ZS Associates

Issue

A large US pharmaceutical sales organization had a complex resource allocation challenge: each of its thousands of sales representatives needed to target roughly 25% of the customers from a list of practicing physicians. Despite the marketing team’s clear guidelines on which physicians to target, the sales reps were only covering about 15% of the list.

Results

After about 12 months, the targeting efficiency of the field sales representatives improved by roughly 40% and sales increased significantly. Sales force behaviors that had previously appeared irrational were instead recognized as the real-world dilemma of a complex customer set. The field sales organization stopped rejecting marketing guidelines and the marketing teams stopped criticizing the field organization for calling on the wrong customers. This initiative started a pattern of better cooperation between marketing and the sales force that went on to benefit many other initiatives.

Approach

The marketing team’s research into customer segmentation and valuation was extended to reflect many nuances present in the modern pharmaceutical sales territory: physician group practices, restricted customer access, pre-existing customer relationships, third party payer influence, and the team dynamics of shared customer responsibility. ZS produced a base call plan reflecting the full set of dynamics and proposing a solution for each territory—showing how a well informed sales person would work the geography to maximize sales and incentive payouts. The salespeople were then invited to review and shape the plan before implementation. This process of engaging the field further refined the targeting plan and transferred ownership from marketing to the field sales organization. Greater understanding generated a better call plan, which drove much better execution.