Outsourcing solutions specialist Apodi has appointed a new business unit manager for resourcing.

Rachel Moores, who has 11 years’ experience in pharmaceutical sales recruitment and three years in field sales, has joined the company from North 51.

Tony Swift, Managing Director, said Rachel’s “skills, knowledge and experience” within recruitment will “enhance and drive” Apodi’s innovative resourcing services.

The new recruit has been involved in several successful team builds and her skills were rewarded in 2011 when she scooped the PharmaTimes Recruiter of the Year Award.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to join a company at an exciting time in its development,” said Rachel. “Apodi has a unique and varied suite of services that are designed to add value to healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. The Apodi resourcing division underpins these services by ensuring the provision of high quality recruits for all its clients and with its desire to become a ‘magnet for talent’.”

The Apodi Resourcing Unit offers a comprehensive end-to-end recruitment service, offering permanent headcount recruitment services and internal contract role fulfilment. For more information contact Lynn Jeggo, Marketing Services Director at Apodi on 01628 500890 or email: lynn.jeggo@apodi.co.uk.

Apodi’s Jan Cox discusses four vital stages to ensure your next job provides everything you could have wished for this Christmas. 

For the employer and employee alike, stability can be a dangerous illusion, particularly in the current economic climate. It is inevitable that markets and organisations will change and adapt in response to the economic, commercial and political pressures that exist – and this will impact on both the recruiting organisation and the candidate.

In my previous article, Stability: a dangerous illusion?, I stressed that: “For a lot of people, the pharmaceutical industry has provided a stable career over many years. For example, there are many sales representatives who have had a successful career fundamentally doing the same job in the same way and often for the same employer. Whilst there will always be a need for sales representatives within the industry, the number has fallen and will continue to fall. And for many, the role itself will change and demand the acquisition of new skills and knowledge.

Some companies are addressing the need to change rather quicker than others. Those that are slow to act may be creating a situation where some employees still feel they are operating in a relatively stable environment. This may be a dangerous illusion because it is almost guaranteed that the changing environment within the industry will impact on most employees – and probably sooner rather than later.”
From my experience I believe there are four key stages for employees to build a successful career and secure the RIGHT job in such a dynamic marketplace.

STAGE 1: Assessing what companies want
World class organisations understand the importance of the recruitment process and the need to find the right people. Jack Welch, one of the most famous business leaders of the 20th century, stated: “nothing matters more in winning than getting the right people in the field. All the clever strategies and advanced technologies are nowhere near as effective without great people to put them to work.” His company, General Electric, had an extensive recruitment process which tested for integrity, intelligence and maturity. Its hiring framework focused on finding people who had positive energy, the ability to energise others, the courage to make tough ‘yes or no decisions’, the ability to execute and get the job done and finally passion.
Conversely, McKinsey, the world renowned consulting organisation, looks for people who:

• Are of above average intelligence
• Possess a record of achievement at a good university and business school
• Show evidence of achievement in all previous jobs
• Demonstrate extraordinary analytical ability

Clearly there are different themes running through the recruitment requirements of these two companies, and naturally so, given the differing nature of the services they deliver. However, it is possible to find differences even when looking at the recruitment process for similar roles in competing companies in the same industry sector.

For example, pharmaceutical companies often look for different attributes when recruiting for sales representatives. A typical job advert may stress the need for the following from applicants:

• Experienced sales representative with at least two years’ experience in similar roles
• University degree
• Sales to be delivered through the company’s selling process/model

Interestingly, the Gallup Organisation has found in extensive studies that education has often little, if any, influence on an individual’s ability to sell; the learning curve in most sales jobs is relatively short and only rarely is there a correlation between experience and results; and that the most successful sales people sell in different ways using different strengths – following a strict sales process/model is more likely to hinder top performers than to help them.

Therefore, many companies are looking for more innovative and different assessment criteria when recruiting for sales roles. It was for this reason that my own company, Apodi, developed the recruitment model above. This model primarily focuses on a candidate’s:

• Talents/strengths
• Competencies
• Cultural fit
• Mental toughness

It is clear that companies are often looking for different things even when recruiting for similar roles. In some cases, even the most sophisticated companies will be looking for attributes that don’t, in fact, have a significant influence on a person’s ability to perform the job effectively. However, at this stage of the process, all applicants can at least find out what really is important in each company’s assessment criteria before they apply. This can be done by contacting the agency involved or the company itself. Also, in this age of networking and social media it should not be too difficult to contact people who are current employees of that company.

STAGE 2: Preparing for success
In this rapidly changing marketplace all employees should understand that planning for success and finding the best career does not start simply a month before the decision to find a new job. Building a successful sales career depends on a long-term view of career development and should include the following:

• Find out what your underlying strengths are. For long-term career success these are much more relevant than your education or experience. The Gallup Organisation identified 34 different strengths – each one of which may play an important part in a sales process depending on the role itself. The key for each individual is to understand what those strengths are and which selling roles will best suit them
• Take charge of your own personal development. Most companies now ask representatives to have a sound knowledge of the changing NHS and how that impacts commercially on the pharmaceutical industry
• Prepare a CV that stresses the following:
• Your key strengths and why this has ensured success in the past
• Your knowledge of the changing NHS
• Experience, education etc – whilst these are not necessarily predictors of success, employers often still stress the need for them
• Undertake market research. Research which companies are most suited to you. It would not be too unfair to suggest that the world of the pharmaceutical sales representative is quite incestuous and most representatives are prepared to give their opinion and information on current and past employers

STAGE 3: Sourcing the appropriate job
Most prospective applicants are well versed in the various methods of sourcing jobs. These include registering with agencies, searching through job sections in newspapers and magazines, online searches and approaching companies directly. A direct, personal approach can be very powerful. One of the greatest leaders in American sport, basketball coach, John Wooden, gave the following advice to organisations: “When hiring, be diligent in discerning what the individual’s motives are. Be alert for those who express a strong desire to join and contribute to your team and have some understanding of who and what your organisation is all about. Recruiting should be a two way street.”

STAGE 4: Choosing the right opportunity
Hopefully, the above process ensures that an applicant has a number of choices when deciding on their next career move. Typically, the final decision will involve factors such as remuneration, benefits, training and development, and promotion opportunities. There are also some other considerations that are often overlooked.

Many companies’ mission statements and credos state something along the lines of: ‘The company wishes to attract, develop, motivate and retain exceptional people.’ Despite this, the rigour companies apply to the recruitment process differs significantly from one business to the next. Consider choosing the company that takes recruitment seriously – it almost certainly reflects the fact that they really stand by the mission statement, rather than just talk about it.

Also, judge the company by the manager you are going to be working for. Managers have a huge influence on your career, your motivation and your ability to do the job – a good one will take you to the stars, a bad one will stifle you.

Finding a job is tough; but finding the right job is even tougher. If you are focused on developing a successful career you must give it the attention and energy it deserves. Judge the role on how it fits with your talents/strengths and assess the company’s ability to let you utilise these to maximum effect.

Jan Cox is the Resourcing Director at Apodi and can be reached on jan.cox@apodi.co.uk

The pharmaceutical market in the UK is changing quickly. By April next year just over 200 Clinical Commissioning Groups will have completed the approval process and will be operational. This will dramatically change the customer landscape for pharmaceutical companies and also demand changes in engagement strategies. This, in turn, will necessitate changes in the behaviours of individuals responsible for that engagement (such as Market Access Managers, Key Account Managers and Sales Representatives).

Pharmaceutical companies are continually restructuring in an attempt to keep pace with the rate of change. However, one of the key problems they face is assessing whether their current workforce has the talents and skills to address these new challenges. It is certainly the case that some companies are finding a lack of flexibility and adaptability within their workforce to support the change process.

Critical talents
Given the fluidity of the market environment and to be in a position to proactively respond to it, companies must address the critical talents required by the workforce and start to assess for these talents during the recruitment process. These include two particular talents which are of vital importance, but are often currently not assessed for. These are:

• Adaptability (or flexibility/agility)
• Learning mind set.

Adaptability
Individuals with this talent will respond well to changing demands. They flourish in environments that reward responsiveness and do not require a highly formalised or routine structure with lots of rules and regulations. They also have the ability to recognise current or future anticipated changes and adjust their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours to cope with them.

Learning mind set (Learner)
People with this talent demonstrate a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve their knowledge and skills set. They will also be more likely to understand the changing nature of the marketplace and the need to learn how to engage with new types of customers.

Many Sales Representatives in the Pharmaceutical Industry are being asked to radically change how they work and to start engaging with customers using key account management principles. To perform this
role effectively, more knowledge of the customer and the marketplace is required. There is also the need to change behaviours and attitudes that may have suited the more traditional role they fulfilled previously.
Those representatives with adaptability and learner talents are more likely to succeed than those without them. These talents are now required across the whole structural chain – from Representative to Manager,
to Leader, to Technical Consultant, and across the wide and varied roles within the engagement process. The ability to learn and adapt is now critical within Pharma/Healthcare and beyond.

Selecting for adaptability and learning mindset
As with any other talent, predicting who will be adaptable requires a variety of assessment techniques, including:

• Occupational Personality Questionnaires (OPQs) that assess cognitive ability including reasoning,
  thinking and problem solving
• Interviews to assess personality factors, including results orientation, openness to new experiences and willingness to try new things
• Specific tools which assess mental toughness and the candidate’s ability to confidently cope with change, difficulties and new environments.

Similar approaches can be used to assess whether candidates have a learning mind set. In his book A Collection of Articles on Achieving High Performance in Teams within Pharma and Healthcare, Tony Swift,
a colleague at Apodi, stresses in the article entitled ‘Moving on up’ that successful executives must take charge of their own personal development and not rely on the employer to spoonfeed all learning.

Frankly, it is easy to spot this. Those executives who blame the employer for lack of development, or who are ‘too busy’ to dedicate time to learning, almost certainly do not have a learning mind set. Compare this to the ‘learner’ mind set, which sees individuals organising their working day to set aside time to ensure they keep up to date with developments in the marketplace, new
innovations and the latest practices.

Promoting adaptability and a learning mindset
Whilst it is important for individuals to take responsibility for their own development, this in no way absolves the organisation from also playing its part in developing a culture where adaptability and a learning mind set become ingrained. Whilst reviewing recruitment practices is, of course, a good start, unfortunately cultural change is more complex than this. Cultural change requires fundamental shifts in behaviours and these can be encouraged by:

• Bringing new people into the organisation with the appropriate talents, as above
• Changing the organisational structure
• Short term objectives, incentives and controls that demand adaptability and learning.

In my own organisation, we have realised that it is critical for most of our employees to have an in-depth understanding of the NHS and how our services can best be applied for the benefit of our customers in such a rapidly changing environment. To ensure Apodi promotes this, the company is:

• Running regular workshops that are focused on ‘Understanding the changing NHS and the Apodi proposition and how to apply it to the new market economy’
• Guidance to all individuals on how they can keep updated on all key developments through the use of the web, social media and other sources of information. Whilst guidance is provided, it is stressed that ultimately responsibility rests with the individual for their own personal development.

Stability is a dangerous illusion
For a lot of people, the Pharmaceutical Industry has provided a stable career over many years. For example, there are many Sales Representatives who have had a successful career fundamentally doing the same job in the same way and often for the same employer. Whilst there will always be a need for Sales Representatives within the industry, the number has fallen and will continue to fall. And for many, the role itself will change and demand the acquisition of new skills and knowledge.

Some companies are addressing the need to change rather quicker than others. Those that are slow to act may be creating a situation where some employees still feel they are operating in a relatively stable environment. This may be a dangerous illusion because it is almost guaranteed that the changing environment within the industry will impact on most employees – and probably sooner rather than later.

Given this situation, companies will increasingly be looking for employees who have the adaptability skill to cope with change and fundamental to this is a learning mind set. We believe this is relevant to all employees looking to advance with their current employer and to those looking for opportunities elsewhere. Both short-term and long-term career planning in the new age requires employees having a CV that clearly articulates the capacity to adapt and an in-depth understanding of the changing industry environment. For people with these talents, they should be able to look forward to a varied, rewarding and long-term career within the industry.

Jan Cox is the Resourcing Director at Apodi and can be reached on jan.cox@apodi.co.uk.

Hiring the right people is key to business success. How can companies identify and attract top talent?

“The endurance training part of the selection process lasts for five weeks and is held twice yearly in the Brecon Beacons. Normally starting with 200 candidates, the assessment is focused on the following:

• Personal and combat fitness 
• A cross country run against the clock, increasing the distances covered each day, culminating in what is known as the Fan Dance: a 64km march with full equipment scaling and descending Pen y Fan in 20 hours
• By the end of the hill phase, candidates must be able to run four miles in 30 minutes and swim two miles in 90 minutes

This is followed by a jungle phase, taking place in Belize, Brunei, or Malaysia.  Here candidates are taught navigation, patrol formation and movement, and are tested for their jungle survival, escape and evasion skills.

Candidates returning to the UK finish training in battle plans and foreign weapons and take part in combat survival exercises. The final selection test is arguably the most gruelling: resistance to interrogation, lasting for 36 hours. From the initial 200 candidates, most will drop out within the first few days, and by the end about 30 will remain. Those who complete all phases of selection are rewarded with a transfer to an operational squadron.

However, the small number who make it through selection are not out of the woods. There is still a post-selection review, and they will now effectively be on probation. As brand new members of the regiment, they will be watched closely as they enter continuation training, and even this far down the line, many soldiers are returned to their original units during this phase.”

This is a brief overview of the selection process for acceptance into the Special Air Services. My colleague Tony Swift, in his book Achieving High Performance in Teams within Pharma and Healthcare, identifies how Harvard College also goes to extraordinary lengths to identify the best students (although clearly assessing for different strengths). Indeed, a common factor amongst all great organisations is the effort, skill and focus that they put into their recruitment processes. They all know that attracting the right people is a defining process in the journey to success.

The assessment process
The assessment element is an important part of any recruitment process. Unfortunately, many organisations attempt to take shortcuts and rely purely on a CV review and a short interview. These companies often pay dearly for this in the longer term. Bad hiring decisions have a material effect on performance and can be extremely costly. Indeed, an American consultant, Bradford Smith, noted that from a study of 54 US companies the average managerial ‘mis-hire’ actually costs a company 24 times the individual’s base salary.

As a result, we at Apodi recently studied the success or otherwise of recruitment activity within Apodi and our client organisations to try to understand what the key drivers of success are. The aim was to develop an assessment process that is comprehensive enough to ensure a significant improvement in the success rate of recruitment activity.

The research
First of all, we systematically reviewed the success or failure of all our recruitment activity within the last 36 months and identified the reasons for it. At the same time we undertook detailed desk research to benchmark our experiences against the recruitment activity of a number of both UK and overseas based organisations.

The research made it clear to us that there appeared to be four main reasons for success or failure. For consistent high performance to follow, we identified that each successful candidate must:

• Have the innate talents suited to the role in question
• Have the skills and knowledge (competencies) to meet the demands of the role
• Fit culturally into the organisation
• Have the mental toughness to succeed, particularly when the pressure is on

The research also showed that even if candidates had three out of the four qualities above, the absence of just one could lead to underperformance and, ultimately, to failure. Furthermore, our research found that the ability of organisations to change individuals through training and development interventions is limited. Innate talents are just that and cultural attitudes and levels of mental toughness can take significant time to change. It is only in the area of skills and knowledge that training and development can make a more immediate impact.

The guiding principles
This research, together with our own experiences, provided the focus for us to develop some guiding principles. These can be summarised as follows:
A person CANNOT be anything they want to be – even if they try hard.
As was noted in the previous article in this series, recruiting for strengths/talents to select individuals whose innate qualities most closely fit the role requirements is key. Effort alone without the appropriate talents for a role is not enough to drive high performance.

Most people think they know what they are good at. However, they are usually wrong.
Asking people what they are good at is simply not enough. It is imperative therefore that systematic testing for talent is vigorously and rigorously undertaken in the assessment process.

Whilst some people are impressive on paper and during the one-on-one interviewing stage, their style, approach and behaviour may simply be inconsistent with the values and expectations of the organisation.
Even those individuals who may reasonably be expected to perform may not do so in their new environment. Therefore, systematically testing for cultural fit is important in the assessment process.

Whilst talent can be a good indicator of future performance, the world is awash with talented people who never achieve their full potential. This is normally due to a lack of ‘mental toughness’.
Without the drive and ability to overcome obstacles, many individuals fail to reach the levels of success that their talent might otherwise indicate. Therefore, the assessment process should include a significant element of testing for mental toughness.

Much can be done to improve the effectiveness of pre-employment assessment. However, the best recruitment processes also include early post-selection review to assess each candidate again, but this time in action in the field.
The practical application of competencies and mental toughness must be investigated and reviewed to ensure that ongoing success is to be achieved.

The methodology
The Apodi methodology is a multi-stage approach which encompasses our experience and findings. This integrated model is detailed below.

Step 1 – Integrated Pre-Employment Assessment

• A candidate search and engagement programme
• A comprehensive pre-screening and filter process
• Interviewing and diagnostic processes focused on:
  –  Talent
  –  Competencies (skills and knowledge)
  –  Cultural fit
  –  Mental toughness
• Candidate alignment profiling and prediction of future high performance

Step 2 – Post-Employment Assessment
A systematic process is implemented immediately on employment where management reassesses successful candidates in the four key areas of talent, competencies, cultural fit and mental toughness. This is mainly undertaken in the field and can involve specialist coaches where necessary. The role of management is to ensure that the conclusions reached in the pre-employment assessment were correct, that the candidate should be successful in the future and, if so, what training and development can be put in place to accelerate the journey to high performance.

Step 3 – Measurement of the Assessment Process
To help ensure its ongoing success, key measures need to be in place to review the effectiveness of the assessment process. This step in the model will be discussed at greater length in later articles.

Conclusion
A comprehensive and effective assessment process drives just about everything that is good in an organisation – including high performance, employee engagement and quality of life for each and every one involved. Selecting people for the wrong job can lead to untold misery for them, their families and work colleagues. It is for this, and other reasons, that a quality assessment process should be at the top of every management’s agenda.

Jan Cox is the Resourcing Director at Apodi and can be reached on jan.cox@apodi.co.uk.

The ABPI has appointed outsourcing specialists Apodi to support its human resources requirements.

The agreement is part of the Association’s modernisation agenda to move away from ‘in-house support’.

Stephen Whitehead, ABPI Chief Executive, said the trade association was “really pleased” with the decision to appoint Apodi and they are “really enjoying working with them”.

The HR and development unit at Apodi helps clients in building high performing organisations by optimising workplace performance.

“As a highly experienced HR and development team with a strong heritage in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors, we have a wealth of experience and credibility in dealing with HR issues typical to the Pharmaceutical industry,” said Mark Murphy, Apodi’s Business Unit Director for HR and Development services.

APODI’S Jan Cox examines the importance of focusing on individuals’ strengths and talents when recruiting.

Over the past decade, Gallup has surveyed more than 10 million people worldwide on the topic of employee engagement, and only one-third “strongly agree” with the following statement: “At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.” A natural conclusion is that in an average organisation, approximately two-thirds of employees do not believe they are maximising the talents they have.

The repercussions of such a massive waste of talent – for the economy, for individual organisations, and to the quality of life of every one of those employees – is mind blowing. When attempting to explain to our clients the impact that such a scenario has on performance, we suggest that they explore this by changing the roles of a small number of employees to maximise their talents. The results are usually dramatic. We then ask the organisation to consider these outcomes if they were to be extrapolated across the whole company.

Implications for recruitment

The implications of such findings for recruitment, development and promotion strategies are significant. At Apodi, we have built a recruitment model that incorporates four key attributes that we test when recruiting every individual. These are: strengths/talent, competencies, cultural fit and mental toughness. Most companies traditionally recruit on competencies (i.e. what people can do) rather than on strengths/talent (what they are really good at, have a passion for and are usually inherent within an individual). The problem with recruiting based solely on competencies is that organisations risk hiring people that can do something, but may have no real inclination to do it. They may lack passion or excitement, display little energy for their work and therefore underperform. This results in disengaged employees who are unlikely to stay with a company for long.

Conversely, those companies that have adopted a strengths/talent-based approach to recruiting are showing dramatic results. Banks in the US are seeing significant increases in sales revenue from representatives recruited based on strengths. Financial services companies in the UK are reporting ‘improvements in quality and lower staff turnover’, and Starbucks have established a clear link between recruiting for strengths/talent and customer satisfaction.

The benefits can be summarised as follows:

 

Company	Employee
Increase in productivity	More engaged, happier and motivated
Reduction in staff turnover	More likely to achieve goals
Increase in interview offer to fill rate (% of those accepting job if offered)	Higher levels of energy and vitality
Increased diversity of applicants and talent pools	Develop quicker and more effectively improving career development opportunities

Talent , competencies and strengths

The link between talent, competencies and strengths is simple: talent + competencies (knowledge/skill) = strengths. Talent can be defined as those capabilities that individuals naturally exhibit based on experiences and knowledge usually gained in early life, or those that an individual seems to be ‘born with’.

Talent can obviously be displayed in diverse circumstances, however, wherever it is utilised, it gives individuals energy and enthusiasm. Knowledge and skills are those things that are learned, studied and practiced. When combined with innate talent, skills and knowledge can be converted into real strengths. It is these strengths which drive performance. It is because of this causal link that leading recruitment organisations recommend that clients assess talent and competencies separately and as part of a strength-based assessment process.

How to assess for strengths

A strengths-based selection process has many similarities with that used for assessing for competencies. There are, however, some fundamental aspects which must clearly focus on the strengths of an individual. Assessing for strengths can be summarised as follows:

Creating strength-based profile

Profiling tool

Design strength-based interviews

Design strength-based assessment centres

Review and measurement process

a) Strength-based role profile

A company can develop the profile by reviewing organisational structure and business strategy, developing performance criteria for the role in question, and studying the best performers in the role to identify the strengths that are contributing to success.

To help identify and define the strengths it is seeking, organisations can turn to experts in this field for guidance. For example, Tom Rath in his book Strength Finder identifies 34 particular strengths that may be important in different roles in commercial organisations. For instance, a company looking to recruit sales representatives may identify the following strengths as being the key to success in the role:

• Achiever/results focus – real focus on results, targets,completing tasks, meeting deadlines
• Empathy – identifying with customers and seeing what is important from their perspective
• Resilience –dealing with rejection and setbacks easily and moving forward positively
• Self confidence – strong self belief in own abilities
• Initiative – working independently and taking important decisions quickly to make things happen
• Communication – bringing propositions to life through effective communication.

b) Strength-based profiling tool

An appropriate profiling tool should be used to assess the key strengths of each individual applicant and how well they fit the selection criteria. The report generated can then be used as part of the strength-based interview.

c) Strength-based interviews and assessment centres

Fundamentally, interviews and assessment centres need to be focused on how individuals have previously
used their strengths to achieve success in their business and personal lives. In addition, they should also explore whether:

• The aspirations each individual has for the future
  are consistent with the strengths they display
• The individual will be able to apply the strengths
  they have to the specific challenges the company
  faces and the challenges of the role.

d) Review and measurement process

Recruitment decisions are among the most important that management can make and yet recruitment is one of the most ‘under’ managed processes in corporate life. It is rarely subject to stringent review and measurement, and consequently many ineffective and unsuccessful recruitment processes remain in place. Those more enlightened companies considering strength-based recruitment should ensure that new processes are reviewed and measured systematically and regularly. This will drive a system of continuous improvement and encourage buy-in from senior management and the organisation as a whole.

Conclusion

A reliance on purely competency-based processes for recruitment decisions is almost certain to ensure suboptimal recruitment decisions and, ultimately, sub-optimal performance. However, world-class recruitment processes are a strategic imperative for a company’s future success. Not only has the strengths/talent model been shown to add value to recruitment decisions, it can be a catalyst for performance improvement across any organisation.

There’s never been a greater need to impress customers and make them understand the value pharmaceutical companies offer. Following on from his article on the concept of mass customisation, Apodi’s Tony Swift discusses how this theory can also be applied to two customer segments: the patient and the GP.

With the reduced number of blockbuster products entering the market, many sales and marketing departments are tasked with gaining market share for products and services that may have similar characteristics to competitor products. These departments are skilled at identifying traditional routes to market with the result that the promotional strategies deployed are often quite similar from one company to the next. The only real differentiator may be how much budget each company is willing to allocate to support respective products.

However, some companies are starting to implement mass customisation strategies, because as Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric stated: “We have only two sources of competitive advantage: 1) The ability to learn more about our customers faster than the competition, and 2) The ability to turn that learning into action faster than the competition”. These companies are focusing on identifying what value means to each individual customer, collating that information effectively and delivering the value in an efficient and economic way.

The patient

Traditionally, pharmaceutical companies have focused on engaging with GPs and other payer stakeholders rather than on building relationships with the end user – the patient. However, companies are realising that engaging with patients can lead to improved adherence results, better compliance and more appropriate use of their product. The attempts to engage with patients vary in levels of sophistication. At a basic level, companies are investing in digital IT platforms where websites attempt to inform patients about the therapy area and the products available. These sites might also attempt to improve adherence through reminder systems such as emails and texts to encourage compliance.

More sophisticated solutions now aim to identify key characteristics of patients and their behaviour and to customise the offering to them. For example, by identifying why a particular type of patient fails to adhere, the offering can be customised to that patient. By having a clear understanding of why people fail to comply, a company can then identify groups of patients whose reasons for non-compliance are very similar – i.e. one group responds better to online health monitoring, another to reminder systems, another to better education etc. As a result, each individual patient is allocated to a group and the adherence offering is then customised to each group.

Successful implementation of adherence programmes which include customised solutions to patients is still quite rare. The reasons for this may differ. However, I believe it all starts with the product-centred cultures that are prevalent in many companies. Historically, companies have been focussed on winning market share and new customers. Whilst this, of course, still remains important, many companies now have to focus on customer retention, customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Where this strategy is in its infancy, many companies look to IT for salvation – if only it were that simple! Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is more than deploying similar marketing techniques and new information technology. It needs new skills, systems, processes, behaviours – in fact, a CHANGE IN CULTURE. This can only be driven by the leadership of the business once it has decided that CRM and mass customisation are a strategic imperative.

This new strategy, if executed effectively, can lead to a range of new tactical initiatives in the area of patient adherence, such as improved technology, clinician-based call centres, education programmes, patient acquisition programmes, patient service programmes and so on. With the appropriate systems and processes, these initiatives can be developed to provide real customised value to patients.

The GP

Because pharmaceutical companies have been engaging with GPs for many years, mass customisation programmes aimed at GPs rather than patients should be easier to deliver. They know where GPs are, often know them personally and still have access to many – although the ability to engage is declining quickly.
Currently, however, successful customisation programmes aimed at GPs are few and far between. The reasons are similar to those above and result from the product-centred nature of most pharmaceutical companies. This product-centred approach can impact on the daily life of GPs in numerous ways, including:

• The traditional detail deployed by many sales representatives when visiting GPs.
• The practices, processes and systems that define ‘sales excellence’ in the industry.

An example of this is a detailed follow up I reviewed recently for a company. This was an extremely professional piece of work that identified the impact of the visits of a sales force on GPs. Multiple questions were asked about the ability of the representative to convey the product’s characteristics and benefits – and from this point of view the exercise was worthwhile.

However, there were few questions based around what value each visit had created for individual GPs. The assessment was almost solely based on the product and what was important to the company, rather than what value could be created for the customer both now and in the future.

For companies wishing to deploy VALUE-BASED MASS CUSTOMISATION, the following key initial steps could prove useful. These steps would run alongside more product-focused activities, not replace them.

1. Build a structure based on Customer Account Managers driving key messages and value to targeted healthcare professionals.
2. Develop a segmentation strategy for identifying segments of GPs based on value characteristics.
3. In each interaction with GPs, identify what value characteristics are important and allocate to a segment – commit to developing a mutual LEARNING RELATIONSHIP where knowledge of the therapy area, product and patient outcomes are paramount.
4. Access IT systems where the value identified can be saved and distributed to key management and marketing professionals – some existing CRM systems can be customised to make this happen.
5. Develop value solutions that can be quickly deployed to individual GPs – these can include additional services, product support, access to Key Opinion Leaders, clinician staff training, and services that improve the patient experience.

The role of IT

IT has a vital role in the development of value-based mass customisation strategies. I recently spoke to an expert in the industry, Charles Roots of Actis Sales Technologies, who explained that:

• Successful implementation of CRM projects needs input from senior management, IT departments and marketing departments. Technology implementation must be aligned with the business strategy and, in the area of mass customisation, with the whole initiative of providing value to customers one at a time. If only one of the above parties is included in the implementation process, the strategic benefits that could be obtained often fail to materialise
• Some organisations believe that installing technology is the determining step in the drive to a more customer and value-focused organisation. However, it is clear that truly successful companies understand that the process begins with a strategy to transform the company from a traditional selling organisation to an organisation where delivering value and developing learning relationships comes first. In these companies, IT becomes a very powerful enabler of business strategy.

Conclusion

Many commentators have noted that the pharmaceutical industry is at a crossroads. With fewer blockbusters, governments facing huge financial challenges and health services looking for more value for money from all suppliers, times are hard. This is causing difficulties in the marketplace and many people have lost jobs in the resulting turmoil. Company leaders are under pressure to maintain and increase profitability and restructuring is increasingly common.

And yet comparatively, healthcare budgets are being protected and there has never been a greater need for a positive contribution from the pharmaceutical industry. Despite the distrust that has arisen between the industry and the NHS, enlightened leaders from both parties understand how a partnership between the two is of critical importance.

Whilst researching for this series of articles, it has become clear to me that this partnership can only prosper if the industry is willing to, and be allowed to, engage with the NHS in a positive and economically viable way. I believe pharmaceutical companies should play their part by focusing on delivering real value to all key stakeholders, including patients, GPs and other payer stakeholders. That is not to say this is absent in the industry, but there is no doubt that more can be done.

For those companies embarking on such a journey, the impact on customers (NHS and patients) could be dramatic. But it will also benefit employees of such companies. The vast majority of people want to do something worthwhile and being able to see how their work creates value for the customer and improves patient outcomes is just about as rewarding as it gets.

Tony Swift is the Managing Director of Apodi. He may be reached on tony.swift@apodi.co.uk.

Charles Roots is the Managing Director of Actis Sales Technologies. He may be reached on charles.roots@actisst.com.

A lot of noise has been made about the needed switch from a traditional pharmaceutical sales model. Apodi’s Tony Swift questions whether the complex sales models now in place are delivering and suggests a simplified alternative based on delivering value to customers.

For a number of years now it has been acknowledged that the traditional sales model needs to change. Access to GPs through the long-established sales route is increasingly difficult with more doctors closing their doors to the conventional representative detail.

Pharmaceutical companies have embraced this and reduced the number of traditional sales representatives that they employ. Furthermore, the environment in which companies are promoting products has, in recent years, become increasingly complex with the emergence of new stakeholders requiring additional market access, specialist expertise and key account management skills.

Pharma’s response
Clearly, pharma companies have responded to these dynamics in different ways depending on their individual circumstances. It is, however, possible to draw some general conclusions. The response has tended to be the establishment of complex sales structures involving a myriad of roles aimed at mirroring the complex structures of the customer: the NHS.  Most companies will have structures including some, if not all, of the following roles: business managers, regional managers, traditional representatives, key account managers, strategic account managers, market access specialists, medical liaison specialists and so on.

On paper, these structures are difficult to criticise given that they are aimed at addressing the apparent needs of ALL stakeholders within the customer environment. The real problem is that due to their complexity they are almost impossible to manage effectively. Cohesion, coordination and communication in structures of this nature are extremely difficult and companies that go down this route often find that improvement in performance – namely in the sales of product – is difficult to achieve.

Such structures can be expensive and companies find that savings made by reductions in the number of sales representatives are merely diverted into the new structure. Indeed, these are often more expensive than the old traditional structures. Although companies are also looking at less costly ways of detailing, such as e-detailing, and tele-detailing, most commentators believe there is no real substitute to face to face interactions.

Simplify, simplify, simplify
Whilst every company is different, they should all follow the principle that the simpler the sales structure, the easier it is to manage and the higher the probability of driving high performance into it. It is hoped that the much heralded simplification of the NHS, which puts money and power into the hands of the GP and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), may encourage pharmaceutical companies to simplify structures, making them more effective and less costly. So, for those companies looking to simplify ineffective and inefficient structures, what general principles should be followed?

Don’t turn the noise off
Many commentators suggest that the ‘noise’ model is dead and that companies need to look elsewhere to drive sales performance. In my view this is misleading. Creating noise is hugely important in any sales environment – the key is the content and whether or not it is effective.

The traditional representative is finding access increasingly difficult as GPs face growing patient demands and administrative burdens. GPs often see many interactions with representatives as providing little, if any, value and are simply not willing to spare the time to listen to a detail. Where GPs do perceive there to be value, they are more likely to open their doors and consequently there is more likelihood of changes in prescribing behaviour and resultant market share.

Simply put, many pharmaceutical companies should be looking at a sales structure model that encompasses the following characteristics:

NOISE + VALUE = EFFECTIVENESS.

We envisage this structure being driven by an ‘engine room’ consisting of Key Account Managers (KAMs), focused on strategic key accounts, and Customer Account Managers, driving key messages and value to the larger targeted population of healthcare professionals (HCPs). A KAM structure without Customer Account Managers in the new world of CCGs would need to rely on an effective platform of communication within the CCG from the strategic levels through to individual HCPs – this often does not exist in an effective form and much decision making will still be made at the individual HCP level.

Building the structure
In my last article, Moving on up, I noted that, ‘some observers believe that the pharmaceutical sales representative is one of the world’s most underutilised resources’. For most companies, their representatives are still the people who interact with customers far more than anybody else. These customers – the GP and CCG – appear now to be even more important in the buying process and therefore, common sense would seem to indicate that the role of the representative is more important than ever – not less so.

The only way that this can be the case though is if the role of the representative changes from delivering a detail to delivering value to customers – otherwise customers will continue to refuse access and react negatively to any interaction. Therefore, I believe that in many cases the sales representatives will, in the future, be better termed as ‘Customer Account Managers.’ This is not just changing the title of the person but involves a real change in the role which will include:

• Intelligent conversations with customers about the care pathway with, of course, the role of product within that pathway.
• Consulting to, and with, the customer about therapies and disease areas.
• Advocating improved patient outcomes and assisting GPs in delivering them.
• Providing additional value, based on the individual preference of the customer.

In existing structures this will require a transition phase as representatives increase knowledge, particularly around care pathways, therapies, diseases and improve interaction skills.

The engine room

Customer Account Managers should form the foundation for many promotional sales structures. Above them is the Key Account Manager role, and together, these represent the ‘engine room’ of the promotional sales structure. The role of the KAM is now well known to pharma, involving as it does, segmentation of the customer base, allocation of responsibilities – particularly between the KAMs and the Customer Account Managers – and promoting to key and more complex stakeholders. KAMs should also be able to assess if there is a need for more specialist help on particular accounts.

For many readers, this structure may appear as a dramatic over simplification of what is required to meet the demands of a complex customer – and perhaps it is. But it has been presented as such to be in stark contrast to the over complex and costly structures that many companies deploy. In fact, in some such structures, the role of KAMs sometimes gets lost and in some, the role of Customer Account Managers actually does not exist.

Mass customisation
A key role of the engine room is to provide value to customers, that is, value over and above that provided by competitors and so enabling the company to grow market share. Historically, much promotional activity to GPs has been based on a key fact – that all the customers are the same. This is obviously not the case.
However, marketing departments wishing to provide customised value are often unable to do so for a number of reasons:

• Representatives and others are not skilled in, or indeed tasked with, identifying individual value requirements of customers.
• Technological solutions have so far been found to be ineffective or companies have failed when attempting to execute them.
• The role of creating value propositions that can be tailored to individual needs often gets lost in the complex structures existing within pharma.

And yet the concept of mass customisation is very common in other industries. There are many examples of collaborative companies who conduct a dialogue with individual customers to help them articulate their needs and then customise the offering to them.

It could be argued that pharmaceutical companies sell a standardised product – the drug is the drug. However, it is important to realise that where companies cannot customise a product per se they can still customise what they offer and thus build learning relationships where their knowledge of the individual customer increases exponentially.

For a pharmaceutical company to do this effectively, it needs to visualise its offering in the broadest sense not simply as a product but as an object that provides a service, solves a problem or meets a need. Therefore, the total value offering includes:

• The core product: clearly this is a hugely important part of the overall value proposition, including the drug’s capabilities, safety record, treatment characteristics etc.
• To the GP there will be other enhanced value solutions which can be of enormous value – these can include: additional services, promotional and marketing communication, patient and clinical help lines, product support, access to Key Opinion Leaders, staff training, services that improve the patient experience and so on.

To provide this value in a customised way, companies needs to find out from the customer what value means to him/her, collate the information effectively and deliver the value. Many readers will be sceptical that this is deliverable – how delivery is achieved will be discussed in the next article in this series.

Conclusion
Simplified sales structures including the reinvention of the traditional sales representative role could be of real value to all stakeholders, including the representative, the GP, the patient and the pharmaceutical company. By placing the provision of value to each and every customer at the very heart of the company’s promotional activities, companies can be truly aligned to the NHS agenda and perfectly positioned to meet the needs of the turbulent market conditions that exist today.

Tony Swift is the Managing Director of Apodi. He may be reached on tony.swift@apodi.co.uk.

With so many pharmaceutical companies undergoing some sort of restructuring plans as a result of mergers, acquisitions or simply cost-cutting measures, field force worries immediately turn to job security. Apodi’s Tony Swift discusses valuable ways to ensure your job isn’t one under scrutiny the next time the axe is wielded, and how to progress in the new pharmaceutical world.

In the past a competent sales representative could look forward to a long and secure career in the same or similar role, often with the same company. For the more ambitious representative it was also possible to climb a well-defined ladder towards seniority – as field trainer, sales manager, sales director and beyond.

However, much has changed. Sales representative positions have reduced dramatically and the ladder to seniority appears far more difficult to climb. Job security and traditional long-term career planning is disappearing into oblivion. The situation is just as precarious for those half way up the ladder, in first or second-line management roles, and restructuring is affecting job security and career planning throughout companies in the industry.

These seismic changes are not temporary. We are seeing a transition to a new world order in the pharmaceutical industry where:

• Traditional career paths are disappearing
• Management roles are fewer and are just as susceptible to restructuring
• Employees can no longer rely on the organisation to develop their careers – career and personal development is an individual’s responsibility
• The company needs to provide support and experiences to individuals to learn new ways of adding value to the customer and the company itself
• Creative expertise to address the new NHS is in huge demand by pharmaceutical companies. This presents an enormous opportunity for representatives and managers who may currently be worried about their long-term future in the industry.
  

Personal development
I recently interviewed a number of successful pharmaceutical industry executives to assess how they addressed the issue of personal development. Almost all of them stated that they could not have solely relied on the organisations they had worked for to either fully develop their skills or, indeed, their career.

In the majority of cases these successful individuals had made a decision to take personal charge of their careers. By keeping abreast of changes in the industry, anticipating new developments and consistently reviewing and updating their skills and relationships, when changes did occur in the industry or company, they were often well placed to take advantage of the new opportunities these presented.

At Apodi, our resourcing division sees first-hand the changing dynamics of the marketplace. Quality market access and key account managers are much in demand and are, at times, very difficult to recruit. There are also lots of sales representatives looking for jobs, with many believing they now have to look outside the industry to secure their future. However, representatives who are aware of the changing dynamics and have adapted their skills are now often successfully obtaining those market access and KAM roles.

Taking charge
One conversation with a successful executive led to a more in-depth discussion about what sales representatives can do if they want a long-term career in the pharmaceutical industry. The executive detailed the steps he had taken, and I believe this serves as an interesting case study for those unsure about their prospects in the industry. He said: ”It quickly became apparent to me that to take charge of my career I had to focus on a number of key areas.” To summarise, these were:

• To develop a clear view of the future of the industry and the likely impact of this on an existing position and potential future roles
• Be successful in a current role –  believe that new opportunities will only arise following success
• Find a systematic way of increasing knowledge, skills and relationships – do this to differentiate yourself from colleagues.

The future
In a previous article, Leading the way – Pharmaceutical Field, September 2011, I mentioned a couple of quotes. One was from a leading member of the NHS responding to how pharmaceutical companies could more actively engage with the health service. They said: “Don’t just bring pills and gadgets in the future, bring us value added solutions that drive the QIPP agenda with a documented and robust cost/benefit analysis.”                                   

The other, by Sir Ian Carruthers, NHS Chief Executive Innovation Review Team, stated: “The pharmaceutical industry needs to think more in terms of working in partnership with the NHS rather than just sending in the sales force… the NHS needs your disruptive contribution to help NHS reform, but too few companies are coming forward.”  

Despite such prominent views from the NHS, many companies are still sending out sales representatives with a very limited agenda – primarily delivering some key messages about a particular product. Indeed, some observers believe that the pharmaceutical sales representative is one of the world’s most underutilised resources! And, given the limited ambitions of each visit, it is perhaps not surprising that HCPs are continuing to reduce access.

To counter this, companies are deploying key account managers whose role is to provide value over and above the ‘noise’ associated with a traditional rep visit. We believe there will be a gradual merging of the functions of sales representative and KAM in the future. This means that everyone representing a company in the field will need to operate to KAM principles and provide significantly more value than before. Indeed, our research shows that historically excellent representatives have effectively operated to KAM principles, irrespective of the training and direction received from head office.

Current success
Whilst each sales representative has key performance indicators (KPIs) to meet – often merely call rates, we believe that individuals need to focus on providing added value to their customers and their companies irrespective of their targets. By taking a more strategic view, identifying the key stakeholders, delivering and developing solutions with the help of their company’s marketing, medical and promotional functions, representatives will become a more valued partner to both parties.

Representatives can only do this if they are experts in their products, the therapy area concerned, the care pathway and the local healthcare economy. Additionally, they will need knowledge of best practice and potential solutions.

Unfortunately, to some this may be perceived as going ‘beyond brief’ and will sometimes result in knockbacks. However, we believe the risks attached to this are far less than continuing with the limited role noted above. The risks of a representative failing to distinguish themselves and failing to provide real value will leave them susceptible at times of restructuring, and with fewer skills needed to attract jobs in the new healthcare economy.

Using initiative 
Fundamental to taking charge of your career is to take responsibility for personal development. A colleague told me about how he had done this successfully with a process that included the following:

A) Yearly audit – produce an annual plan that addresses the following:

• I am currently known for…
• Next year I want to be known for…
• My personal development last year included…
• I currently differentiate myself from my colleagues by…

B) Quarterly plan – each quarter produce an action plan:

• I aim to develop a more in-depth knowledge of the product, therapy area, care pathway and local healthcare economy by…
• I will develop closer relationships with key stakeholders in my company by…
• I will develop closer relationships with key customers by…
• I will develop a better understanding of best practice and consider the most appropriate solutions for my customers’ problems by…

C) Quarterly assessment – assess the potential to drive value into internal/external customers against the following parameters:

• Do I demonstrate more than financial value to key accounts?
• Have I increased the number of internal/external relationships where I add real value?
• Do I possess specialist knowledge that I can share with colleagues/customers to add value?
• Have I influenced any changes to the benefit of the company or customers?

This learning and knowledge was primarily delivered through personal research using books, magazines and the internet. My colleague also constantly suggested projects that he could work on, even in his own time, that he felt could transform the value being provided to customers. Many of these were rejected, particularly initially, but eventually he developed close enough relationships with people in the company who recognised the value these projects might create. These projects were a very valuable learning tool and a superb way of displaying his talents.

In summary
Pharmaceutical companies are looking for new and innovative ways of providing value to customers. As decision making within the NHS increasingly shifts to those regularly interacting with the end user (patients), the opportunity for primary care representatives to adopt a more customer-centric approach based on KAM principles grows exponentially.

The advantages of this may lead to less complicated field force structures, reduced costs and additional value added for customers. With such developments, companies will be in a better position to assist each individual in developing their careers to meet the demands of the new healthcare economy.

Tony Swift is the Managing Director of Apodi. He may be reached on tony.swift@apodi.co.uk.

At a time when both the Government and the NHS are calling for value for money, how can pharma introduce and promote innovation and value propositions? Tony Swift discusses ways and means of promoting eye-catching solutions through the key account approach.

In my two previous articles, Making it work and It’s all in the execution, I discussed the transition to Key Account Management (KAM) structures that many pharmaceutical companies are currently addressing. They focused on the difficulties of execution and considered various related issues such as:

• The move towards decentralisation
• The role of leadership
• The importance of support from the people in power
• The need to change the culture, beliefs and behaviours of individuals within the business
• The requirement for supporting the new strategy with a process including short-term objectives, incentives and controls that drives the whole execution initiative.

My final article on this topic covers the issue of building innovation and value propositions into a company. This topic is, of course, fundamental to any pharmaceutical company. For example, the rationale for many pharma companies is to build a drug portfolio that differentiates itself from the competition – either through a cost advantage or by improving patient outcomes. This article concentrates on building innovation and value propositions into the KAM process and is based on the premise that to justify moving to Key Account Management, account managers have to be armed with value propositions that are attractive to the customer.

KAM and Jobs
Over Christmas I was lucky enough to receive the recent biography of the late Steve Jobs, the former CEO of Apple. It was a fascinating read and highlighted the pros and cons of working for the guy mainly responsible for building one of the most successful companies in the world. The key message that came out of the book for me was the total focus Jobs had on delivering the very best products for the company’s customers. Apple was able to do this repeatedly with products we are all familiar with, such as the iPhone, iPad and iPod. Jobs also managed to achieve success in the world of animated cinema through his company Pixar, which produced films such as Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Finding Nemo, before being sold to Disney. Disney bought Pixar primarily because, for the first time in its existence, a company was out performing it in its core area of animated film production.

So why was Jobs continually able to innovate more successfully than his competitors and what lessons can pharma learn from his approach when moving towards a KAM structure? I will address this later, but would note that Jobs’ success had little, if anything, to do with market research and asking the customer what they needed – as Jobs stated, customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.

The demand from pharma
It is clear that pharma’s primary customer, the NHS, is now a series of complex and multi-layered accounts with an increasing number of stakeholders and influencers. Prescribers, payers, patients and policy makers are looking increasingly for pharma companies to offer true value added solutions rather than just products. Key Account Management represents a real opportunity for pharma to develop an effective value proposition and nurture closer and more effective relationships with key customers.

I attended a conference recently and a member of the audience asked a leading member of the NHS how pharmaceutical companies could more actively engage with the health service. The response was: “Don’t just bring pills and gadgets in the future, bring us value added solutions that drive the QIPP agenda with a documented and robust cost/benefit analysis.”                                       

This is an increasingly typical response. Sir Ian Carruthers, Head of the Government Innovation Review Team for the NHS, stated: “The pharma industry needs to think more in terms of working in partnership with the NHS rather than just sending in the sales force…the NHS needs your disruptive contribution to help reform, but too few companies are coming forward.”      

The Government and NHS leaders are crying out for more innovative input, although potential trust problems between the NHS and pharma can impede the implementation of some value added solutions. In any event, there is no doubt that demand for more input from pharma is growing and, given the Government and NHS agenda, it appears this can only continue.

Can pharma deliver?
Our experience at Apodi shows that companies currently differ significantly in their ability to deliver innovation and value added solutions through their Key Account Managers. However, a number of companies are extremely well set up to drive this agenda with specific divisions established to identify new ways of working in partnership with the NHS. Some have managed to integrate the operations of these ‘centres of excellence’ with other parts of the company – particularly brand management, sales and KAM management, and marketing.  In other words, innovation and execution are inextricably linked.
Other companies are not so well positioned or structured to deliver such value added solutions. In this situation, the validity of establishing a KAM structure needs to be addressed. I was recently party to a discussion between a senior executive of a pharma company and a service supplier that went along the following lines:

Service supplier: “Do your KAMs have real value propositions/solutions to take to the customer?”
Senior executive: “No.”
Service supplier: “Why not?”
Senior executive: “There is no real process to identify propositions and any that are identified are blocked because of budgetary constraints, restructuring issues and so on.”
Service supplier: “So why invest in KAMs?”
Senior Executive: (Silence).

Success ultimately depends on the KAM delivering real value to the customer. If that is not possible, companies need to critically analyse whether they should invest in Key Account Management rather than, or as well as, a ‘share of voice’ solution.

An innovative culture
For those companies still at the starting blocks in terms of building and delivering innovative value added solutions to its customer(s), the key question is what steps are needed to drive these processes into the company?

a) Establish a ‘Centre of Excellence’
Firstly, it is clear that it takes investment to truly understand customer issues and develop a deep knowledge of the marketplace to identify how experiences and value can be improved. Such insight is a powerful foundation for strategic, product and service innovations that create value for all parties.
In the early stages, we believe a company needs to establish a function to identify value added solutions. This should be centrally driven and staffed full time by people with the appropriate skills. Whatever these centres of value added excellence are called, their role is to generate propositions that can be shared with other parts of the company to assess whether the propositions should become part of the ‘tool kit’ of Key Account Managers.

b) Develop links with other parts of the organisation
As mentioned earlier, it is critical to link innovation and execution. This may be best done by the company encouraging – even demanding – that the Centre of Excellence coordinates its activities with other parts of the organisation, particularly those involved in executing the value added solutions.
How well a company coordinates these activities and actually makes things happen depends on a number of factors. For example, we have seen companies identifying value added solutions and introduce them to the Key Account Management structure, but then nothing happens. In this situation, the company needs to implement a rigorous process of establishing short-term objectives, incentives and controls to ensure that behaviours change.

c) Focus
Steve Jobs stated that his real passion was to build a company where people were motivated to make great products and that everything else was secondary. The focus he was able to engender in his company was extraordinary. Leaders need to assess whether they are instilling a culture that supports innovation and building value added solutions for their customers.

The impact of value
With the NHS now being a complex, multi-layered organisation with an increasing number of stakeholders and influencers, most value added solutions will differ depending on the company’s particular circumstances, product portfolios, services and so on. They will, however, be focused in one or more of the following areas:

a) Prescribers: solutions may address best patient outcomes, other clinical benefits and cost effectiveness of treatment

b) Policy makers: solutions may address care pathways, disease management targets and integrated care clinics

c) Patients: solutions may address adherence, access, provision of information, support groups and integrated care clinics

d) Payers: solutions that address funding issues, monitoring usage issues, etc.

Back to Steve Jobs     
Ultimately, Apple was so successful in building the most innovative products in its industry because the company, through Steve Jobs, ensured that innovation and value added solutions became part of the DNA of the company.

If a company is establishing a Key Account Management structure, we at Apodi believe that pharma companies need to follow these same principles. After all, what is more important when establishing a KAM structure than making sure account managers are in a position to deliver real value to their customers?  

Tony Swift is the Managing Director of Apodi. He may be reached on tony.swift@apodi.co.uk.