Sales teams have been always the business battleground against the competitors also they are those who took the challenge of reaching clients and deliver their messages coastwise is usually very expensive ones versus the time the Reps. are given to deliver this expensive message.
The above is happening when the “war on each other's talents” is at its own peak among different industries and to my knowledge the Pharmaceutical International Environment is one of those sectors always striving good people. Today, the challenge of attracting and retaining the best sales force is getting more pronounced. When the successful ones are leaving, others follow even if they believe or used to complain that they are as good as them.
To my experience, they have also shown to be the main carriers of the organizational "flag"with the highest level of belief to corporate policies, goals and responsibilities. When they go the flag may drop down for a while.
Ironically, the initial and a rough calculation indicated the level of loss by the Sales Force are much higher as a result of migration of the Sales Force to other companies and/or having them Demotivated, or creating a feeling of embarrassment when too many misconducts and failures commence simultaneously and ruin the image of the company no matter how strong the firm can be from the portfolio.
Unfortunately, those effects in the outcome of the business could have not been identified in detail nor presented as a solid set of data in our country ever. The snapshot of the calculation might be significant enough to show the scope of the issue. More number of defected decisions, errors and panic attacks will soon make this Migration of Talents faster and the company will soon realize that the good people are imposed to an extraordinary risks losing talentS. one major reason to lose the smartest staff is the fact that more panic attacks within the organization may increase the level of consequences and their seriousness such as regulations and legal barriers.
The current business environment of Pharmaceuticals and the outcomes are less dependent to the remote management, more local decisions, autonomy and market knowledge is needed while those who pay not attention to the loss of people are for sure at a stage that this fact might have been ignored too and in a funny way still struggle to remotely manage big markets.
This long distance management is quite visible by all not only the sales force however the wrong results has to be passed to the clients by them which is another demotivating factor, the remote management is getting funnier when small countries by these never had a chance to manage a vast area or population come to make decision when their mindset may not much differentiate between Kuwait and Iran from the business size perspective. I don't believe that the level of stability then is a suitable factor to justify the LEVEL investment in such small countries. In fact who can say today that Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Yemen are ranked = significantly clear in terms of the business risks? Long distance business solutions with the same pattern will be repeatedly put into test by those who always love to present a new initiative and colorful project to the top managers.
Increasing the duration of staying in one position and for sure cultural gaps are those main results for such losses too. In some cases facing the same situation by those badly and simply were not competent enough to handle simple issues, could have been destructive enough to take ages to be mended easily and never restored. The changing environment and the nature of our market (Iran) has been misused and abused in several occasions as today the sanction created an opportunity to filter the communication and expose the staff to the level and way the regional managers usually need to present. This dramatically reduced the local bargaining power of the local corporate executives and the voice is usually in hands of the power holder within the region usually Arabs who are not necessarily the ideal business partners to Persians!
Increasing the duration of staying in one position and for sure cultural gaps are those main results for such losses too. In some cases facing the same situation by those badly and simply were not competent enough to handle simple issues, could have been destructive enough to take ages to be mended easily and never restored. The changing environment and the nature of our market (Iran) has been misused and abused in several occasions as today the sanction created an opportunity to filter the communication and expose the staff to the level and way the regional managers usually need to present. This dramatically reduced the local bargaining power of the local corporate executives and the voice is usually in hands of the power holder within the region usually Arabs who are not necessarily the ideal business partners to Persians!
While a classic market may respond better or at least with the higher probability to many daily and classic issues, such response to the same matters again involved tens of approvals and create confusion as everybody likes to sign. Most of the time with less attention to the content than local staff.
The effect of improper mixing or inclusion of sporadic and innovative patterns of Arabic style for instance in a Campaign creates low success rates for such projects as they are also do not seen to have been arranged for the business purpose only. There are many reasons sometimes carrying old conflicts, misjudgment, personal revenge or appetite to gain power, of course in minor cases.
The effect of improper mixing or inclusion of sporadic and innovative patterns of Arabic style for instance in a Campaign creates low success rates for such projects as they are also do not seen to have been arranged for the business purpose only. There are many reasons sometimes carrying old conflicts, misjudgment, personal revenge or appetite to gain power, of course in minor cases.
Sales Force are not meant to be considered as weak affecters in any organizations but this meaning not always well understood by the senior managers. Making sure that the integrity among the sales Force and others exist and even supported and strengthened, is not always done in a healthy way. The quotations such as "raise the issue among the juniors and rule them all!" are those whisper more in the Middle East region in my experience. A frank senior manager at the ME management level may directly support this as a fact or may totally ignore it and call it a lie which is another wide deviation you may see when people like to justify things. Well, the relevance of this subject to talent retention is simply the fact that talents should be necessarily smart people who should be also able to recognize the absence of help when a chronic conflict among juniors are left and never interfered. Talents and their definition might be also different in our region. In colloquial language you may hear definition of a talent which might not be the same with others. Bringing the atmosphere of a Healthy Competition and most importantly "Proper and Constant Coaching" brings awareness and uniformity to the organizations and a crucial factor to let the Sales Force to feel and consider themselves involved. The durability of such uniform way of treating the staff in an International Environment can guarantee the Talent Retention to the considerable level alone. Unfortunately Middle East positioned at the bottom of the table when Africa, Asian, Middle East Countries compared in a biannually survey voted by the staff and for years not moved ahead.
The need for detailed and high caliber staff for Novel products and Knowledge IN DEPTH ABOUT THEM (both business and product knowledge are equally meant here) and the raising battle for competition between major players—often, dozens of medical representatives vie for the attention of a high-profile doctor—and it is evident why it is a challenge to build a high-performing pharmaceutical Sales Force.
The new generation of Sales Forces are far more capable in using collaborative behavior and professional manner.
Maybe in brief, the process of loosing talents and the Start of shaping the negative feelings results to making the decision of leaving the company and look around for others who may discover him can be prevented /postponed by implementing simple measures:
1- Structure: The first is the number of sales teams and their product and customer accountability.
2- How sales territories are structured: are they designed to maximise the coverage of the highest potential towns and prescribers?
3- Given the complexity and the range of products to be evaluated as a "key performance indicator". Often A SINGLE PRODUCT growth in pharma companies do not deliver good and motivating results. Such target setting process needs local interference and require a fundamental evaluation at the “drawing-board” stage—to decide how best to address the target market and evaluate every individual performance in a way possible to explain to all and look reasonably OK. Let's agree that the eMOTIONAL factor specially among youngsters can not be omitted.
These variables typically include the way the business opportunities divided among Sales Force which are covering Qualitative and Quantitative measures both. Doctors, Specialty, Geographic Location and the number of prescriptions generated/Will be generated are among those.
As a fact some dOCTORS IN SOME GEOGRAPHICAL AREA get more number of Sales Force visitors and more promotional inputs. Capturing these segment for the customer database can provide a rich source of insight for maximising sales productivity if such chance is not provided fairly among all it can negatively affect young and motivated staff.
Selling pharmaceuticals requires a rich blend of sales competencies, including the ability to grasp and communicate technical knowledge, engage and influence knowledgeable customers, communication skills that can make an impact in a short time-span and the ability to build relationships in a highly competitive marketplace. Research has proven that a successful sales person is defined more by specific personality traits than qualifications and product knowledge. Yet, most selection systems focus on qualifications and presentation skills.
Using such approach, one company found that Sales Force with the attributes of ability to tolerate and not being indifferent to their future. Demanding personality to grow and ask for more responsibility when they proved themselves before, aggression towards their set targets and honesty more to themselves, social confidence and independence instead of supporting powerful people in higher levels with unclear reasons are in fact a collection of the qualifications to be not only existed in Sales Force but fully recognized and nourished best by the managers to grow and retain the talents. The art is how much to release and how much to keep for the future as giving too much responsibility to a new comers are almost equal to kill their career path. One major pitfall remains to be the lack of alignment between the marketing Sales strategy and the design of its sales incentives scheme. Sometimes it attracts the Sales Force WHEN an unhealthy message from either side seniors ask a young Sales Force to be a member of his/her Battle Zone. A gain a pitfall created by seniors and dangerous for the talent retention.
Most companies continue to rely on traditional channels of training and induction—centralised classroom formats. The issue with this approach is its limited effectiveness, poor knowledge retention and the time lost away from the customer. Research shows a person learns only 20% from traditional training; 80% of learning happens on the job through observation, consultation and trial & error.
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The above is a PERSONAL EXPERIENCE ONLY AND NEVER GENERALIZED
Notes from Personal Experience by Shahin Kimiagar April 1st 2011
