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Novartis Rumors

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anonymous

Guest
So are the rumors still swirling after the Vegas meeting? Is Alcon buying Xiidra? Is EC and Respiro merging? Is EC a goner? What's everyone thinking now that the meeting is over? I heard the meeting was positive, but IDK I'm still skeptical.
 








Wait until everyone is made aware of “elevating the rep skill set”. Like the head of marketing came in and basically said everyone in marketing was shit and they all needed to elevate their skills, it’s trickled over to the field team and all of sales will now get coached to elevate skills. It doesn’t matter how bad the marketing strategy is, how bad the data is and ALWAYS has been, how bad access has gotten, who kicks your product off formulary or won’t cover it - nothing matters. Bottom line everything is going to fall in the reps
 








anonymous said:
Wait until everyone is made aware of “elevating the rep skill set”. Like the head of marketing came in and basically said everyone in marketing was shit and they all needed to elevate their skills, it’s trickled over to the field team and all of sales will now get coached to elevate skills. It doesn’t matter how bad the marketing strategy is, how bad the data is and ALWAYS has been, how bad access has gotten, who kicks your product off formulary or won’t cover it - nothing matters. Bottom line everything is going to fall in the reps
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Yup I heard the same thing. Expect lots of micromanaging going forward. Managers will be with us more than ever and while they do more "coaching" on selling skills. Absolute waste of time.
 




anonymous said:
Yup I heard the same thing. Expect lots of micromanaging going forward. Managers will be with us more than ever and while they do more "coaching" on selling skills. Absolute waste of time.
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So glad we are a “customer obsessed” organization and we are listening to what the customers want. They have told us they want to see our managers more often - NOT! What do you expect from the new head of CE. Several years at another company in a high level role for primary care. Shoving more fields days down the throats of managers and reps and more call activity is all that is known or else it would never come to this.
 




So the worst thing novartis could have ever done is to hire an ex GSK senior leader to work on anything with the sales force. Dez was with GSK for a long time holding multiple executive roles. GSK from 2010 on changed the way they manage and evaluate representatives, to the extent that managers had multiple pages of competencies they expected to see and would check boxes all day. As a representative you would be writing down PAGES of things to do at each visit to ensure you were checking those boxes. Wait for all the different types of strategic questioning, SPIN, advancing the call and sales cycle bs. All a nightmare, all common sense to any good rep, and has lead to a sales force at GSK that even to this day hates the company. For some reason overall that company just settled with being a miserable employer and place to work. Not 100% sure if he is going to try and transform Novartis in that way but if so, here is your warning, get out. Your mental health, relationships with family and friends will all suffer. Hopefully he doesn’t do this to the extent GSK does. Fingers crossed.
 




anonymous said:
Wait until everyone is made aware of “elevating the rep skill set”. Like the head of marketing came in and basically said everyone in marketing was shit and they all needed to elevate their skills, it’s trickled over to the field team and all of sales will now get coached to elevate skills. It doesn’t matter how bad the marketing strategy is, how bad the data is and ALWAYS has been, how bad access has gotten, who kicks your product off formulary or won’t cover it - nothing matters. Bottom line everything is going to fall in the reps
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I want to hear more about this. Marketing is calling out marketing? Or calling out sales? It always come back to sales.
 




anonymous said:
So the worst thing novartis could have ever done is to hire an ex GSK senior leader to work on anything with the sales force. Dez was with GSK for a long time holding multiple executive roles. GSK from 2010 on changed the way they manage and evaluate representatives, to the extent that managers had multiple pages of competencies they expected to see and would check boxes all day. As a representative you would be writing down PAGES of things to do at each visit to ensure you were checking those boxes. Wait for all the different types of strategic questioning, SPIN, advancing the call and sales cycle bs. All a nightmare, all common sense to any good rep, and has lead to a sales force at GSK that even to this day hates the company. For some reason overall that company just settled with being a miserable employer and place to work. Not 100% sure if he is going to try and transform Novartis in that way but if so, here is your warning, get out. Your mental health, relationships with family and friends will all suffer. Hopefully he doesn’t do this to the extent GSK does. Fingers crossed.
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This is EXACTLY what is going to happen in the coming months. If you don’t work at Novartis then you don’t know about the increase in field activity from a call and KPI perspective and for the managers, an increase in field rides. Everything is being measured, counted and tracked with spreadsheets. This is not going to TRANSFORM Novartis - it is just going to make people want to leave. Combine this with “elevating” the sales reps selling skills (circa 1995) and this is going to be a shit show of metrics. Very very sad.
 




anonymous said:
I want to hear more about this. Marketing is calling out marketing? Or calling out sales? It always come back to sales.
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Both. Marketers were sub par according to the new marketing head, so there was a need to “elevate” their skills in role. Or get rid them which was done through transform. Now sales is the same hence the need to “elevate” the skills of the reps.
 




anonymous said:
This is EXACTLY what is going to happen in the coming months. If you don’t work at Novartis then you don’t know about the increase in field activity from a call and KPI perspective and for the managers, an increase in field rides. Everything is being measured, counted and tracked with spreadsheets. This is not going to TRANSFORM Novartis - it is just going to make people want to leave. Combine this with “elevating” the sales reps selling skills (circa 1995) and this is going to be a shit show of metrics. Very very sad.
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Let’s face it, the company sucks in every level but the pay check keeps coming. As usual do as little as you can until it gets unbearable then move on.
 




anonymous said:
Let’s face it, the company sucks in every level but the pay check keeps coming. As usual do as little as you can until it gets unbearable then move on.
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This.
Lie.
Fuck them.
Say what you need to to keep them off your back.
This is all formulaic, if you've worked for other pharma companies you already know how this ends.
If the severance is worth it, stay; if it is not, you had best be serious about your job search.
 












Maybe who knows?? Imagine if your manager was like "ok so Vegas was great and we're excited about some new changes, one being- we're gonna work weekends now and I'll be riding with you Friday-Sunday this week. No, no it's ok if offices are closed. We'll just call doctors at home or try to catch them at the whole foods parking lot."
 












anonymous said:
I figured the "this meeting was nothing but positive and encouraging" text our manager was just another kool-aid fueled delusion.
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Every ABL sent out the same text massage. They probably had a sample message on the projector on what to say. Nothing but gaslighting. Get ready for epic mircomanagement.
 








Get ready for the launch of new field based competencies and skills. If your numbers aren’t good, it will be correlated to a need to improve your skills. This way you can be put on a plan of action or performance plan if you aren’t at goal but it won’t be directly related to your goal-they will say it’s a skill issue. Very smart thinking Novartis! People get ready to start documenting every single damn data issue you come across. We have them in every business unit in the company.
 




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