Advice You - Business

CRM. When you really take a good look at the concept, customer relationship management (CRM) means different things to different people and different organizations.

On a broad level, CRM focus relies heavily on executing a solid sales strategy through sales opportunity management, customer i

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

nsight and behavior and marketing performance.

Some organizations use CRM’s to gather their prospects, nurture leads over time and respond to those prospects. Others use it to help them attract, convert, leverage and retain their customers... for as long as they can fulfill their needs.

The

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

bottom line with CRM’s is this. While there are many CRM solutions on the market (a $5.7 Billion dollar industry – Source: Gartner Dataquest, June 2006), so many of them don’t really work and won’t work for your organization.

The fact is that using CRM as a strategy still means diffe

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

ent things to different organizations and your wants and needs should be reflected in every aspect of your solution.

If you want marketing insight, then your system needs to be able to deliver automated emails, on a schedule. For the marketing professional, having a consistent and auto-pilot

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

method to deliver 30 to 40 incremental “touches” per year is important. However, for the Sales Manager, the ability to predict the business with sales and pipeline metrics is their critical take-away.

Correct data gathering and recording is vital to any successful implementation. The old a

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

age... “garbage in/garbage out” is such an important concept and the success of your strategy can be observed by how ‘real’ the information is that your people put into your system.

When deciding on which solution is right for you – consider your business rules and methodologies and use them

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

to serve as your blueprint for how you want your system to work.

If the solution doesn’t match, don’t settle. There are vendors that can provide a custom solution for you using a proven platform. Because of their development platform, they can easily customize a system that meets your criti

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

al business needs, rapidly. A solid development platform allows them the flexibility to give you exactly what you want. Again, there is no need to settle.

Here are probably the five greatest benefits you can expect when you have the right CRM solution working for you and your orga

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

ization:

1. Customer tracking in every interaction they have with your company, regardless of mode of communication. This allows you to better anticipate their needs and get a complete view of how prospects are coming to you and how they view you. This undeniably leads to: a. Improved

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

ales rep/sales force productivity and effectiveness b. Improved access to customer profiles and information / analytical tools c. Allows each contact to really be an opportunity to sell. Each contact/prospect can have multiple levels of Opportunity tracking, from individual to company-wide

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

nd access to all stages of the sales timeline. d. Improved communication company-wide, specifically between sales, marketing and customer service people.

2. Helps you to identify buyer profiles giving you a benchmark of the type of customers you want to target and attract.

3. Drives ROI for

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

both users and customers. Users have instant access to information. Buyers have a good experience with your organization because you ARE connected. You present a unified front. You have your act together. A good CRM will allow you to pool all of your critical data across many departments

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

so that your message remains consistent at every delivery point.

4. Best practices can be leveraged. Marketing processes are automated. Results are gathered in real-time for instant, actionable information.

5. When a salesperson leaves – you are left with a complete database of intelligenc

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

. In the old days when a salesperson left, the knowledge of the customer went with them. Not any more.

When considering the right system for you... pay careful consideration to the following functionalities:

1. Lead, Contact and Account Management

2. Multiple levels of access based

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

on authority

3. Sales forecasting and Opportunity management

4. Competitive Intelligence

5. Marketing Intelligence

6. Automated Email Marketing

7. Key Message & script delivery / Survey-Polling delivery and tracking

8. Administrative support for sales people – expense report reconciliati

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

n, proposal templates, sample delivery, etc.,

9. Inside Sales / Customer Service / Client Management tools

10. Integration with real-time sales information and other back office systems and procedures, such as a fulfillment center or other product/ traffic specific that you may be looking to

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

track.

The last consideration when hiring a vendor or implementing a solution is whether to bring the solution in-house or allow them to host it for you. While there are many benefits to a licensed, in-house solution... a hosted solution should not be quickly dismissed. It’s mission critic

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

l to do the proper planning and due-diligence to ensure that your IT department is up for the task. If they’re not completely ready and able to handle the additional responsibilities – you may be looking at a disaster in the making. On the other hand – if the vendor has the proper qualificat

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

ons and security protocols in place... why not leave the IT stuff to the experts and let them host it for you? In many cases, the initial burden of hosting costs is easily outweighed by not having to manage your system (time and resources) and preventing a potential disaster down the road.

Y

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

ur CRM vendor should be secure enough to manage and ensure the integrity of your data at all times. Your CRM vendor should be flexible enough to give you the exact system that you want. Customization should be their forte.

George Ritacco

Copyright © 2006 George Ritacco (All Rights Reserved

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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What if you knew some skills that could help grow your business faster? One may say it’s all about customer service and how happy your customers are, but there is more to it than that. There are certain skills sets that will help you in growing your business faster. What are they? How can you grow your business faster? How can you spend less time in your business? Do you spend a lot of hours in your business? Do you wish you had employees that did just a portion of the amount of work that you did? Why is it so hard to find staff that will stay in your company and not leave just because of greater pay elsewhere?

Your bookkeeping or accounting system should protect your business from fraud, provide useful information to help you manage your business and make your business more efficient. It should assist you with keeping track of quotes, stock and outstanding debts.

Stop worrying about tomorrow or 6 months from now. Here are 5 things you really can do today to generate significant customer growth down the track.

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