“Optimizing Sales Force Effectiveness And Call Planning In Pharmaceutical Business In Iran”
1. Purpose of the Project
• Provides an introduction to the challenges that pharmaceutical sales forces are facing in Iran
• Provides a situational analysis of the current practice and the need for specialized services
• Introduction to possible territory management tools and techniques
• Concluding the best practice and a critical discussion on reasons for the selected choice
The project evaluates how implementation of the suggested model may affect other major elements in a triangle of the Customers, the Employees and the Firm when optimizing sales force size and the structure. A simulation on number of the customers, sales forces and the desired frequency of visits defines opportunities that sales teams should consider when designing their structure.
Project Highlights
The project highlights the current sales practice and suggests a transition from traditional to
modern sales practice using the most recent tools and techniques. The sales teams defined to be
the medical representatives, their supervisors and sales managers when detailing healthcare
providers. A resource-activity balance is a performance indicator for any sales team. Benchmarking
the customers and plotting them against the number of required calls in Iran needs to be carefully
defined. Sales force qualification and correct targeting are in fact the two main drivers in achieving
optimal sales. Sales models can be fall off into one of the three models below:
- Product-based
- Customer-based
- In special situation activity-based
Sales teams are usually the first visible element of a company and their performance strongly
Impact the whole organization. In this project the sales teams will be looked at as a system.
The criteria of a high-performance sales team will be shown and how this performance can be
synergized in the context of the balance between effective territory management versus available
resources.
2. Research Question
- How high performance sales teams can affect the organizations?
- What makes a sales team high performance?
- What are the key trends in sales force size and detailing frequency?
- What would be the key drivers of sales force effectiveness in the future?
- Which companies are using best practice to deliver sales force effectiveness?
- How can new technologies deliver benefits to pharmaceutical sales forces?
- What is optimal sales targeting?
- How to optimize territory management?
- What is the optimal number of calls versus invested resources?
- How cross-cultural factors may affect the sales teams structure and size?
- What are the tools and techniques, which might be useful in allocation of these?
3. Personal Learning Objectives
After ten years of sales and marketing experience in multinational pharmaceutical industry (started as Medical Representative at Roche pharmaceuticals and currently as the Country Manager at Novartis, I‘m responsible for ten specialized sales teams. Writing this project, my objective should be integrating my past experience with the academic literature and finally conclude the best practice(s).
Also might be used by those managers who need to understand the process in a clear way to set up
their sales team dimensions quickly.
4. Sources of Data
The primary data, will be managed by questionnaires, interviews, Observation, Case-studies
The secondary data, from annual company reports, the officially released data by the Ministry of
Health, also reputable Internet searches i.e. the IMS Data website.
In the context of the territory management systems, I have so far experienced at least four tools
(Software). I enjoyed reading many books in the sales excellence area as well as watching series of
DVDs on “Sales Success”. The citation will be referenced as the project develops.
5. Relevant Past Studies
There are too many publications on selling skills, strategic selling, sales teams performance, selling
solutions etc., there are also handbooks usually referred to as selling tips. However in Iran as the
largest pharmaceutical market in the Middle East, such study never performed. Few past studies as well as few articles by the International Marketing Studies (IMS) as the most reputable data provider company in field of pharmaceuticals have been provided here. IMS is assessing billions of transactions involving more than a million products from 3,000 plus Pharmaceutical manufacturers:
1. Success Story, A Consultative Approach to Determine Sales Force Size and Structure
[www.imshealth.com], accessed Aug. 12, 2008
2. Skelton N., Sales Force Effectiveness, for IMS Health, article Reprinted from the Nov/Dec 2005
[www.imshealth.com], accessed Aug. 14, 2008
3. Sian S., Sales Force Effectiveness Resource Optimization, Gratner 2006, BI Conference
[www.imshealth.com], accessed Aug. 17, 2008
4. McKinnnis R., Six Simple Steps to Creating a High Performance Sales Force, 2006
[www.salesissimple.com], accessed Aug. 26, 2008
5. Clay J., Book, Successful Selling Solutions, Thorogood Publications, 2003
6. Miller B., Book, The New Strategic Selling, Business Plus Publication. April 2005
7. Sales Success, 6xDVD Success Series, 2006
6. Proposed Methodology
Appropriate architecture stretches the sales force without over-stressing it and efficiently meets
customers’ expectations, therefore maximizing overall profitability.
The project assumes that there is a need for specialization and this will be evaluated based on
customer’s and field force feedbacks. The potential sites in Iran are geographically scattered
therefore, it is always important to calculate the cost/benefit ration. Based on those potential areas
and other market dynamics, an expected profitability may affect the sales force size. Other factors,
which affect the size of the field force, are:
• Customer segmentation
• Competitive intelligence
• Product sales forecasts
The program time-line designed to be implemented in a three-month-period
• The cost for the implementation will be raised by the parent company
• All the data entries will be done by the field forces in to one of the databases to be selected in later
stages based on the project scope and approved budget.
• Sales forces assumed to be fully backed up by the administrative
• All the sales staff as well as key administrative personnel will be trained in advance
• The country and the potential areas have to be identified and mapped based on importance (Key
Opinion Leadership), decision making capacity and power
• Identifying suitable tools for Performance Measurement, Resource allocation, Change Management,
Time Management and other Performance Measurement Metrics
• Final Preparation, in which final integration testing, stress testing, and conversion testing occurs
7. Anticipated Problems
In response to achieving maximum sales performance and a massive transformation in the traditional
sales structure, a resistance to change is naturally expected.
The project owners will then decide how many and where sales teams are needed but also their skill
levels. As portfolios are constantly shifting to more specialized medicines, different approaches to
sales territories might be needed. This approach might be quite different from country to country.
That is why the project should be able to clearly identify the need for a specific sales team size,
structure and effectiveness.
8. Outline of Chapters
The project major outlines for the best practice in Iran geographical scope are considered as:
Executive Summary
1. Understanding sales force structures and strategies
2. The need to maximize the efficiency of the sales teams
3. Costs of sales and marketing as well as development of the selected supportive tool
4. Optimizing sales force size
5. Optimizing sales force structure
6. Optimizing sales through use of technology
7. Optimizing sales through third party sales forces
8. Strategic outlook and return on investment
9. Recommendations for optimal leverage of corporate sales
Shahin Kimiagar Pharm. D.
November. 9, 2008
Tehran
