This month Pf spoke to Julie Adams, Regional Healthcare Manager of AstraZeneca, about what it was like to win at the Pf Awards and how she proved that her role is anything but ‘woolly’.

Are you the best in the industry at what you do? Do you want to be recognised by your company AND your industry peers? Do you want to be on stage receiving an award? Here are some useful hints and tips from Lucy Randle, Managing Director of STAR Medical, that might help you to achieve that goal and make sure you stand out from the crowd:

By Chris Wilkinson, Sales Manager, In2Focus SDS

In the third article of our series on market segmentation, a sales manager explains how segmentation enables him to analyse the purchasing network and deploy his sales force effectively.

THE SALES MODEL that we all became familiar with throughout the 1990s – one characterised by share of voice – is being replaced by a new generation of thinking that responds to the demands of the changing customer base and the NHS environment. Simply making more noise for your product in the hope that this alone will drive sales can feel a bit like shouting at a brick wall – that’s to say, inefficient, exhausting, exasperating and probably a waste of time and resources.

Instead, a more effective, considered approach is evolving that targets the gatekeepers: those who are willing and able to buy, and who can influence prescribing patterns within a specific PCO. Every pharmaceutical company in the country is feeling the pinch of budget cuts, and consequently in-house and contact sales teams alike are operating under increasing pressure to get results with tighter resources. With an ever-shrinking customer base, we all face the challenge of targeting our efforts on the decision makers.

The purchasing network

Previously, when we were targeting GPs, the choice to buy ordinarily came down to the personal preference of the individual and the skill and diligence of the representative. Now that the PCOs are the gatekeepers, this has become a lot more complex: the influencers in this group include GPs, pharmacists, members of the PCO prescribing committee, the Health Authority and the supplementary prescribers. A more holistic approach to selling, encompassing a broader knowledge of the individuals’ needs, the pressures on them and their spheres of influence, ensures that representatives can influence not just one GP but, by identifying and speaking to the right people, the actual policies themselves.

Market segmentation is a concept that allows me to pinpoint the key individuals and groups in a particular area, identify the factors that impact on their decision-making and quickly deploy representatives to leverage these factors. This goes beyond customer segmentation, which focuses only on the prescribing habits and characteristics of an individual: market segmentation helps me to identify the players at the different levels of the market who can effect change at the ground level.

CRM systems

In2Focus uses a number of tools that help to identify these hotspots in order to help sales managers identify, and then access, the influencers and prescribers. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems help the sales manager to compare IMS/TNS and prescription data, for example, with the number of contacts made on a territory. This not only reveals the effectiveness of the individual representatives, but also sheds light on the political environment in which they operate. CRM tools such as In2Focus’ Actis enable the sales manager to track and analyse his team’s performance,  monitor business and environmental factors, assess the impact of strategies instantly and modify them where necessary. Such tools have helped turn what was once a scatter-gun approach to sales into a more sophisticated, complex science, in which specialist sales organisations are often able to offer real advantages over their in-house sales colleagues.

CRM tools help the sales manager to categorise and segment healthcare practitioners and decision makers who are in a position to buy. It is inefficient for my sales team to call on customers based only on their personal needs and not on their business needs; we have to consider the political environment in which they operate, so I encourage my team to adopt a holistic approach whenever they see a customer. There are no hard and fast rules: every PCO in the country is different, but ultimately we are striving to influence the policy makers – and changes affected there will filter down to primary care and retail.

Importantly, the effectiveness of a CRM system depends on the quality of the information that is inputted. It is crucial, therefore, that the sales team is trained to operate these tools properly and to understand fully the importance of accurate data input. In2Focus, for example, now has access to the Binley’s databases, providing accurate and up-to-date information on GPs, practice managers, practice nurses, PCOs, trust pharmacists, hospital practitioners, retail pharmacists and NHS management. It also has access to specialist practice-level information.

Accurate feedback from my representatives in the field ensures that resources are deployed in hotspots to reach key prescribers – and not wasted on those unable or unwilling to change their prescribing behaviour, or those who simply do not see the target patient group for a particular brand.

Targeting the market

The ever-changing political and economic context that dictates the prescribing preferences of PCOs is a factor that the sales manager must be fully aware of and work in tandem with. Market segmentation provides a framework for pharmaceutical sales representatives to work effectively and deliver optimum return on investment. And that’s good for the client, good for me and good for my team – who remain highly motivated and hungry for success.

By Ian D. Kennedy, CEO, mediary Ltd

Do you feel that the gatekeepers of primary care practice access are against you? If so, what can you do about it?

AMAZINGLY, some sales managers do not seem to realise what the issues with primary care access are. Is the sales force telling them? Are they listening? It may be that I’ve just been exposed to a number of industry managers who are in denial – and to be fair, I’ve also met a number of managers who realise there is an issue and know how to address it. However, if you were a practice manager today, you might wonder what is going on in the heads of some pharmaceutical regional managers.

I have the privilege of being able to see the view from both sides of the fence, after many years of pharmaceutical field force management and the last two years spent talking with both practice management and primary care representatives. So here are the key issues . . .

Too many of us?

From the practice management and receptionist point of view, there are too many representatives. Too many calling for appointments, too many wanting to change or swap appointments, and too many who do not seem to appreciate the role of the practice manager or practice staff.

From the representative’s point of view, there are also too many representatives – resulting in shortage of appointments, competition for appointments, and the fairly regular event of a practice closing its doors to representatives completely.

There are, of course, very professional representatives whom practices appreciate: the ‘super-reps’ who can relate to everyone and treat everyone individually, and bring in cream cakes as well. They probably bypass the appointment systems anyway.

No conspiracy

A recent presentation highlighted the need for representatives to realise their own value as sales professionals calling on healthcare professionals. They should, it said, be proud of their education and training and sell themselves effectively as contributors to the doctors’ education and improved therapeutic choice.

The notion that the majority of receptionists are negative towards representatives is erroneous – as is the notion that their negative attitude towards representatives is ‘learned’ from other negative-thinking people. If this were true, the ‘super-reps’ would not be gaining access to these practices.

Could it be that representatives with ‘skill-gaps’ and ‘knowledge-gaps’ regarding practice staff cause attitude issues? These representatives are quickly ‘sussed’ out by receptionists. Given better training, they would know what skills are required to connect with receptionists, and what knowledge they need to display.

The belief that the receptionist or practice manager conspires with his or her ‘bosses’, the doctors, to keep representatives out is simply not true. The majority of today’s professional practice managers do not see GPs as their ‘bosses’: they are all in a management team, part of the NHS’s primary care service. They don’t conspire to keep representatives out, because if they did not want to see them they would just close the doors.

Building bridges

The challenge, then, is to achieve more widespread appreciation on both sides: to make sure our representatives are fully briefed, educated and coached in the roles of receptionists and practice managers; to help receptionists appreciate the role and contribution of the pharmaceutical representative; and to find a way for these two groups to interact without inconveniencing each other.

The receptionist or practice manager may be dealing with up to 200 representatives. The practices that have shut out calls have caused more representatives to call on the practices that are still available. This targeting of practices can cause stress, with the result that still more practices shut out calls and exacerbate the situation.

Allowing representatives to make appointments online, just as patients do, is part of the solution. Making sure that representatives are fully educated about receptionists and practice managers is another substantial part of the solution.

None of this applies to you? Then you must be a super-rep. Congratulations.

Managing a practice

Many companies are not actually or visibly recognising the ‘new’ practice manager and the ‘patient facing team’. Some are, but they seem to be a minority. The day of the unqualified ‘receptionist’ on a basic income is behind us. The vast majority, if not all, of today’s receptionists and practice managers are qualified, well-trained and actively part of a continual learning process.

Today’s practice managers have to be top business professionals. Though there are no ‘mandatory’ qualifications, there is a plethora of ‘must have’ knowledge and skills. They need an in-depth appreciation of the ailments a person might experience and the screening a population might need. They go on training workshops for a day at a time to learn about clinical topics such as child screening policies, mental health in the community, care of the elderly, ante-natal and pre-natal care and each of the QOF therapy areas – as well as professional topics such as the GMS contract, records and patient communication, clinical governance, ‘NHS learning accounts’ and IT.

They are responsible for achieving efficient workflow in the practice, ensuring that records are kept accurately and that data go to the right places at the right time. Like any top manager you know, these people have to lead, direct, control and motivate their teams – GPs included!

Qualified professionals

The Association of Medical Secretaries, Practice Managers, Administrators and Receptionists (AMSPAR) provides a range of professional qualifications, both inside and outside the National Qualification Framework. The AMSPAR management diploma is the only NQF-recognised qualification specifically designed for Primary Care Management. The programme is open to existing and potential managers in a health or social care environment. It is appropriate for nurses who manage a team, all PCO managers and those working in GP and dental surgeries.

The upcoming PCT ‘mergers’ will set back the efficiency of PCTs by 18 months, and will take them another 18 months to recover from (see the House of Commons Select Committee Report on the NHS). Can you imagine the pressures and constant priority shifts these people have to manage – from doctors, practice nurses, community nurses and various social welfare functions to the PCT and other parts of the NHS? They may well be managing their practice through the change from being a close-knit part of a PCT to being a ‘commissioning-based practice’. This is a profound organisational change for many. Also, a number of practices across the UK are managed centrally by companies such as Chilvers-McCrea. Where this occurs, the healthcare professionals and even the clinicians are usually salaried employees.

The receptionist or practice manager may well have qualifications such as:

• BSc in Health Services Management and Administration
• Diploma in Practice Management Development or Health & Care Services Management
• MA in Medicine or Health & Social Care Management
• MBA in Health Service Management or Health Service Economics
• MSc in Health Care Management, Health Science, Health Service

Management and Research or Public Health & Health Promotion.

Still on the line

Finally, remember that practice managers and receptionists have to deal with a considerable number of medical representatives who phone or call in, not to make appointments, but to change or swap them! An increasing number see this as an invasion of their time and that of the patients.

A number of practices assert that representatives cause telephone congestion to the detriment of patients, and occupy space in the waiting room that patients should have. It is not that they don’t want to see representatives, but that they want to see them more time-efficiently.

Kiri:We went into consultation just before Christmas last year.There were serious implications for me. I was getting married this month so there were financial worries, as well as the fact that I really didn’t want to have to start looking for a new career. I’d wanted to be a Medical Sales Representative since university, and I loved my job. I knew the same thing was happening to people throughout the pharma industry, it wasn’t just us. I was worried for friends and colleagues who were in the same position, especially those with children and mortgages.

The pharma industry’s leading players are relying on product licensing to sustain their financial growth. A new report from Datamonitor examines how they can best ensure the success of this strategy.

THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY’S top 20 companies are facing a poor growth outlook, in part caused by poor R&D productivity levels. In order to overcome this problem, they are turning to licensing. But with high competition for products, companies need to leverage their assets and offer creative deals to win them from their competitors, according to a new report from independent market analyst Datamonitor.

Poor outlook

The top 20 pharmaceutical companies are in crisis, with many facing a poor growth outlook for their prescription pharma businesses over the next six years. In fact, Datamonitor forecasts that Amgen will be the only company among the top 20 to achieve double-digit growth over the next six years. The companies are struggling to overcome a wave of patent expiries, tightening drug prices and increasing regulatory pressures.

One of the main internal causes of the problem has been declining R&D productivity, with pharma companies pouring more money into R&D but failing to generate promising candidates that will provide a high return, says Datamonitor pharmaceutical industry analyst Romita Das. “However, licensing is providing hope for the industry as a means to overcome these problems, but only if companies can get their hands on the promising candidates under favourable terms.”

The top 20 pharma companies are increasingly recognising the potential of licensing, with the number of licensing deals signed rising by 16% in the last five years. In addition, these companies have become increasingly dependent on licensing to generate sales, with an average of 19.5% of their ethical sales being derived from licensed products in 2004 compared with 17.5% in 2002. This equates to $63 billion of sales in 2004, compared with $48 billion in 2002 – an increase of almost a third.

Merck no longer in front

Merck & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline were the most active deal-makers between 2000 and 2004. Merck was particularly active in 2003 and 2004, when it was the top deal-maker. However, in the first nine months of 2005 Merck’s activity fell dramatically, with only six deals signed compared with 30 signed in 2004. It appears that the withdrawal of Vioxx (rofecoxib) may have had repercussions throughout the company, resulting in a slowdown in licensing activity – perhaps to save money, or perhaps because companies had been put off signing a deal with Merck.

Furthermore, the two companies’ licensing activities highlight key differences in strategy. GSK’s licensing activity follows the traditional strategy of focusing on acquiring the rights to compounds in clinical development. Merck, on the other hand, has a distinct licensing strategy from its peers in that it has focused on drug discovery alliances, Das says. “However, as a result of the lost revenue stream from the withdrawal of Vioxx and its poor growth outlook, Merck may need to turn to late-stage product licensing to find new revenue streams quickly.”

Dependence on licensing set to increase

Datamonitor expects the top 20 pharma companies’ licensing dependence to increase over the next five years, with Roche seeing the greatest jump as a result of its tie-up with Genentech. Datamonitor forecasts that these companies, on average, will derive 26.1% of their ethical sales from licensed products by 2010. This will equate to more than $100 billion – double the sales that the top 20 pharma companies generated from licensed products in 2002. Datamonitor also expects that the number of licensing deals struck will continue to rise, though competition and the limited number of lucrative licensing opportunities will restrict this growth to some extent.

As a result of the high competition for licensing of promising products (particularly late-stage compounds), it is difficult for companies to secure deals. It has therefore become ever more important that companies leverage their tangible assets (such as marketing experience and licensing history) as well as their intangible assets (such as reputation and good alliance management) to be positioned as a ‘partner of choice’ in order to help attract and secure promising, high-value deals.

In addition, companies need to offer more creative deals that make them stand out from the crowd and exploit synergies, according to Das. “For example, as part of Pfizer’s co-development and co-promotion deal with Neurocrine for indiplon, Pfizer agreed to train Neurocrine’s sales team.

“The structure of the deal was designed to help build up Neurocrine’s capabilities, while from Pfizer’s perspective, Neurocrine’s resultant sales force is likely to be compatible with Pfizer’s marketing approach and of course, the deal ultimately gave Pfizer access to the product. The deal also highlights the rising complexity of licensing agreements, with potential licensees conceding to the demands of out-licensors to secure rights to the product.”

Early-stage licensing – an undervalued opportunity

The top 20 pharmaceutical players are currently focusing their licensing efforts on late-stage compounds in an attempt to address their R&D productivity crisis and weak growth prospects in the short term. However Datamonitor’s research indicates that these companies are not fully capturing the opportunities to in-license early-stage compounds, where competition to secure the best deals is less fierce and lower costs are involved.

In most cases, smaller companies have little chance to compete with the likes of Pfizer and GSK, with their more diverse offerings and bigger cash piles. Datamonitor believes that early-stage product licensing deals are ideal for smaller players, allowing them to license the product before competitors do. The early-stage product licensing arena is a more even playing field, with plenty of products available for licensing. Das comments: “However, the higher risk of such products and difficulty in assessing the potential has tended to deter companies in the past. In Datamonitor’s view, the higher risk is counterbalanced by the substantially lower costs in licensing products and even more crucially, far lower royalty rates are applicable.”

The structure of licensing deals is becoming more complex, with companies that are seeking to out-license products becoming more demanding and potential licensees conceding to demands for access to high-potential products ahead of their competitors – as highlighted by the Pfizer and Neurocrine agreement. Das says: “It is now crucial for companies to ensure they optimise their licensing strategies to fully extract the value that licensing can offer.”

By Mark Murphy, The Portland Partnership

THE WORLD, not just of medical sales, but of work in general has changed. Our 24-hour, 7-day society means that more and more people have to juggle responsibilities at home and in the workplace. Bill Gates has a lot to answer for: his vision of a PC on every desk started a process that has rapidly changed the world we live in. The new technology that was designed to make our lives easier and save us time has in fact complicated our lives and robbed us of our time. We are now in a society where everyone wants everything yesterday and the word ‘wait’ is almost as unacceptable as other four-letter words!

What are the effects on all of us?

What does the law say?

Over the last nine years, a lot of progress has been made. In April 2003, work-life balance provisions were significantly extended to cover:

• annual leave
• working time
• parental leave
• time off for dependant care
• maternity and paternity leave
• adoption leave
• right to request flexible working
• part-time work.

What lies ahead?

The Government has published proposals that, if passed, will:

• Extend ordinary maternity leave, statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance to nine months from April 2007.
• Create powers to implement a statutory right to additional paternity leave, including up to three months’ paid leave if the mother returns to work without exhausting her full entitlement of nine months’ maternity leave. How employers will monitor this I have no idea, as most parents work for different employers!
• Extend the right to request flexible working to carers from April 2007.

How are employers responding?

What can managers do to help?

• find out what’s important to them
• find out what your company can do for them
• talk about how you can make it work
• agree on ground rules
• lead by example.

What can I do to help myself?

 Keeping in balance

• Keep some time for yourself.
• Look after yourself.
• Don’t be hard on yourself.

By Paul Midgley, The Healthcare Partnership

Following his article in February’s Pf, Paul Midgley reviews the changes to the QOF elements of the GPs’ GMS contract, building on the improvements in Chronic Disease Management since the launch of QOF in 2004. Paul outlines how you can help practices to achieve their business objectives to score high QOF points against the range of new chronic diseases targeted in the revised scheme.

Background

In December, agreement was reached between the BMA and NHS Employers to develop the national GMS contract, following completion of the first part of a two-stage review. These changes will take effect from 1 April 2006. Negotiations for stage two have now started, following publication of the Government’s White Paper in England Our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services at the end of January (for implementation from April 2007).

The article in February’s Pf (‘Opportunity knocks’) looked at the wider changes to the GMS contract, including enhanced services. This article focuses specifically on the QOF elements and their role in improving the quality of disease management for patients with 19 specified long-term conditions. 

Overview of the amended QOF

The Quality and Outcomes Framework, part of the new GMS contract introduced in April 2004, has encouraged practices to improve the care of patients with certain long-term conditions by introducing financial incentives for systematic follow-up of patients on 10 disease registers. The changes coming into force in April 2006 will build on this work, focusing on the existing disease areas and eight new ones to extend the benefit of improved care to new patient groups. The key aim of the new QOF is to incentivise improvements in care for a wider range of patients with long-term conditions, based on sound, current clinical evidence.

In brief, QOF 2006 has:

• Recycled 138 points by allocating them to new clinical areas. Points have been taken from the existing ‘holistic care’ bonus and certain ‘organisational’ indicators, as well as by reducing the number of points for some disease registers and removing the ‘quality practice payment’ altogether.
• Strengthened some existing indicators with an additional 28 points.
• Raised qualifying thresholds to 40% before points can be earned.
• Raised the majority of maximum achievement areas in existing indicators to 70–90% in line with the average national achievement in last year’s QOF.
• Repackaged smoking indicators from various subsets within different disease categories into one smoking category.
• Replaced the CHD subset for ‘left ventricular dysfunction’ with a ‘secondary prevention of CHD’ indicator set.
• Taken 50 points from ‘access’, with the cash value being added to the Access Directed Enhanced Service (QOF is now worth 1000 points in total).

The QOF changes in more detail

Eight new areas – totalling 138 points – are being introduced within the three broad areas of mental health, end of life care and cardiovascular disease, as follows: Depression 33 points, Dementia 20 points, Mental Health (new) 9 points, Learning Disability 4 points, Palliative Care 6 points, Atrial Fibrillation 30 points, Chronic Kidney Disease 27 points and Obesity Disease Register 8 points.

The full set of disease areas targeted is as follows:

Note that QOF points have not changed in value. For an average-sized practice with average disease prevalence, one point still has a value of £125. So a full QOF points achievement is worth £125,000 in addition to the practice’s other sources of income – clearly something that most practices will strive for.

Medication use and treating to target (24% of all points)

244.5 points in the new QOF are directly linked to the use of various classes of medication to treat patients to target in a number of different disease areas. 195 of these points are aimed at patients with cardiovascular diseases.

If your product falls into one of these categories, then your detail is sure to be QOF-focused – and no doubt, subject to favourable formulary status, your sales will do very nicely with the QOF incentives in place. Since April 2004, sales of QOF-related drugs have contributed to an annual increase in the national medicines bill by 15%, up from around 10–12% in previous years.

An increasing focus for you will be supplementary and extended prescribers such as practice nurses, specialist nurses, community matrons, pharmacists and allied health professionals. GPs will increasingly delegate QOF work to non- GP prescribers, along with other services moving into primary care as Practicebased Commissioning speeds up service redesign to reduce hospital costs.

It is important that marketing departments and senior sales management recognise the importance of these non-GP prescribers (or influencers), and encourage the tailoring of activity and sales messages to these groups as well as GPs where a product is used for treating long-term conditions (such as those listed above).

Services to practices (411 points)

Nearly half of all points are achieved by the practice carrying out investigations or activities that may not traditionally have been seen as ‘core general practice’. As a result, pharma companies have an opportunity to provide added value services to practices in helping them to achieve some of these points.

Have a look at the table below. Perhaps your company has in-house resources that they can offer to key practices to help them achieve certain QOF targets? Or perhaps you can draft in nurse advisors to provide other services, or outside consultancies to help with business/action planning or training (e.g. CPR or SEA)? Or perhaps, via your hospital specialist representative colleagues, you can ensure better access to specialised secondary care tests, even helping to move these out into the community (in line with PbC)?

Where are practices now?

Consider for a moment the unprecedented range of challenges facing general practices in 2006:

• new QOF
• new Directed Enhanced Services
• new PCT/SHA boundaries
• revalidation of GPs
• Practice-based Commissioning planning (PbC)
• cluster working in PbC
• the White Paper Our health, our care, our say . . .

How can you help?

So how will you support your key practices in 2006? Will you be the sort of person they see as a drain on their precious time, adding no value and focused on delivering ‘key messages’ – or will you add value to their business, making time spent with you worthwhile? If all you are doing is providing a detail on your product, even if it is in a key QOF area, you may be viewed as a ‘time vampire’. However, if you are able to identify what needs the practice has in terms of service developments and meetings, and you can offer to help with these (through sponsorship, speaker finding and/or facilitation), then you will be working on their agenda and will be seen as part of the solution, rather than as another problem.

Successful representatives in 2006 will be sensitive to GPs’ and practices’ busy schedules and aware of the issues arising from the major changes they face. Using in-house Protected Learning Time where possible, successful representatives will maximise the learning time available to include the whole wider practice team (where possible) – especially GPs, practice nurses, supplementary prescribers and practice management – in order to streamline decision-making.

In your territory business plan, identify which changes in the local Health Economy will benefit your products and prioritise these in terms of educational support. If your product is not in a relevant QOF disease area, look out for opportunities to piggy-back meetings being organised by others to discuss these changes, as there will be a great many meetings around these topics in 2006

What do you do if you want to work in the UK Pharma industry but the prospect of working for one of the global giants that dominate the market no longer appeals to you? According to Peter Hunt you start your own and, if possible, secure the help and encouragement of a Swiss parent.

Who is TRB Chemedica?

TRB Chemedica SA is a medium-sized pharmaceutical company, based in Geneva, which researches, develops, produces and markets a range of pharmaceutical products and medical devices around the world, but specialises in the application of non-animal hyaluronan for medical purposes. In 2000 the company approached Peter Hunt about setting up a subsidiary in the UK.

The Start of the Adventure

Pf spoke to Peter, now Managing Director of TRB Chemedica (UK) Ltd, about how he reacted to this commission: “I was given £80,000 by TRB Chemedica and left to my own devices. I spent all of 2001 researching TRB Chemedica’s products and their potential in the UK, working from home with just a ‘phone and a laptop. On several occasions I was told by potential customers that I would be wise to pack up and get a proper job, but this just spurred me on and I ended up selling about £20,000 worth of business. I returned to TRB Chemedica at the end of the year with my findings and a business plan, which they accepted. We now have a flourishing company with a significant toe-hold in the market, employing 6 people, growing exponentially year-on-year and all for an overall investment of less than £1m.”

The Story So Far

The company’s portfolio of products has had notable success, and TRB Chemedica (UK) Ltd has more than doubled its annual turnover each year. The main products, which are aimed at rheumatology and orthopaedics are, Ostenil® (developed specifically for the treatment of osteoarthritis) and Viscoseal® (post-arthroscopy synovial fluid replacement). Viscoseal®, in particular, has huge growth potential as it is designed to be used in any arthroscopic procedure.

The Future

The company is currently in the process of licensing the first interleukin1 inhibitor for osteoarthritis into the UK, which will require an increase of 25 – 30 more people in the field force. There are still more than twenty products in the development pipeline.

The People

Peter emphasised the combined enthusiasm that drives the company forward: “We have great faith in our products and we all really enjoy what we do. We have an approach and an ethic to work that some will find appealing and others will be horrified by as it sounds far too risky and too much like hard work!”

Since 2002, the sales team at TRB Chemedica has grown to four Regional Business managers and they are looking to take on another two over the coming 12 months. The promotional team are supported by an Office Manager and a logistics clerk based in Newcastle-under-Lyme. As a result of the small size of the operation, each member of the team reports directly to the Managing Director and has the opportunity to be involved in, or responsible for, different areas of the business that interest them.

Alex Flanagan, Senior Business Manager picks up the story: “As well as being entirely responsible for the business on my region I also manage the acquisition of clinical data. When we started there was very little clinical evidence for the products and so I set about working with clinicians who were interested in conducting trial work. The evidence base is now quite impressive, much of it being presented around the world. More importantly it has cost us very little.”

The Challenge

Peter made it quite clear that not everyone would feel comfortable in a company like this, and that he would be looking for some very creative, open-minded and unique individuals: “I suppose the word ‘entrepreneurial’ best sums it up. As a salesman I didn’t respond too well to having to refer back to my boss all the time. My approach now is that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. An operation like ours needs people who are longing for the opportunity to demonstrate what they can do on their own, use their initiative and who won’t be afraid to take risks or suggest ways that we can do things better. It is important to bear in mind the responsibility that goes with autonomy, however, depending on the circumstances forgiveness may not always be granted!

“I have learned that people often perform better when left to demonstrate their own skills and abilities rather than having too much imposed on them from above. We will give as much support and training as possible, but in a company as small as this it is essential that we each use our initiative and enjoy having autonomy over our regions and business areas. This role is certainly not for the fainthearted.”

The Opportunity

Have you ever wanted to run your own business but were afraid of the vulnerability? How about having all the benefits of running your own business within the security of a company that has more than doubled its sales each year since its conception three years ago? If you are a risk-taker with a creative, open mind who would relish the opportunity to demonstrate your skills, you could be the right person to join the team at TRB Chemedica.

The company can offer all the advantages of a good product portfolio and strong pipeline, as well as an extremely competitive salary and benefits package. With the support of the Managing Director, colleagues, head office and regular meetings, each Regional Business Manager is given a generous monthly budget to run their Region virtually independently, even to the point of being able to set targets and negotiate deals with customers. Accountability and close communication, both benefits of working for a smaller company, are essential elements of the culture at TRB Chemedica. There are up to date records of all sales kept at head office, so managers can easily monitor their sales results and assess progress, and even access the intranet site to find out when a new customer has put in an order.

TRB Chemedica (UK) is seeking two Regional Business Managers, or Medical Representatives with aspirations to management, living in Central or South West England. If this article has inspired you and you feel you could contribute to the successful future of TRB Chemedica (UK), please send a CV and covering letter to Janet Lea at recruit@trbchemedica.co.uk