Reshaping pharmaceutical marketing: the VUCA world and the war

The theme of the VUCA world (which I dealt with in this article), i.e. volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, is a 'strategic' view of contemporary marketing.

It is not VUCA marketing, i.e. one of the many declinations or labels to be added to marketing to give it a specific connotation, it is a view that starts from the observation that the contemporary world has a specific and unique complexity that has no analogous precedent.

About 70 years ago, almost 50,000 soldiers took part in one of the bloodiest and most decisive battles in human history. The Normandy Landings could have failed, but we know that they did. But it could have failed. General Dwight D. Eisenhower had written a few lines on impulse before the battle in the event of failure, blaming himself completely: 'Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area failed to get off to a satisfactory start and I withdrew the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best available information. The troops on land, air and sea did all they could do with courage and devotion to duty. I am the only one to blame for the failure. In war there is no perfect plan.

Adapt or perish. There is no perfect plan in pharmaceutical marketing in Italy. The only way to maximise the chances of success is to plan, implement, be ready to react and replan. Winning in pharmaceutical marketing is not only about reacting, but above all about rethinking and replanning based on the best available information (as Eisenhower wrote).

Measuring the pace of change in pharma is like watching the tide: there's not much to see in real time, but if you look away for even a moment, it's sure to catch you by surprise. Viewed from this perspective, the pharmaceutical world looks more clearly VUCA.

I explained the meaning of the acronym: VUCA stands for 'volatility', 'uncertainty', 'complexity', 'ambiguity'. Volatility, or instability, is a contemporary figure for the difficulty of predicting the future on the basis of interactions between elements. Uncertainty is an element linked to the speed of change and the difficulty of making predictions based on previous experience due to the lack of sufficient knowledge to give us a complete picture. Complexity is the set of forces that act on several junctions of the network and that do not allow us to take stock of the transformations of the environment in the present and in the future. Ambiguity is the lack of a clear and unambiguous meaning of events and their interpretation.

Understanding the behaviour of the manager in his war can be helpful. Currently, pharma managers are changing the way they invest, even very rapidly. But the way they spend is not only evident from the type of expenditure, but also from the pattern they use.
They break previous patterns:
- the massive use of outsourcing,
- the shift to web and email marketing,
- the building of a direct relationship with the patient,
- the organisation by team of objectives and not by sector,
- the contraction of expenses for face-to-face conferences to synchronise them with remote ones,
- the joint and coordinated use of several channels,
- focusing on fewer but more interested doctors,
- a focus on channel preference.

The most important characteristic to possess in warfare, as in marketing, is the ability to understand-react: how to do it and when to do it. So the ability to react to external stimuli - reading the signs, doing competitive intelligence, analysing markets and trends - becomes a key requirement as is the ability to react promptly. In short, pharmaceutical marketing has to move from problem solving to problem setting.
Problem setting. Defining the problem, we know from high school mathematics, is often more important than knowing how to solve it. Pharmaceutical companies simply have to change their approach to the market by reacting to what has already happened and is happening. They have to fight the new war with new weapons.

Problem solving. Once the new framework is defined, within the existing regulations, pharmaceutical marketing, without cancelling current activities, has to re-model them to make them work according to current needs. Re-think with a view to the future. For example, there is no need to cut the sales force, it must be made effective in relation to the changing demands of doctors. Or: we need new weapons in pharmaceutical marketing, not the old ones readapted. Technology alone is not enough to react to change. We cannot use swords against rifles, we have to train our troops in the new weapons.
Over 11,000 aircraft were engaged during the Normandy landings - more than the US Air Force has now. That was decisive for victory, not prudence. How are you reacting to the market: cautiously and slowly?