This blog is the second of a two-part series and highlights two of the four key forces driving changes in the healthcare ecosystem, encouraging medical device companies to rethink their traditional commercial models. Click here to read the first blog.

In the first blog of this two-part series, we highlight two of the four key forces driving changes in the healthcare ecosystem, encouraging medical device companies to rethink their traditional commercial models.

If you could generate billions of dollars in shareholder value, over three years, by revamping your commercial models, would you do it?

Data and technology are etching a new DNA of each touchpoint of our lives today. As we live and breathe, the fourth industrial revolution and its fusion of technologies are dissolving the boundaries of physical, digital, and biological spheres¹. As humans, we are more connected than ever before, using extremely advanced technologies, creating unbelievable amounts of extremely granular data. This data explosion is feeding into AI-based quantum computing engines for instant and highly-personalized insights, which help us make better decisions. To operationalize our informed decisions, Internet of Things (IoT) and its connected experience step in to deliver instantaneous desired results. As customers, we are embracing these advancements towards elite customer experiences. As professionals, we need to follow suit, by leveraging data and technology to create innovative products, operational efficiencies, stronger customer equity, and higher profit margins.

Market dynamics are changing the medical device market in unprecedented ways. Accustomed to rapid innovation in their lives as consumers, patients are expecting data and information being generated across various personal (face-to-face interactions) and non-personal (digital interactions on the web and social channels) to be translated into delivering better healthcare outcomes and their quality of lives. The baseline of quality of delivery of healthcare throughout the ecosystem is shifting to much higher expectations, as a result. The medical devices industry faces this challenge every day.

We all know that in sales, the outcomes you get are the outcomes you incent. This is especially important for large field forces such as pharma, where a very large number of influencers are being targeted and sales compensation is computed based on terabytes of external data! Good incentive compensation (IC) plans combined with well administered execution can motivate the sales force and drive the right behaviors to align with corporate goals. But how do we know if the measures we’ve selected contribute to an intelligent incentive plan design?

Pharmaceutical companies spend a substantial amount of money on sales & marketing (S&M). One recent article noted the top 10 pharma companies spent $98.3 billion on S&M in 2013¹. Internal pharma company commercial operations units (skill center functions that support and connect S&M) spend substantial time and resources along with their consulting company partners to measure the return on investment (ROI) and effectiveness of S&M spending. Likewise, academic marketing scholars have also focused a great deal of attention researching the life sciences (encompassing companies in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical devices).

In US, approximately 100,000 pharmaceutical sales reps are pursuing some 830,000 pharma prescribers. Physicians are the most important component in pharma sales and a sales rep usually has a target list of more than 120 physicians to be visited in a typical 3 weeks cycle. Organizations and the management have always acknowledged the absolute importance of Call Planning, which has now well integrated into the planning and execution of the pharmaceutical sales forces.