to go first

cause they probably won't like my answer

but um I

I have to completely agree on what I would say

and the thing I always

annoy everybody about is where's my media data

I want to know what their habits and preferences are

I want that data I want that learnings

if we don't have it okay

let's at least do a digital landscaping online

I

mmm

professional stalking

but you get an idea

but you get like

you know and

and it's completely different

and just really quickly to give you a real life example

like to Mehrnaz's point

me and my husband are both trying to buy cars

he's taking 3 months, I take a week.

He's watching YouTube videos

I look on two websites, you see the differences?

so I have the same issue yeah

my husband until he decided what car he wanted

we watched thousands of Youtube videos

it takes four months for him.

I'm less than two months

I went to the car dealer

and I just sat on the car and said

"I like this, let's buy it" and that's it yeah yeah

you know

I was gonna say collecting that you know

social listening information is not always true

because we did the panel discussion

and one of the participants was like

a digital analyst from Middle East

and he said

they analysed the preferences of HCP's for channel

and what they found was what

research indicated

was not aligned with actual behaviour

that I had so they would like

research says they would prefer to do this

and then the actual

behaviour should they prefer

like reading emails over the weekend

and I think

looking at the real behaviour is a better indicator

of just research behaviours

no likely

and someone else who was in the panel

she said like if you ask her

whether she would prefer to go to the cinema

or watch Netflix she would say it cinema

but if she looked at her behaviour

the last 24 months leading up to the time

she answered that

she said she's never been to cinema at all

even though that's her preference

yeah yeah

I mean definitely

ideal is to work with your media partners or vendors

they should have access to regional global media data

cause there's always always those surveys happening

um that's my go to

but you don't always get that for various reasons

hmm hmm great

which leads me to the next question, right?

so we're talking about the research

and what happens in the real

real world because what...

because I think there's a difference between

hmm

compare quantitative and quantitative research, right?

so because quantitative research is macroeconomics

and you never know how that can turn into one

single being, you know?

The butterfly theory says that

every time a butterfly moves

things change so a person might

if a person knows his or her future at that moment

his future already changed

so it's not the same so let me

let me go down from

from this like interesting

smart moves and go into other importance of feedback

from sales to marketing when it comes to pharma

so how can sales come to marketing and say

how was that the best way

how they can sort of like

give feedback when it comes to the HCP engagement?

HCP real behavior?

not what's

what's in the market research that they delivered

um they're not superstar

yeah I think

I really loved what Harmeet had said earlier on like

if you're creating content

involve the HCPs early and have

you know, discussion panels with them

but it's not just involving them

it's actually listening and taking action

based on the feedback they give you

it's not just collecting the feedback is acting on it

and I think the acid test is

when you give content to the field team

they present the HCPs, they get immediate feedback

so if the field team are not using material

that's feedback on itself

you need to investigate why they're not using it

it might be the material not resonating

so I think really

but encourage

marketeers to listen to the feedback

from the field force and then ask the why

and scratch the surface to see what's behind it because

um

they have probably more interactions with Hcps and

the material that really resonates with Hcps

are the materials that are there

directly addresses their pain point

or the somehow shaped development of that material

so I think by working more

much more closely between sales and marketing

we can align better with the HCP's needs

and that's why

I think that feedback loop is really important

and I think now more than ever before

I see the value of that we breaking down the silos

and I think in the relationship we've got

we've got with our clients is very much of a tag team

you know the marketing is asking us

so what are the contents do we need

what are the you know gaps

what's resonating and we provide that feedback

but we also say these are the gaps we have

so these are the scenarios we're encountering

and we need approved email content for this scenario

we need email approved content for that scenario

and what we find is when the field team ask for content

guess what they're gonna use it

and when they use it, it creates that

much more of a partnership between sales and marketing

Okay, makes sense

Harmeet, do you wanna add anything?

I was just having an interesting conversation

the other day about

sort of the motivations and

and this

this friend of mine works within pharma

so the motivations actually for reps

and also

the opportunity for them to be involved

with more than just a day today

without giving them an additional burden

by the way

I know they're under a lot of pressure and stress

and loads of things to do

but you know

giving them that availability and that

that chance for their voice to be heard

and be actively involved in the content

and the communications that they're gonna love to use

is just so important

for example so like I was saying before

I have seen panels of

field force that are levaged frequently

for an entire kind of campaign cycle

for example and that's really important

um and then also I'm also noticing even

even their feedback

when it comes to understanding targeting

and the importance I'm

I'm seeing it right now with a client

the marketing's targeting list for launch

and their field forces and how they're

working together and then also

how are we orchestrating the communications

between the two

that comes down to even reviewing their target lists

okay how okay

That's interesting sorry

that's an interesting topic

Let's jump into that how do you demonstrate...

It is very interesting for me.

in fact this is yeah yeah

It's real

it's happening right now and it's not easy just saying

yeah um

so sorry, what was your question Stefan?

that was the question so, how do you orchestrate that

like we need the real life example

let's let's play yeah

yeah yeah

We're planning it at the moment to be honest

so um

where do I start? there's a lot going on

hmm ha ha

so like I mentioned

we have the access to their field force

we got five of them super important

super crucial

and what we are seeing

although slightly traditional too, kind of leveraging

CRM platforms, what they can truly do

I am able to understand and see their target list

and their

priority

small target for launch within the first 6 months

and then I'm working with the media partners

for every single tactic we are going to do

from a non personal promotion campaign and PP campaign

we identifying and cross referencing the target lists

because I am orchestrating

from personal to non personal

I am orchestrating

if you're going to these 20 with these VAEs

for example how are we gonna hit them?

with which activity? at what point?

and I don't want double messaging

and I can't like think marketing

if marketing is trying to control the targeting

we're missing a game here because no

but that's yeah yeah

I you know

I think what we need to measure is what really matters

so um

sometimes targeting is not really to drive sales is to

you know drive activity

and I think measuring what matters means

if you say to the salesforce

that the outcome is driving sales and performance

the salesforce are smart commercial people

they pick accounts that are gonna give the performance

but if you're gonna measure the salesforce

based on coverage and frequency

then they're gonna pick the targets

that gonna give them the numbers to hit their KPIs

so I think we've gotta be really honest

and I think what happens if you sit in a room

boardroom

developing a strategy about targeting and segmentation

you come up with ideas that are perfect theoretically

when you go out in the field

if you don't have access to those

high potential accounts

you won't be able to drive the business

and we find in realities

we just targeting and segmentation in the field

and we often get 80% of the sales coming from

20% of the accounts

with those accounts that are early adopters are often

are not the most highly potential accounts

and sometimes it takes 18 months to two years to get

those big accounts moving

because the decision making

within the healthcare organization

is more complex the more stakeholders are involved

for them to get into

in a committee to make a consensus

that takes much longer so

we find medium sized accounts are much faster to adopt

and you can get the market share from

you know

single digit to 70% within 18 months and those big

you know giant accounts that have high potential

it would take them about 18 months

to get them on board once they get going

they can turn huge so you need to have it like a um

portfolio of accounts

the ones that gonna give you the early growth

and the one that gonna give you later

but I think if marketing dictates segmentation

it becomes very much theoretical

there needs to be a dialogue between the two

and it needs to be that healthy tension to say no

I'm not gonna pick these accounts because I

I don't have access

or they're not interested to engage

so it's like

if you look at the full box grid on one access

you looking at potential on the other access

you need to look at customer readiness or access

to even have that conversation with them

to get them to adopt the product

or brands that you're thinking about

so

the reality shapes and the segmentation and targeting

you know

I agree but this is why I really like this project

it's super close the the way I'm seeing

the field force and the marketing team

small teams working very fast for a big launch

and the way they are working together

with their target lists

that then we are leveraging and learning

and adapting our targeting for the NPP

based on the sales reps

based on the information they're providing

it's

because we are going for a small amount of customers

in the beginning the very

very early adopters and I

I love this approach

so but I completely agree

when we're talking about a bigger scale

things ultimately are not as easy as this

but it just shows

the level of collaboration between the two

in real life down to target list level

for example yeah

I think it's one team it's not two separate teams

we need to get rid of silos

um

marketing is trying to

you know drive performance

sales are trying to drive performance

I think as long as people understand

we're on the same side and behaving that way

we can win faster.

We've got a lot of comments from the audience

Do you want us to maybe bring them?

oh really?

Yeah, there's quite a lot of chat here!

ha ha oh no

what are we saying that's controversial?

ha ha ha ha I don't think it's controversial

some were agreeing oh

They're saying that basically

marketing and medical

so Jenny and Hamilton, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for asking questions.

Thank you for getting in this conversation with us so

um uh

oh she's saying yes

and okay so she...

the question is

marketing and medical role is to support sales, right?

and I sort of to be honest

I don't necessarily agree with that

because I'm seeing a raise of

self-serve of the self-serve model

for example so like when I used to buy

um um

a service, a business service in the past

you always, like you have to talk to sales

you know before you buy anything

right now what I'm seeing is like companies go through

they give you a lot of content

so you like engage and you feel like you're wanted

and then you sort of go through a self service model

which basically makes their role of sales more

sort of like influential

more of a like a medical sales

what are you done directly sell

where you more like influence

and that's where I disagree with

with Miss Janine here

but um

again that's my point here

maybe you guys will disagree with me

which is gonna make this conversation even better

Who wants to go first?

Who wants to disagree with Stefan?

Okay go ahead

you know I think in the past

like looking at 20 years ago

sales would go out there and say

this is my territory these are my customers

and if anybody wants to talk to them

they need to like

I need to know about them being quite territorial

and marketing role was kinda like

these are the messages

I want you to go and deliver in that order

I think we have evolved since then and you know

in the way we work

we see the customer and we see us as a team medical

marketing and sales trying to find what their need is

and address their need with our product and services

and flex in the way that they prefer it

honestly I see marketing and medical as my friends

I see them as my enablers

I don't see that they're there to serve me

I see them as my partners helping me for us to achieve

um you know

results for the customers

and at the end of the day

and you often say this

sales is not doing something to someone

sales is doing something for someone

so you're trying to find the customer pain point

and deliver something that addresses that pain point

I can't do that on my own as a sales person

I need to have a team behind me

medical information marketing

you know

everybody in the company is there to support me

and you need to use as a tag team

get the right person to go and have that conversation

and sometimes we need to even bring

you know the supply people to talk to customers

because they want reassurance about continuity

of supply I mean

there's been a lot of issues around

some of the medicine in NHS that

this is not availability of the medicine

so now I feel we need to think more holistically

and also there's other issues around sustainability

you know environmental impact of medicine

sometimes I need to reach out for somebody who can

reassurance about you know

is it sustainable?

is it recyclable?

because those are the key things are influencing

healthcare providers decision making

it's not just about efficacy and safety of the product

is about bigger impact on environment

so um

for that reason

I don't see the world the way you said Stefan

I see us as one team

maybe in some companies they still do silos

but I think the Nirvana is for us to be more aligned

and get rid of the silos

silos on the counter

I got um well

I see pharma as something...

I see pharma as

something that's a bit behind other industries

in terms of like understanding

terms of business maybe that's my own

that's how I see the world

I don't know let me put my glasses here

maybe they're being right

No, you're right

We are behind there's no doubt about it

so I mean

just to finish and and then you go

and then what I see is that

because it's behind

there is still this delimitation between marketing

and sales

but in other industries where it's a bit forward

you don't have marketing and sales anymore

you have revenue you have a chief revenue officer

who's responsible for all the revenue

and you have multiple teams

inside the revenue department

you have revenue operations

you have certain mini departments

and so you don't have this

like dogs and cats wars

like a marketing and sales

who will win? you know

who has more influence? who will get better, bigger budget?

and so on

sorry, you can continue now

I think you're absolutely right

we're not there, I mean

I'm talking to other entrepreneurs that are running

business is

and direct to consumers and the level of data

the level of sophistication

they have

in the digital marketing is an absolute dream

and in pharma we don't even have sometimes

and the basic stuff integrated

you know

the marketing campaign are not integrated with the CRM

system so we've got a long way to go

but I think the first step

we need to shift in pharma is the marketing's mindset

I think marketing is still thinking brand

they're thinking therapy area

and they don't think about customers

and customers pain points, you know

you talk to any UX designer

the first thing they ask is

what's the pain point we trying to address

as you talk to marketeers

they're saying this is a brand I need to sell

and these are

the targets I need to achieve is a small thing

but is a fundamentally different mindset shift

and I think farmer is behind

because it's still thinking

brand is not thinking about customer pain point

and that's where the conflict happens

the field team are dealing with customers

so they're here in the customer paying points

sometimes they can't feed that back to marketing

and marketing so we'll tell

do what I'm telling you

because I'm wanna sell this brand

I've got this target to meet

and then now you've got on the channel

people that trying to

kind of bring a different perspective

as a mismatch of thinking and mindset

between the three and that's where the conflict happens

but I agree with you we are very much behind

but the steps that can be taken to address the mindset

first I got a remark here for hermit here

so how much so we're talking about brand

we're talking about brand / engagement

so right mm hmm

and um

my question is how much brand / engagement

engagement and other types of

what's the content is health, a healthy one

where have you seen like good and bad examples?

maybe you could come up with stuff like that?

So you're talking about the waiting of the content

so being more brand and being more specific?

yeah yeah yeah

yeah like the need yeah

um good question

so I've seen a huge variety

I've seen and let me put it out there

in terms of the process and the way I work

I understand the brand I read the brand plan

I need to digest it, I need to get it

I've got it but for me

I need to know the deep insights

and understanding around our customers

leveraging all types of data and learnings

that's another subject

so I have seen where we are pushing

for example to really go customer centric first

understanding the pain points

we do things quite smart as well

we add different behaviour models

why not? you wanna get deeper

you wanna understand audiences

you wanna know the differences

not all audiences the same customer

like we've said before

so I've seen where we really push on educational

value added content first

and that's a big push I understand

I'm in an agreement

with the conversations that you two have been having

but I still have to, we have to bear in mind

the reality also of the marketing team

they've got to speak higher up and get the sales

so there's an element of brand

but that's that shouldn't be the first uh conversation

even now we're planning uh

tactics and materials and messaging

and it's what promotional message can we say no

what are the deep pain points that we've understood?

what are the psychographic kind of elements?

what are the motivations of these customers?

um we

you'll get to the brand

your answer will be the brand ideally

but it doesn't have to be the first thing you say

for example

and the great thing I love doing is testing always

we're doing it right now different display ads

different emails

let's go with this unmet need message first

and try this one

let's go with these pain points and try this one

let's have this one

promotional with your promotional key message first

so I've seen a big mix you know

I'm an advocate of always addressing

what the customer needs obviously

um sorry

that was a long winded answer

but I see and I have some clients that are like

these are the messages

do it on every single channel you can think of

you know um comment

um I was working with the client and

they wanted to

one of the strategies to become more customer focus

was to encourage everyone

to write

customer centric SWAT analysis

when they started writing the SWAT

most of the SWAT they wrote was brand specific

um aa

they couldn't write their customer centric

SWAT analysis

is because they don't know enough about customers

and um

I think sometimes we think we know

but I think most of the knowledge is about the therapy

area and the brand

we selling and we kind of like

trying to find one thing that we can hook the brand to

it but really

if you spend time to understand the customers

and their pain points the things that impact them

you know their environment

then you find better sweet spots

that the brand can meet it much more successfully

so rather than going with the shopping list

of throwing messages at them

you can actually condense it to one message

that directly engages it

and I can give you specific examples

like there was a brand that was working on that

I think that we were focusing on the brand itself

and then we listen to the customers

and we change our approach

we with input from HCPs we created an event

an event that we wanted to invite

like high specific people

maybe eight people to attend this event

because we wanted to specifically train them

because they were

these are like the key opinion leaders

uh we send the invitation last Tuesday

but last Friday we had 30 people registered

we were gonna close it but we thought no

we're not gonna close it and today I checked

we've got over 40 people registered for it

I'm asking myself why?

and I think it's because the content

is addressing an unmet need

and they organically sharing the details

and most people like wanna come into this event

because it was created based on their input

so I kind of

I think if marketing spent a bit more time pondering

on understanding customers

really articulating

really getting under the skin of their emotions

the motivations that you

talk about then sit back and look at the brand and see

does it genuinely meet this

and what specific thing it meets and prioritize it

and I think we'd be a lot more successful

I think what we tend to do is more of the same

over the competitors are doing with benchmarks

ourselves versus competitors

rather than benchmark ourselves

are how good I'll be in satisfying their need

and be really honest with each other

some of their needs we can't satisfy

so don't go there go to areas where we can satisfy

and then we can't satisfy every customer's needs

so when it comes to segmentation

focus on account and customers

that we can genuinely address their need

and forget about the exit

the markets where we can't

and be really honest about it

okay we have a comment

I'm sorry I'm going to interrupt you right now

we have a comment

our question actually says: whose pain points?

the HCPs or the patients?

because they don't have the same pain points

and we need to clarify exactly who we are addressing me

Me me me!

Me me!

you go, you go

You go, girl! You go, girl!

I'm so glad you asked that

see how excited I get I need to calm down okay

so um

I love that question

I love it because part of the strategy

upfront strategy

is understanding the patient as well as the HCP

I'm so glad that question

came up for standard strategy 1:1 patient journeys

for example um

really understanding the journey

that the patient goes through

layering on the stakeholders

this is like I practiced on all the time

I understand but it are sometimes it often gets missed

but understanding their pain points

their needs layering them

the HCPs and the stakeholders who's involved

what are their pain points?

what are the opportunities?

standard patient journey as an example

so I think it's a great question

and definitely understanding the patients

as well as Hcps

also I'm seeing something quite interesting quite cool

uh specifically in the US

as you could imagine

how we're taking learning from DTC campaigns

taking the learnings into HCP engagement

ooh juicy stuff! I haven't seen it yet

but it's

but the fact that marketers are talking about this

and just do Mehrnaz's earlier point

I have to give kudos to the marketing teams

I have worked with

some great marketing teams that are pushing boundaries

doing the right thing first

if I'm honest um

with a lot of hesitancy in the company

and organisation

so I'm seeing a shift technology is always been there

it's about the education we need internally

for example

and the upscaling technology is always been there

like you say

we're behind technology has been there in other

in other industries um

but yeah I love that question

always understand both ha ha ha please

Do you have anything to add?

I think the point Harmeet makes is absolutely

fundamental because patients are the end users

even though that

we don't directly communicate with them

but also

the other aspect is sometimes parents are the carers

so we need to take that into consideration

because their attitude

and behaviours can actually determine compliance

and preferences for formulation of the brands

so we need to be mindful of their challenge

because they could be a barrier to prescribing

or adoption as well

so it's important to take that into consideration

Nice, guys

we have a comment from someone that we all know

and love: Claudia

Claudia,

I'm so happy to have you here

um uh

She is

guys, for everyone behind, before this started

we discussed that we all know Claudia

and love Claudia

so that's uh

the key thing

so she's saying that's the challenge

that's gonna start with the brand strategies

not being customer centric enough

hence the teams at local level

having to reconcile brand and customer need themselves

like if they were trying to do magic?

and I see you guys looking and reading

so who wants to comment on that?

and then there is another comment.

But let's go through parts

So I'm reading the first part

I agree and I'm gonna say I agree with you Claudia

ha ha um

so yeah I completely agree

but I think it was kind of part of what

I was saying earlier so digest the brand plan,

understand the brand plan,

okay we now, get the strategies

the critical success factors

everything from a brand perspective

um but yes

how do we take what we need to be doing

but now coming up with a communication strategy

that is customer centric for example?

so um

that's typically kind of the process if you like

how I've been doing it and then the second part

um hence

the teams at a local level

having to reconcile brand and customer names

if they were trying to do magic

I don't 100% understand that

I'm sorry I don't know if somebody else does

yeah I'm quite happy

I may be reading it yeah

yeah I think it's one question

I think

I agree with what Claudia's saying

there's a mismatch here

from a strategic point of view

you need to have a red thread

through the whole process of communication

if you have a strategic plan that is brand centric

and not customer centric then it comes to affiliates

they need to try to fix it

so you're not getting the right red thread

and it's unfair to the affiliates

or if the affiliates don't get it right

it comes to the field team

field team trying to fix it

so I think the core of the strategy needs to be custom

eccentric

and the brand needs to match the gap

or like the sweet spot

the match the brand can meet that needs

and if you haven't got it sorted at the top

it's just not gonna have the right cascade

and the red threads not coming through

and you're right

it creates more work for other people

and it breaks down trust as well

because if you

have to go and do the work that they expected

global team should have done it

then they feel quite resentful

and it creates more work for them

ha ha ha let's not create resentful

or resentfulness inside the workplace please

ha ha so I want to ask I'm sorry Stef

I'm jumping in but uh

prior to our discussions uh with Mehrnaz

we discuss about your

next book or something like that

and we discuss and I know

you talked about the importance of the evolution

let's say of marketing being more customer centric

so I know you touch a little bit about that

but I want to go a little bit in depth

and to understand you said that it's we need to change

let's say

from brand awareness to be more customer

and that way we can integrate

or work in the ways of

integrate and sell some marketing better

because the clients will be

we're all going to be working as we are

with one client

the same client and that's our end deal

but how do you think this changes

or this evolving will happen?

do you think we're in the way of that happening?

would you think there are some issues in the middle?

or what are your thoughts?

um change is not easy

humans would avoid change as far as possible

people wanna do what they're comfortable with so

you know it's not easy and if you don't have a roadmap

and it's not lack of clarity

you kind of like running around like headless chickens

and I think the problem is

everybody knows pharma needs to change

everybody knows pharma is behind

and everybody's talking about transformation

but there's not real clarity

about who needs to do what

and how you change

and companies create this like competency framework

but the competency framework doesn't define

what is it that you need to do on Monday

or behaviours you need to have

so I think with marketing is

is reaching a... like that tipping point that

there is a need to shift because the whole

you know communication

methodology is shifting because of the

the transformation

and if marketing

still doing what they did 10 years ago

or 20 years ago

it's gonna be a point of evolution that it won't survive

that behaviour won't survive

so either the individual needs to change

or then the evolution would remove them from

you know the food chain

so I think what there are drives change is necessity

either pressure to evolve like you know

even look at pharma

Pharma was not ready to do digital transformation

until Covid happened, Covid forced it to do

but it should have happened ages ago

I mean how many of us go and visit a brand bank

how many of us go to a branch

how many of us write a check

we do everything online I

I put my hand up in America

they're quite backwards they still give checkbooks

and I was

opening

I was going to open a business banking in US this week

and the guy was saying to me

I'll be charged so much

for checking your balance on an ATM

and I was saying why would I check my balance on an ATM?

what's an ATM? he's surprised

yeah and

I was just thinking like but the banking

which is a highly regulated industry has moved so much

and I remember HSBC put staff in the branches

so if you visit the branch of HSBC

55 years ago because you were laggard

and you were not adopting technology

they would have staff

that would take you into a terminal

and show you how to do your online banking

so I think maybe we need to have some system

helping marketers to shift their own mindset

but there needs to be a change process for that um

but I think is very much needed

and I was talking to somebody this morning

they said the biggest challenge they're having

in the global team is around

marketing's mindset around omni channel

the thing on the channel is something

you just do the campaign like you've always done

do everything you did

and then at the end of that process

you just think okay

what channels do I use on the channel is

is a way of is like

you need to think about that from the answer

you need to look at

look at the behaviours of the customers

where do they go to sort

source information for education

or for knowledge or the data

and then

embed that understanding in your whole campaign

development not something you bought at the end of it

so the mindset really needs to shift um

yeah we're gonna have a really interesting panel

discussion about in three weeks time in Dubrovnik

and I've listened to the speakers in the panel

and they are quite controversial

they say that we need to really change fundamentally

otherwise marketing won't survive in pharma

and like you said Stefan

a lot of organisation outside pharma

they don't have sales and marketing function per se

the revenue generators

so maybe that will happen in pharma as well

let's hope, let's not to close marketing please

because I will be without a job

and I cannot be without a job

so let's evolve people so

we have another question from our audience saying

I'm going to post it here from Freddy.

He's saying great talk my question is

how many messages is too many messages per segment?

should we alternate messages by quarter

or journey

or try to leave our 2 to 3 messages consistently

to drive a recall?

Who, guys, wants...? Harmeet I see you nodding

I see you getting excited

Me me me! How am I gonna answer this though?

okay ha ha

it's a great question um

the one thing that came into my mind

so I'm just gonna read the questions

I get all of it should be all the same message okay

okay so I'm gonna give you an example because one

I'm rooting for the marketing teams

come on marketing teams and second

I've had a great experience recently

that would probably help answer this

pharma company

okay probably a bit sophisticated

but they have done a great job in building their own

omni channel engine is what they were calling it um

and in that you're taking external sales data

original CRM data including notes from the reps

and it was actually helping understand multiple

information about the customer audience

giving you a 360 view and it truly was

it was also actually highlighting

using AI and machine learning

highlighting potential adopters

lower doctors prescription growth rate potential

and also content consumption

that's the big one

so there is no one answer for that

and I technically would not base it on a timing plan

although I know that's how we

do marketing

typically in cycles and quarters and sprints

I understand that

but if there is a way of learning and understanding

what message works

ideally using a sophisticated CRM

for example

because what we're doing

as long as you're tagging the content correctly

it was actually giving you your next best action

and the channel

and it was saying these are the top three

collectively from all the healthcare providers

these are the top three key messages

so say you have eight typically

these are the top three that have been most consumed

and then even on an individual level

like that is the level I want us to be getting to

and it is feasible it's happened

I've worked with it it's amazing

so sorry

not probably the best answer I need to give you

just yes do 2 to 3

but if there is a way

probably not a sophisticated

that you can learn what are the top messages

please you know

leverage the content in your damn

please tag please

please tag

and work like with the Content Excellence team

for example internally

and I'm gonna go we got a question here

shouldn't be responses rather than messages

ha ha it's really funny

it's really funny you say that because I was gonna say

being at them like a front end communicating with Hcps

I think less is more

and I think what we find is we listen

to what they say

and we pick the message that is relevant

to the conversation so I would say

you know if you use theoretical marketing stimulations

the more messages you put in

the less impact it would have

so less is more but for every

every given interaction with the individual HCPs

from the segment you selecting

you need to listen to what they say like um

you said earlier on Harmeet

your flexibility to feel team

to use the page or the content from the deck

that is relevant is not

the quantity of content

is keeping the conversation very precise

on the point that really matters to them

so I would say don't have more than 3 messages

because you confuse them

and it becomes like a tick box

but then on a given interaction

focus on the most pertinent one

with a given HCP to have more impact

we have another question

come on guys

you it's your time to give all the questions you have

so uh

the question is

how can sales and marketing collaborate in development

and developing relevant and valuable content

for healthcare providers

who wants to tackle that? Mehrnaz?

Yeah, I can

then we go to our meet

because I just think she's excited as well

I I keep these horses

so I've seen case studies developed for brands

and I read them

and I kind of think this doesn't sound like a patient

and couple of years ago we actually worked with HCPs

they wrote case studies and they

case studies were much more real

and I remember we

help them develop a booklet

to collate all the case studies

and the case studies were describing the scenarios

and when we were showing those case studies

to other healthcare professionals

they were saying yeah

I can relate to a David I can relate to a Marjorie

so I think um the best content is a

content that is actually created by Hcps

based on their real experiences

and is a really good way of educating others

because others can relate to it

Nice! Harmeet?

I think the question also for me

it kinds of links back to

I guess the first question you asked us

um is finding methodologies

whatever works for your team

and their pressures of their job

but ways that they can be working together a lot more

and communicating and feedbacking

but also give a sense of authority

and ownership and freedom to the sales team

so um that comes down to like I say

understand your customer deep insights if possible

multi layered

segmentation if possible and then

have the content that we need but again

package it and feed it back to the sales webs

to get an idea of what they believe

is the right messages according to their customers

and then

give them the freedom and ownership to use the content

that they seem relevant for Doctor Joe

for example so

and again

I know everyone's time poor

not just the healthcare professionals

like we all are I get it

I understand but honestly

that it's not difficult to arrange a call with 5 reps

for example so

and then as frequently as you want to be doing it

as much as you want their involvement

if they're happy to be involved and they

I don't know but from experience

they're always happy to involve

be involved and be heard

and they come up with great insights

they were helping us shape our efficacy story

they were helping us shape our um like the key messages

so I love that we need more

more people like you harmony

who open and inclusive and well

I'm actually seeing a good shift

I don't know I don't think it's as bad as it used to be

like over 12 years

things are moving in the right direction

I'm just putting it out there

yeah or I'm just working with a select few

I don't know but yeah

well I think there's a mix

there's a mix everywhere

and there are some really talented people

who are focused on doing the right thing

and being inclusive and getting rid of the silos

and there's still some that still

you know traditional in their way of thinking

like anything else you've got early adopters

you've got one and you've got the others in between

yeah yep

yep yep

yep yep yeah

definitely

so I'm going to... We are close to ending and this is sad

but it's the thing

so I would love to have closing remarks for you guys

if you have anything to say to our audience

or leave our audience with

who wants to go first a close with a remark?

I

I could go first I would say

one of the key things we need to think about is

HCPs are on the tremendous amount of pressure

there's long waiting times

patients are waiting for you know

surgeries or appointments for a long time

we've got a duty and responsibility to make sure

we don't waste HCP's time

so every time we thinking about reach

we need to think about how

we can actually address a pain point

that helps them

to be able to deliver better care for the patients

and focus on that it's not about quantity

it's about quality

and being really relevant to their pain point

thank you for that how you meet yeah

that's an amazing answer

and then I guess it's a nobody is

but it's like the why ultimately

what should we be doing all of ourselves marketing

anyone in the organization

and then I guess the part 2 maybe is then the how

so please please collaborate

I have seen even on a level

content excellence

not collaborating with the digital and the tech team

for example so

find strategies and ways of working

where you can collaborate

cross collaborate

collaborate with the sales reps efficiently you know

making sure that you actually

you have results at the end of it

but ultimately to do what men are said

at the end day is the most important

but work together in any way possible and share

and honestly internally share case studies

share learnings across therapy areas across markets

across like just across the organization um

everyone is so I get it

everyone's time for working in their zone but um yeah

I could keep going it's not closing is it

um what might help in terms of how is

I've written a book about the Omni Advantage

the Omni Advantage is not about technology

is about people and how can we can bring people medical

marketing and sales together on this journey

so we can actually be the trusted advisors

for healthcare professionals

as an industry so um

if you've not checked it out um

check it out

because it is written more like a road map

to give you the house nice

so guys I will want to thank you all for being here

thank you for your panel and to all our attendees

thank you so much

your comments and questions were amazing

and we were so happy that you enjoy this

as much as we did so without any further delay

have a great weekend

and I will see you all on our next farming sites

Bye, everyone.

Thank you so much, bye.

Thank you. You're welcome.