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Drug Makers Replace Reps With Digital Tools

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That will only go so far, you still need a human touch to sell products. It could work with the older products because doctors are familiar with them. The newer products will still need the expertise and experience to sell. With that being written I can see Merck getting rid of all the sales reps, the software application crashing, doctors getting frustrated, and sales plummeting downward.
 




Anonymous said:
That will only go so far, you still need a human touch to sell products. It could work with the older products because doctors are familiar with them. The newer products will still need the expertise and experience to sell. With that being written I can see Merck getting rid of all the sales reps, the software application crashing, doctors getting frustrated, and sales plummeting downward.
Click to expand...

then blaming the layed-off sales reps that they caused the issue.
 




If or when they go completely digital, incentivizing doctors and selling (or even soft selling) off label gets more difficult to manage because of the transparency and paper trail. Pharma sales the old-fashioned way will be huge in emerging markets because of these factors and a tradition of incentivizing but the same traditional sales methods are doomed in the US. And as more doctors find other ways to get the information they seek, they will come to view as bizarre direct call methods that were universal just a few years before, just like Fuller Brush men would seem from Mars today. Sales in the US/EU will drop and all sales methods will be open to review by regulators and competitors.

Perhaps Frazier had a Freudian slip when he mentioned Apple and change since he was thinking of dumping reps while simultaneously building Apps?
 




What is the current real rate of access to customers by reps? Is it increasing, decreasing or flat? I'm told fewer physicians see reps and of those that still do, they see them less often. Total time spent with reps is down. If this is true, what is the point of maintaing a face-to-face sales force? Sales force reductions seem to be the norm going forward with companies attempting to reach the bare minimum level necessary to achieve maximum roi..or utilize cso's prn.
 




They will change the methods substantially. Younger doctors will be mostly satisfied with an electronic relationship and the marketing groups will analyze those doctors' electronic interactions in an attempt to enhance and focus their marketing, just like they do with other commercial websites. There will be more specialized roles like getting samples shipped, call center answering, and finally, face-to-face interaction at the request of the doctor. That role might actually revert back to individuals with true subject matter expertise but those job will be far fewer and travel may be more extensive. It looks like sales jobs are dropping 6-8% per year and that drop shows no sign of relenting. What is not shown is that the highly compensated rep % is dropping even faster and contract rep work is either growing or not dropping at all. It's pay is also not growing and is only a drop in the bucket of what reps presently expect to earn. If doctors can no longer get any personal benefit out of a face-to-face interaction and they can get what they need more conveniently via the net, they will go with via the net. Doctors do not exist merely to provide sales reps places to visit.
 




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