WHITE PAPER: SALES & MARKETING. Seven levers of sales and marketing performance that drive sales growth and deliver sustainable competitive advantage

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1 WHITE PAPER: SALES & MARKETING Seven levers of sales and marketing performance that drive sales growth and deliver sustainable competitive advantage

2 Sales & Marketing 2 Seven levers of sales and marketing performance that drive sales growth and deliver sustainable competitive advantage Profiling and segmentation Differentiated brand strategies per customer segment Customer-weighted portfolio value Customer-centric selling Optimised targeting implementation Optimised territory structure Performance monitoring and incentives We have had the opportunity to work with all of the top 10 international pharmaceutical companies and have supported and analysed over 50 of the leading global brands sales and marketing effectiveness initiatives in a variety of product life cycle stages. Many of these projects have allowed us to measure and monitor the impact of these sales and marketing initiatives over several years. During this process, we have sought to challenge the most critical levers of performance and to understand how well companies implement these to drive their sales growth and to achieve sustainable, competitive sales and marketing advantage for their company and their brands. This article seeks to explain seven major levers we have identified as critical to a company s success and to identify some of the pitfalls for those of you who are prepared to take the challenge to review the way you are doing things today. The seven major levers are: 1. Profiling and segmentation We often find confusion between the terminology and meaning of a profile and a segment. The reason for this is that doctors (and other customer groups) are typically profiled only on a single profile element (in the case of GPs typically therapeutic area potential). If only a single profile element is captured, those profiles will be grouped into segments (e.g. A s are the top 10% of the profiled universe, B s the next 20% and C s the next 20%), so profiles are considered the same as the segment. Based on this type of basic segmentation, it is very difficult for companies to identify meaningful results from any strategic analysis of these segments. The types of analysis we are referring to would include resource allocation modelling, scenario planning and response curve analysis. The results typically show little variation across segments due to the coarseness and heterogeneity of the segments used. This in turn often leads to the wrong business conclusions being made (i.e. there is no difference in the sales responsiveness of customers to call frequency, or customers in the A segment don t seem to be any different to the C segment customers).

3 Sales & Marketing 3 We recommend capturing at least two profile segments and creating a 2x2 matrix of these profiles results to define four segments. By intelligently capturing additional relevant profile elements about your customers and then building segments based on these aggregated profiles, we have seen a ten-fold difference in sales response between customers with the same level of promotional activity who were all previously defined as A targets. BRAND VALUE LOW HIGH LOW HIGH MARKET VALUE 2x2 customer segmentation model. By incorporating two profile elements and capturing the value of customers on these two dimensions, each customer can be placed into a discrete segment. In this example, scores of 1 5 are typically used to define value for each profile element, with 1 3 being grouped as HIGH. A customer who scores 1 3 for the brand value and 1 3 for market value will fall into the green segment. They have high brand value and high market value. A customer who scores 4 5 for the brand value but 1 3 for the market value will fall into the orange segment. They have low brand value, but high potential. Traditionally, both groups would have been defined as As (because of their market value), yet they are quite different (as defined by their use of your brand) and need to be marketed to differently. This provides sales and marketing with opportunities to differentiate strategy and resources to these new segments. Importantly, a greater understanding and ability to measure cause and effect on sales also allows the organisation to measure ROI moving forward. 2. Differentiated brand strategies by customer segment We often see relatively undifferentiated brand strategies to each of those segments. Brand strategy is often limited to call frequency objectives per segment and little other differentiation (e.g. A s need 12 details p.a., B s need 10 and C s need 8, etc.). The appropriate level and mix of resource to well-defined customer segments will drive vastly different revenue and ROI. Effective marketers consider brand strategy differentiation by segment including: Brand message Sampling Call frequency Value added service strategies The most effective marketers also go beyond sales representatives to include all sales and marketing channels as part of their brand plan. Complementary strategies and/or supplementary strategies are also often not fully leveraged. Supplementary utilisation of other channels where sales representative access is an issue or for low value customers (red segment) with whom sales force activity is too expensive. Complementary through direct mail and other channels to increase the effectiveness of sales force activity and create opportunities for additional sales force promotional exchanges with key customers.

4 Sales & Marketing 4 3. Customer-weighted portfolio value A sales representative will typically have responsibility for a number of brands that they must promote often in multiple therapeutic areas. Customers are often defined as targets based on a lead brand, so individuals who are strongly relevant for the other brands (but not that particular brand) fall out of the target audience. BRAND A BRAND B BRAND C Dr Black Dr Blue BRAND VALUE LOW HIGH BRAND VALUE LOW HIGH BRAND VALUE LOW HIGH In this example, both Dr Black and Dr Blue are interesting for the company, but if Brand A is driving the targets, Dr Black would not be a target (despite his value for Brands B and C). LOW HIGH MARKET VALUE LOW HIGH MARKET VALUE LOW HIGH MARKET VALUE Lead brands may change from cycle to cycle and targets may change with them, so consistency of promotional activity with key customers can be lost. We advocate a more holistic approach to defining customer value for your company based on the aggregation of customer s value for each of your brands as follows: Determine a process that allocates a points value for each customer for each of your major brands based on their segment for that brand. Factor the points value to allow for each brand s strategic importance, product life cycle and customer segment responsiveness. Aggregate the individual points values for each brand (weighted or factored) to determine a customer-weighted portfolio value for each customer (their value to your company). Use this methodology to drive sales force and marketing activity towards the most valuable customers for the team/company, while being able to define what constitutes each customer s value at the brand level and drive brand strategies accordingly. 4. Customer-centric selling approach Many companies stipulate a specific order in which they want each brand to be presented during every sales call. While this makes it easy for the company to administer, the relevance of the first and/or second brands discussed may be lost to the customer.

5 Sales & Marketing 5 Companies that measure details per call without reference to the relevance of that brand to the customer are often surprised to find that while they are achieving 2+ details per call, only 50% of these were relevant to the customer i.e. half of the brand details were to non-targets for that brand. Assuming you implement a portfolio value approach as described earlier, the most successful companies have also included the following in their brand plans: Introduce brand call objectives rather than sales call objectives. What we are interested in is not how many times a customer is seen, but how many times our brand was detailed to that customer in detail position 1. To help achieve this, introduce a customised brand detailing order (within a call) based on the sales representatives achieving a brand call frequency objective for each customer for each brand. Flexible detailing has also been shown to drive call value by increasing the number of relevant brand details per call where the detailed brands are relevant to each particular customer. 5. Targeting implementation A number of companies find it very challenging to drive clear implementation of call plans down to the sales force. Consequently, we often see a very high percentage of valuable sales and marketing resource going to non-target customers (50% is not unusual). The reasons for this can be quite varied and, in addition to those issues already mentioned above, may include: Lack of coordination between business objectives and sales force performance incentives and rewards. A poorly thought-out call activity metric that is financially incentivised will always encourage call fodder. Worse, it may also encourage inappropriate profiling (to ensure activity metrics to targets are also achieved). Inappropriate territory structures or resourcing to achieve the call plan (under/over resourcing by geography). Area 2061 City 2062 Redfern 2063 Maroubra 2064 Randwick 2065 Bondi Activity required G Y B Targets In this example, calls by customer segment are shown (stacked bars) while the grey bar depicts the number of calls required to achieve brand strategy (based on call frequency objectives to each target segment). This visual helps to illustrate which geographies have been underresourced and how many calls have been made to each customer segment. Lack of alignment between the brand plan, sales action plan and their implementation. Lack of a sales representative customer level activity reporting to identify individual customers who need to be seen in order to achieve brand strategy. Lack of a robust monitoring process to support sales management corrective action.

6 Sales & Marketing 6 Recognising that improved customer segmentation and appropriate brand strategies to the most valuable segments will put tremendous pressure on sales forces time and planning efforts to see these customers, organisations need to consider weighing call quality versus call quantity (where quality is defined by the message relevance and value of the customer this is being delivered to) and decide which behaviours they want to encourage, measure and reward. A significant point of leverage that is often overlooked is the value of the target audience. No amount of resource can significantly drive sales from customers with little or no value. By comparison, carefully planned and executed resource to high value customers will provide a significantly better return on investment. We have implemented a customer-weighted points value metric to replace calls per day as a KPI. For example, customers are valued from 2 20 points (based on their segment) and absolute calls per day are replaced by call points per day (call points = customer points value x calls). This takes the focus off the 6 calls per day quantity mentality (where all calls are of equal value), and replaces this with a quantity x quality approach. This also encourages planning and execution of sales force time and effort to high-value customers, with the sacrifice being a shift away from calls to low-value customers. 6. Optimised territory structure A common issue is existing territory structures that have been built on similar total customer numbers and/or based on therapy area sales, often for a product that is no longer promoted, despite the introduction of other new product launches and/or external factors in the market. By not addressing the territory structure, this becomes a major rate-limiting step to setting customer targets. Each territory is typically given equivalent numbers of targets and sales representatives are asked to profile doctors into these predefined categories irrespective of whether this represents the true value of customers for each brand. We have seen extreme variance in territory value as a result of this approach, and the existing profiles and forced distribution bear no relevance to the real world (see PREO Performance Quadrant report example below). A catch-22 situation prevails many companies find this too difficult to tackle and as a result, profiling accuracy and segmentation cannot be addressed either. Rather than considering total customers in a geography and/or total revenue in a geography, territories should be built based on resourcing requirements (based on brand plans) to ensure optimal territory serviceability for your defined customer segments.

7 Sales & Marketing 7 7. Performance monitoring and incentives We have all seen companies with enough reports to keep a sales representative and their sales manager busy for a day each week. In reviewing the purpose of each report and asking the question What business decision(s) does this report enable you to make?, the majority are generally found not to add value. Make sure there is a clear understanding of the key performance metrics that drive revenue and profitability. Successful businesses have a maximum of 10. How many do you have? Ensure that the key performance metrics are presented clearly and consistently across your company from the board level, senior management (sales and marketing), regional and area sales management and finally to the sales representative. Ensure that the right people are getting the right information. Don t give them information they don t need. Ensure there are strong connections between what your company measures and what (behaviour) is rewarded. We have seen a number of companies embark on a change management process that requires a behavioural change in a certain direction, only to see them measure and financially reward diametrically opposed behaviour. There are a number of performance metrics that are well worth measuring but only a few of these should be selected to reward teams or individuals. All reward metrics should be part of those determined relevant to drive revenue and profitability. This report example visually demonstrates a number of metrics and KPIs alongside each other to enable the reviewer to compare and contrast performance across geographies (by viewing the columns) and across metrics (by viewing the rows). CONTACT David Ledger Principal, Commercial Effectiveness Services, ANZ Direct: Mobile: DLedger@au.imshealth.com

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