Sales Targeting

As the healthcare industry moves toward a value-based paradigm, the healthcare environment is becoming increasingly complex with emerging market influencers. Rising healthcare costs and reforms are tilting the balance of power toward payers and provider networks.

This tri-blog series delves into the need, challenges, requisites and approaches to implementing an effective global segmentation & targeting (S&T) strategy in the life sciences industry. The upside of a standardized S&T strategy has been discussed in detail in the first blog of this series. This second blog focusses on the components of a global S&T strategy needed for its success and dives into some best practices for implementation.

The tri-blog series delves into the need, challenges, and approaches to implementing an effective global segmentation & targeting strategy. The first part of the blog discusses the inherent challenges and why companies need a standardized approach and its benefits.

The pharmaceutical marketing landscape has changed significantly due to the emergence of several types of “health systems” (e.g., ACOs, IDNs, IHNs, etc.), and the multiple physicians, clinics, and hospitals affiliated to these organizations. Most companies have well-established methodologies to calculate the potential of individual accounts but, since there are potential overlaps within different accounts, it is difficult to measure the potential at a health system level. It is this point that prompted the thought for this topic.

In continuation with the three earlier PMSA Webinars delivered on Commercial Operations, Axtria delivered its fourth insightful webinar on Sales Targeting & Call Planning, which shed light on the detailed tactical steps undertaken as a part of sales and marketing execution. The session conducted by Axtria experts covered typical approaches and techniques, key decisions involved and typical benefits of Call Planning exercise in an environment increasingly impacted by parameters like shrinking sales forces, reduced physician access, influence migrating from physician to system/payer contracts, etc.

The ‘Golden Thread’ is a metaphor for the decisions, data / analytical processes, technology, and human behavior that link strategy and results. Each bend, twist and cut of the thread reduces the quality of the gold delivered at the end of the process. How do organizations lose sight of the ‘Golden Thread’?