Reshaping pharmaceutical marketing: do sales reps shower in the morning or in the evening?

This question might seem bizarre, but instead it stems from a sharp reflection of a McKinsey global leader, Kevin Sneader, during a discussion on new ideas and models that are reshaping the various sectors after Covid.

Aside from personal preferences and seasonal habits, some workers do manual or strenuous work or work that requires them to spend a lot of time on their feet and come home dirty and sweaty; others, who do mostly office work, need to take care of their image. This, according to Sneader, divides workers into two categories: the former - who are the majority, by the way - those who shower after work, will be less impacted by the digital transformation and their work pattern will be subject to marginal changes; the latter, on the other hand, will be able to work from home, and their entire work landscape and future prospects will be profoundly altered due to greater adherence to new technologies.

It is obvious that those who work in a factory as factory workers will experience a different work impact than employees in the relevant offices. Only about 25% of workers can do their job without being on site. This is a group that showers before work. We cannot forget that most people shower after work, so there is a risk of a widening gap between these two groups, Kevin Sneader points out.

At this point the real question is: how much of the whistleblower's work is physical (i.e. due to the actual activity of meeting with the doctor at his practice) or is it intellectual (i.e. relationship, transfer of information)?

The topic is not trivial, as it goes deep into the issue of the present and the future of the pharmaceutical sales representative in Italy, and the shower is just a pretext for us to focus on this dilemma.
If we are asking them to "become hybrids" then we need to tell them to change how they see themselves in relation to work. Those who have always learned from their bosses that average visits are important and that respecting the visual aid sequence allows us to achieve good results will be sceptical or hostile to a transformation of their working style.

Obviously this is a complex issue, which concerns many aspects of the relationship between the doctor and the sales representative and between the company and the doctor in general. Let's not repeat the platitudes we already know: that the patient is at the centre, that times have changed, that COVID has accelerated digital processes, that the doctor has become accustomed to talking to the patient on WhatsApp, that there is the electronic prescription, that sales representatives must make an educational and cultural leap, that technological platforms can become the key to success, and so on and so forth.

Let's move on to some critical issues to be defined:

•  if we use digital channels more, and these actions start from the head office, the role of the whistleblower becomes more and more lateral over time;
  
• if the digital is led by the Pharmaceutical Sales Rep on the territory, then he/she must be able to lead a process of right content/right doctor/right channel based on information acquired from the territory, and therefore he/she must have competence and technologies to be able to do it adequately and validly. Obviously beyond the post-visit email;
  
• if the whistleblower is to be the primary manager of the territory, he must be able to act as such, and therefore define himself, on the basis of the information on his tablet, which doctor to visit, which content to use in promoting the key message, through which channel;
  
• in order to be able to perform his function of bilateral and equal relationship with the doctor, the whistleblower must be able to acquire information on the doctor's interest and behaviour and therefore independently ask the right questions, record the questions correctly and know how to analyse them;
  
• given that the way has become networked, we can take this too for granted, the pharmaceutical representative in Italy will not only talk to the doctor but also to other players in the area such as doctors' cooperatives, hospital structures, speakers, opinion leaders, pharmacists, and must therefore be able to manage inter-relations on different vertical and horizontal levels;
  
• manage the amount of information pressure per doctor and per zone, not relying on the sales data of the territory as it has done so far, but on the basis of the potential of the individual doctors in the zone (beyond their own impressions and friendships);
  
• orchestrating processes with colleagues and headquarters in accordance with company objectives;
  
• ...reporting to the area manager.

So here it seems that, while McKinsey is generally right, in this case whistleblowers, who also have a predominantly physical job, will undergo a very strong cultural transformation:

• or the more 'traditional' companies with professional updating and the use of new media;
  
• for companies that started a transformative process in 2020 and intend to pursue it with a technological evolution that allows the Pharmaceutical Sales Rep in Italyto collect information and manage the right content for each doctor for their product portfolio.

At the moment the key issues are:

• a process that sees the Pharmaceutical Sales Rep become a hybrid by calling on the phone, writing emails, managing WA, Telegram, Viber, SMS, and making visits all at once seems inappropriate;
  
•  the Pharmaceutical Sales Rep should aim to be able to act in response to the doctor's solicitations from time to time, reporting on the same channel, always soliciting the doctor on the front visit;
  
• the use of digital projects and campaigns cannot see the Pharmaceutical Sales Rep in Italy as the conductor of the orchestra, but as a conscious, updated and participating actor among actors.

In summary: project management becomes less company-centric in definition and less autonomous for the Pharmaceutical Sales Rep in Italy in execution, but the challenge is coordination at all levels. Whatever the multichannel model you want to use and whatever the product and the cycle of view of it.