The commercial team had lost its leadership position and sales momentum for a portfolio of brands within a category they once led. One recently launched flagship brand was highly profitable for the organization and had a strong dataset to support favourability over alternative competitor brands in a crowded and highly competitive market. However, it had fallen significantly short of its goals and flatlining in share.
The organization had undergone a shift in recent years which led to a very conservative mindset which was highly risk-averse and siloed. This mindset eroded the strong sense of accountability, urgency, collaboration and competitiveness team members once had.
Create a positive values-based culture of innovation and competitiveness built on an aligned vision of what “could be”, together with an entrenched belief and confidence in the brand. Build master-level expertise and accountability through KPI tracking with respect to brand positioning and data across all team members.
Returned the flagship brand to growth with 30% CAGR over the next 4 years, and a highly engaged team.
Cancer clinics were excited about the introduction of the drug we were preparing to launch given its very strong and compelling data. The clinic HCPs however, had very real concerns regarding their ability to offer it to patients given the time and complexity around its administration requirements. Patients required significant chair time, however, these clinics were already at capacity.
Clinic patient flow and operations were complex. Clinic processes and drug protocols required input, alignment and coordination across numerous hospital stakeholders. Embedding changes or new processes to incorporate a new and complex drug offering would be challenging.
Our team members worked collaboratively with various hospital stakeholders to understand the key issues and requirements to enabling the uptake and integration of our new treatment into clinic processes.
A check-list with the criteria for adoption was derived from these focus groups and provided to the customer-facing teams. The teams were then tasked with ensuring these criteria for adoption were assessed and overcome at each clinic.
By launch, the majority of clinics across Canada had prepared and successfully implemented the new processes and protocols that allowed the efficient integration of patients prescribed the new treatment within their existing programs.
The team achieved their full year goals three months ahead of plan.
Despite a very significant investment in a sizeable in-person field force, this mature and highly profitable brand was declining in sales and share. Shifting enterprise-level priorities and declining brand performance would warrant a reduction in the promotional investment in this brand moving forward.
Lack of clarity in segmentation strategy, performance metrics and marketing objectives.
We had to completely rethink and revise the go-to-market model into something much more lean and efficient, while also revising the brand strategy.
We reduced our sales force investment by 70% by converting to a fully virtual selling model, while at the same time, revamping the brand strategy (including the segmentation strategy). Lastly, we created a portfolio of content that was digital-first and aligned with the new brand strategy.
Despite the significant reduction in investment, this mature brand reversed course and grew 13% CAGR over the next 4 years.
Moreover, our test-and-learn mindset and practices, together with the creation of impactful digital tools and fit-for-purpose sales training led to a significant increase in the duration of each HCP engagement.
The brand was stagnating in performance in a category with a very large potential customer base. Moreover, rep feedback was consistent and strong: their assigned target lists of HCPs often skewed significantly from their own knowledge and experience of customer activity/productivity within their territories. HCPs who should be on their lists were absent, and the corollary was also true.
Customer segmentation was done very infrequently due the significant costs of data purchases and analytics. There was also a barrier in the lack of agility required in updating databases and customer lists on a more frequent basis.
In a crowded and dynamic market, out-dated customer lists were proving ineffective in accurately identifying new, or growing customers that would deliver results. Reps felt conflicted with the desire to address the needs of customers they knew to be drivers, or potential drivers, of their business, while also having to meet the KPIs set out by their commercial leaders.
Implement an AI-powered platform that delivered virtually real-time dynamic segmentation based on current prescribing data. In being the first in Canada to launch this sales-focused AI platform at scale (and preceding the global launch of AI and ChatGPT for use by the general public) we needed to take extra steps to invest in training numerous internal stakeholders on the concept behind AI, and then roll-out the platform to the sales team.
Sales team members immediately recognized the improved alignment between their own territory intelligence and the new HCP lists being generated through the platform.
Sales team member usage of the dynamic segmentation model outputs correlated positively with territory performance.
The platform contributed an incremental 10% lift in brand sales after year 1.
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