BEST PRACTICES,®
LLCCopyright© 2006
Pharma Sales Force Effectiveness:
Increasing Productivity Through Streamlined Communication
Strategic Benchmarking Research Presented by Cameron Tew
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LLC
About Our Guest SpeakerCameron Tew is Executive Director of Research for Best Practices, LLC, a global thought leader in the field of best practice performance improvement for companies in the bio-pharmaceutical and healthcare sector.
#1 On Amazon.Com Reader Ratings –
Customer SatisfactionPHARMA
BIOTECH
CRO’s
COMMER-CIAL / R&D
HOSPITALS
MEDICALDEVICES
GROUPPROBLEMSOLVING
Client Sectors
E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] (Ph)(Ph) 919-767-9246919-767-9246
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Benchmark Participants Provide Insight
This drill-down study further probed these critical sales communication issues and opportunities. District managers and sales specialists from 10 different bio-pharmaceutical companies provided insights and observations.
Benchmark Partners
n=18
Q. What therapeutic area do your reps work in?
Cardiovascular21%
Analgesics10%
Growth hormones
6%
HIV/AIDS6%
CNS / Mental Health disease
states6%
Contraception11%
Osteoporosis6%
Anti Infective11%
Ophthalmology6%
Respiratory11%
Cholesterol6%
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High Performance Communication
Why don’t fish swimming in schools ever collide? Schools of fish are the ultimate in fast response. Their communications are instantaneous and travel across multiple sensory channels. Sales organizations must act similarly to achieve the same fast response.
Source: James C. Liao, Department of Organism and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University. (Photo by Laura Farrell)
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Internal Communications: The “Sleeping Giant” of Bio-Pharma Field Sales ProductivityCommunication is a two-way street, involving a sender and receiver. The best sales people are excellent receivers, or listeners. But they also need to be excellent senders, or presenters in order to strengthen corporate sales.
Where can communication break down?Where can communication break down?
CO + RM + DM + SR = FFPCO + RM + DM + SR = FFP
Corporate OfficeCorporate Office
+Regional Manager+Regional Manager
+ District Manager+ District Manager
+ Sales Rep + Sales Rep
= Field Force Productivity= Field Force Productivity
Pharma Co. A
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The client’s annual Productivity Survey indicated that 51% of the U.S. Sales Organization
received too many redundant or unnecessary communications.
27 22
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%
“I receive too many redundant or unnecessary e-mails and voicemails
(Communications).”
Source: Internal Sales Productivity Report
100%
51
UnfavorableNeutralFavorable
Study commissioned to examine field force communications dynamics.
Recommendations to improve field effectiveness and efficiency, increase selling time, and enhance work-life balance.
Sales Communications Case Study
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Insight #1: Sales Forces Face Communications Overload
Field sales communications is a powerful catalyst for productivity gains or losses.
Key Findings
• Reps spend on average 13.7 hours a week managing internal communication (i.e. email, checking voicemail and cell phone calls). Of this time, 4.4 hours (or 32 percent) are perceived as unnecessary.
• Among a group of surveyed district managers, the average time spent per week managing internal communication was 36.5 hours. The District Managers often find themselves processing and filtering unnecessary communications from both corporate and locally from reps.
“You have to think about retaining District managers too, our family time gets cut out with all this communication,” said one interviewed district manager.
• Most managers indicated that unnecessary communications result from redundant messages – the same information communicated through different forms, regional sources, or corporate functions.
• Seventy-four percent of participants estimate that 8 percent or more of the emails their reps receive are redundant in content alone.
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Annual Cost of Poor Communication Shown below are the extrapolated costs of 4.4 hours a week of unnecessary communication for each rep over the course of a year.
•Assuming the average rep loses 4.4 hours a week due to unnecessary communication, that loss adds up to 221 hours per year, per rep. For every 1,000 sales reps a company has, this time lost equals 88.5 full time sales reps.
•Labor Cost of poor communication = 88.5 reps x $80,000 (average fully loaded rep salary) = $7.1 million per 1,000 sales reps
•Sales Opportunity Cost of poor communication = 88.5 reps x $3,500,000 (average yearly sales per rep as reported by benchmarked DMs) = $309.9 million per 1,000 sales reps
$7,083,479
$309,900,500
Labor Cost Sales Opportunity Cost
Annual Cost of Unnecessary Communication per 1000 Sales Reps
For a company with 5,000 sales reps, the
total impact of 4.4 hours a week in
unnecessary communication could
be as high as $1.55B in potential sales lost.
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Hours Spent on Unnecessary CommunicationManagers estimate that their reps spend on average 4.4 hours a week managing unnecessary internal communication. The majority of this time can be attributed to email and the cell phone.
n=15
4.4 hours
Average Hours Spent per Week per Rep on Unnecessary Communications
Email Voicemail Meetings Cell Phone Direct Mail TOTAL
1.2
0.70.5
1.7
0.4
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Insight #2: Small Improvements Do Matter; So Track and Monitor Them
Small productivity changes can produce large gains across time and across the entire field force.
Key Findings
• Clarity of Email and Voicemail Messages: All emails and voicemails should be prefaced with clear and concise headlines such as:
• FYI vs. FYA, Urgent and Action Required
• Shorten Emails and Voicemail Messages:
• Email messages should not require too much scrolling. Summarize when possible.
• Voicemail messages should not exceed 1-2 minutes. Strip out multiple introductions on forwarded voicemail messages. Each message should have no more than one introduction.
• Limit volume and frequency of Emails and Voicemails to the field force. Set a maximum limit on daily or weekly emails and voicemails can be set. The frequency for sharing field success stories can be streamlined with weekly or monthly emails or voicemails to maximize impact.
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Weekly Communication Time
5.5 Hrs
4 Hrs
6 Hrs
2.5 Hrs1.5 Hr 19.5 Hrs19.5 Hrs
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
E-mail Voicemail Cell Phone Meetings Direct Mail Total
20
About 80% of Total Time
Front-line Field service and sales staff spent 50% of their time each week mired in communications.
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Voicemail Effectiveness:1. Voicemail Effectiveness
• Remove all serial introductions
• Clear summaries guidelines
2. E-mail Effectiveness• Remove reply to all• Clear instructions
3. Training support• DM training on
communications• Reposition
communications as productivity tool in corporate culture
BrevityBrevity
Clear Actions or Meaning
FocusedFocusedMessageMessage
Clarity of MessageClarity of Message
Well Planned Introductions
Simple Changes Have Giant Impact
Piloted Changes
From more than 40 improvement observations from field work, we piloted a few simple changes to build the case for change to a $25 billion “economic engine.”
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Table of Contents
IntroductionExecutive SummaryAssessment of Internal Communications
• Introduction•Time Spent per Week on Internal Communication•Sources of unnecessary communication
• Under-Communicated Content• Analyzing Communication Flows From Regional vs. Headquarters Sources• The cost of poor communication
The Role of the District Manager• Filtering, prioritizing and synthesizing Field Communications• District Managers: The “Air Traffic Controllers” Who Direct Field Communications in A Team Environment• Communication Effectiveness Techniques
•Limit the use of broad-group emails and lists for non-essential business issues.Training Reps to Communicate Effectively
• Overview• Train Reps on Communication Rules of Engagement
How Corporate Can Make a Difference• Overview• Redirecting Information Delivery• Headquarters coordination role to reduce redundancy• Planning and coordinating information delivery and requests
Technological Support for Effective Communication• Sources of Communication in the Field• Aligning Technology, Training and Messages For Communications Effectiveness• Email: Managing A Powerful Tool That Can Steal Time From Field Activities• Phone, Voicemail, and conference calls: Orchestrating Effective Voice Communications
Appendices
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www.best-in-class.comCameron Tew – 919-767-9246
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