the seven levers of sales and marketing performance

WHITE PAPER: SALES & MARKETING

April 2014: The seven levers of sales and marketing performancethat drive sales growth and deliver sustainable competitive advantage

Sales & Marketing 2

A white paper from IMS Health. April 2014.

The 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 segmentationWe 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. As are the top 10% of the profiled universe, Bs the next 20% and Cs 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).

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’.

MARKET VALUELOW HIGH

BRA

ND

VA

LUE

LOW

HIG

H

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 segmentWe 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. As need 12 details p.a., Bs need 10 and Cs 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.

Sales & Marketing 4


3. Customer-weighted portfolio valueA 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.


BRA

ND

VA

LUE

LOW

HIG

H

MARKET VALUE

Dr Black

LOW HIGH

BRA

ND

VA

LUE

LOW

HIG

H


BRA

ND

VA

LUE

LOW

HIG

H

BRAND A BRAND B BRAND C

Dr Blue

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).

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 approachMany 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.

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 implementationA 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).

CALLS (MAT)A B C All

Required

In this example, calls by customer segment are shown (stacked bar) and a black line (|) depicts the required calls to achieve the brand strategy (based on call frequency objectives to each target segment).

As seen here, the number of calls needed to achieve the brand plan is physically impossible.

• 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.

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 signi�cant point of leverage that is often overlooked is the value of the target audience. No amount of resource can signi�cantly drive sales from customers with little or no value.

By comparison, carefully planned and executed resource to high value customers will provide a signi�cantly 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 structureA 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.

Sales & Marketing 7


7. Performance monitoring and incentivesWe 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 visually demonstrates a forced number of targets per territory (dark blue bars in column 2 are all equal), versus calls to targets and non-targets and required calls per territory (column 3), and shows the disconnect of this forced approach versus brand sales and therapy area sales in the last two columns.

ABOUT

IMS Health Commercial Effectiveness Services provide the healthcare industry with strategic sales and marketing consulting and outsourced performance management services to help clients optimise sales and marketing performance.

CONTACT

David Ledger Principal, Commercial Effectiveness Services, ANZ Direct: +61 2 9805 6903 Mobile: +61 419 764 881 Email: [email protected]

ABOUT IMS HEALTHIMS Health is a leading worldwide provider of information, technology, and services dedicated to making healthcare perform better. With a global technology infrastructure and unique combination of real-world evidence, advanced analytics and proprietary software platforms, IMS Health connects knowledge across all aspects of healthcare to help clients improve patient outcomes and operate more efficiently. The company’s expert resources draw on data from nearly 100,000 suppliers, and on insights from 39 billion healthcare transactions processed annually, to serve more than 5,000 healthcare clients globally. Customers include pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer health manufacturers and distributors, providers, payers, government agencies, policymakers, researchers and the financial community. Additional information is available at www.imshealth.com

IMS AUSTRALIA LEVEL 5, CHARTER GROVE, 29-57 CHRISTIE STREET, ST LEONARDS NSW 2065© 2014 IMS Health Incorporated and its affiliates. All rights reserved. Trademarks are registered in the United States and in various other countries. FD14060-0414

IMS HealthEUROPE & WORLDWIDE 210 Pentonville Road London N1 6JY United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)20 3075 5888

THE AMERICAS IMS Health 200 Campus Drive Collegeville, PA 19426 USA Tel: +1 610 244-200

ASIA-PACIFIC 8 Cross Street #21-01/02/03 PWC Building Singapore 048424 Tel: 65-6227-3006

JAPAN Toranomon Towers Office 4-1-28 Toranomon, Minato-ku Tokyo 105-0001 Japan Tel: 81-3-5425-9000

For all office locations, visit: www.imshealth.com/locations

the seven levers of sales and marketing performance

Healthcare