Is this the start of a fundamental shift in our Industry?

So, we're 2+ months into this new reality. Many of us are doing these Veeva Engage meetings - some good, some not so much. Many offices don't do them, and some have said that they're not too sure about allowing reps back into the office - or at least not to have in-person lunches or extended conversations associated with sample visits. Reality is changing for our business, but it's anybody's guess what the new normal will end up being.

From my standpoint at as DM, we're looking at more territory consolidation, combined with an expanded part-time/flex time workforce. Less access 'live' equates to less people needed...and HCPs are becoming more accustomed to remote access with reps.

what's your thoughts?

 

Your really At As a dumb shit.

 

when did less access "live" ever equate to less people needed in the pharmaceutical industry silly? If that was true, there would have been need for hardly any reps after about 1992 or so. The reality is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Pharma has and always will employ literal armies of reps nationwide cuz "that's just what the drug companies do."

Let's face it, they have to keep the corporate welfare flowing for the managers like you and the senior executives especially...so the reps are all part of the charade. (Useful idiots as they say.)

Don't lose sleep over the future Mr. DM man...(or woman.) Yes, a few reps might get shed, and many corporate circle jerk re-orgs will happen, but plentiful drug reps will ALWAYS be a part of the Zeitgeist.

 

My thoughts are let the reps sell and cut the dead weight, managers.

 

this makes sense. middle managers are useless.

 

Not completely...They do serve the one function of being useful idiots to those managers above them...

Basically if a middle manager can fog up a mirror, they get to keep their job for life...

but yeah, they are basically useless...

 

first step is to get rid of the pods. they only exist as a system of check and balances. the bad reps love pods because they don't work hard and love to act like little children, catching their co workers "not working". when the truth is the rat never could sell, and thought the job was about "catching others". its a silly game. those of you that worked in pods most of your career are not good at sales at the end of the day anyway.

 

I'm a sales person in a very niche business unit of a midsize company. I have connections to layers right below the C suite.

The C suite, Marketing and Sales VPs are currently experimenting with marketing taking over some role of sales. They are conducting a large amount of virtual programs with known KOLs with very tepid results. We had a live video presentation in a disease state that has about 7000 specialists last week and only 180 attended.

A few weeks before that we had another virtual program, and marketing sent out 13 emails to providers to build attendance over a 3 week period. Attendance was reasonable, but not spectacular and the amount of spam sent to providers did quite a bit of damage.

So in my business, which is hospital based, we are conducting as many zooms as we can but almost no reps anywhere in the country are doing live in hospital meetings.

The thing is I could manage 2 territories virtually or by zoom because window and airport time is zero, but my business is super niche (15 reps in the US) and connections make a huge difference. The VPs fired a rep a few months back before Covid and the rep they replaced this person with is dead last.....dead last...and 14% to goal for Q2.....has no connections.

In a niche role like mine, relationships matter, so they are basically paying for my connections from the pre-covid world.

I started in primary care 20 years ago. I imagine there will be massive changes in those roles, especially in the 'me too' categories. Contracting will take over. I have a bunch of friends in the business who have been going into non-hospital based clinics lately and not a single one has seen a provider. All closed.

I think this will change the business. The C suite will experiment and cut some territories and compare the sales performance of the non covered territories with the covered territories. If the covered territory more than pays for itself then sales will still be key, if not changes will occur.

Basically...it's TBD by drug, territory, company, stage of the drug in it's life cycle ect.....but yes, for sure substantial changes are coming.......