With the Second Wave hitting India, customers (patients and physicians) will continue to socially distance themselves in the foreseeable future. Pharma must use the field force for reach and relationship and digital for frequency and personalised content for better customer experience.
The pandemic has made doctors adopt Telehealth in a substantial way to shore up their revenues and this will continue to be one of their channels to engage patients. Telehealth along with EMR/EHR, digital therapeutics and wearables is enabling doctors to better care for their patients. There are many ways in which pharma can support the digital evolution of doctors.
After settling down comfortably into my seat on a flight from Chicago to San Francisco, I started browsing through my digital copy of the latest issue of The Economist. Much to my surprise, I saw an article titled, The Usefulness of Managers beginning with the sentence, "Is your manager really necessary?"
Bingo!!! My mind went back to so many discussions we keep having about our Indian Pharma industry and the various arguments about line management and their contributions, role clarity, their usefulness and the often-asked question, “Are they really effective?”
When the top leadership says, that effective managers are a rare breed with comments such as, “they are the weakest link in our chain”, my mind keeps racing through with the thought as to, “if they are not, who has to be responsible to make them effective?”
Having been a line manager and climbing the ladder against odds, I can understand and empathise with both sides of this management world.
However, when these doubts and questions keep raising its head often, my curiosity quotient kept raising a question, “Are we in Indian pharma very unique to have such challenges?” A chance meeting I had with a team of Google senior management personnel based in Google’s headquarters in California during this trip gave me an interesting insight on what Google did and what it continues to do.
Much to my solace I found that their apprehensions were similar to what we in Indian Pharma face. The differentiating factor was that their "people operations" team (HR) has applied the Google Way (data analytics) to management analysis and developed a manifesto entitled Eight Habits of Highly Effective Google Managers.
How long before digital Unicorns like Ola, Swiggy, Pharmeasy, and many others realize the humongous opportunity of delivering health care at the doorstep?
Imagine an app like Ola, where instead of entering where you want to go, you enter the nature of your medical need/emergency and search and find a range of hospitals/doctors/paramedics who can act as the first responders and reach your home in an ambulance or a motorbike with an HCP as a pillion rider with all necessary equipment from the thermometer to defibrillator depending on the nature of the medical care needed and triage and route you/your loved ones to the nearest hospital with an indicative cost of treatment in partnership with health insurance companies?
Articles by K. Hariram, Pankaj Mehrotra, Rinkesh Shah, Gopal Kishore, Amaninder S. Dhillon, Ramandish Arora, Mohit Kumar Bhutani, Richa Goyal, and Mahendra Kumar Rai
GST Special Issue carrying an interview with Sunil Attavar - CMD, Group Pharma and President, Karnataka Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Manufacturers Association (KDPMA)
There was a phase when the industry feared that digital would eventually replace the medical sales representative but it appears that digital engagements work best when facilitated by an affable and knowledgeable person, who can personalize the information, and the conversation, to the doctor. In pharma, there’s no substituting face-to-face dialogue it seems. And why should it?
“Rather than digital replacing a person in pharma, the need of the hour is digitalizing the approach of person. The person and the technology are HERE TO STAY”, says Archis Joshi, Commercial Head at Dr. Reddy’s.
The sales role is getting tougher. Medical information, at one point pharma’s greatest value, is today much more freely available than it used to be. In the Indian market which is dominated by generic medicines lacking differentiation, simply informing doctors about the product, isn’t a viable prospect any more when it comes to piquing their interest.
“Why are brands that have been around for some time still unable to cross the marketing funnel and are still stuck at either the ‘awareness’ or the ‘interest’ stages, and unable to move towards the ‘purchase’ or ‘recommendation’ stages?” wonders Mehul Shukla, Director, Marketing Excellence at Cipla.
DigiStorm 2018 was held on 11 September at the Lalit Ashok in Bangalore. The event was headlined by Prabir Jha – President & Global Chief People Officer, Cipla. K. Hariram gives us the highlights from the pre-lunch session.
DigiStorm 2018 kicked-off with an enthralling keynote address by Prabir Jha, President & GCHRO at Cipla. Prabir Jha challenged pharma business leaders with the thought provoking statement, “Digital is not just another technology, it is a mind-set.”
Prabir Jha set the tone for the day’s deliberations on Intent, Strategy, Content and Skills needed to bring about digital transformation, by asking Indian Pharma leaders to go beyond merely flirting with digital, not knowing where to begin and where to end, and getting lost in between. Instead, digital adoption should begin with contextualising it to Indian Pharma’s unique needs.
While pharma is known to be a laggard in adopting newer ways of doing business, Prabir Jha asked what would Indian Pharma leaders use digital for – to leverage it for incremental gains or use it for disruptive innovation?
The right question he said was not, “Can digital help us? But are we willing to help ourselves.” Going further he said, “If we are agreed that digital is indeed transformational, then how can we rethink, re-imagine and re-purpose our business models?
The right question he said was not, “Can digital help us? But are we willing to help ourselves.” Going further he said, “If we are agreed that digital is indeed transformational, then how can we rethink, re-imagine and re-purpose our business models?
While the doctor remains central to healthcare business, the rapid changes in the world makes it imperative for pharma companies to become patient-centric. Patients are becoming more and more informed, thanks to the ubiquitous nature of the digital world, and neither doctors nor pharma can afford to ignore the information-powered patients.
Patient-centricity is to move beyond conventional marketing approaches of monitoring market shares, which are often more than a month old. Patient-centricity involves moving into therapy-shaping and disease management, wherein the patient, physician, payors and pharma collaborate and cooperate in enabling patients to live healthier and happier lives.
Pharma must see the interlinking between patients, physicians and payors and ask, where and what are the problems? And only then, move to digital transformation to solve these carefully identified problems through newer business models.
Prabir Jha emphasised that while issues of privacy are important, by mapping the patient’s journey and examining the inter-relations between patients, physicians and payors, pharma can gain important insights that can help it to rethink, re-imagine and re-purpose pharma business models from the current redundant and static ways of doing business to one that is relevant to changing times and aspirations of patients and physicians.
Are Indian Pharma business leaders listening?
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Star Attraction of DigiStorm 2018 -Prabir Jha, President & Global Chief Human Resource Officer at Cipla, challenged Indian Pharma leaders to adopt the digital mindset with a thought provoking Keynote Address
K Hariram, former Managing Director of Galderma India and Chief Mentor at MedicinMan, moderates the CEO Roundtable on Digital in Pharma
Deep Bhandari on Future of Work – Although organizations put technology in the spotlight in the future of work, it is, in fact, human capital that holds the greatest value for organizations now and in the future
Salil Kallianpur, DigiStorm 2018, workshop leader sets the tone for the day-long deliberations
Anup Soans, Editor @ MedicinMan setting the tone for interaction between digital service providers in healthcare and pharma executives
The CEO Roundtable at DigiStorm 2018
Hariram Krishnan, former Managing Director of Galderma India and Chief Mentor at MedicinMan sets the tone for Intent and Strategy – Digital in Pharma
A photo-op – DigiStorm faculty with Ms. Kamini Sharma, General Manager Marketing – International Operations at Micro Labs based in the Philippines
An interactive session with queries and insights from participants
MedicinMan Chief Mentor, Hariram Krishnan, with fellow CEOs, Raghu and Sunil Attavar
A big Thank You to Prabir Jha for delivering the Keynote at DigiStorm 2018
Raghu Kumar, former Managing Director at Allergan presents memento to PV Sankar Dass
DigiStorm 2018 – full house at The Lalit Ashok
Nitin Dhope from Lupin has a question for the faculty…
Curatio Healthcare team – present in full strength with their CEO, PV Sankar Dass
Harish Jain, Secretary of KDPMA &
Director at Embiotic Laboratories
Amit Bhakri, Business Unit Head, Specialty Care at AstraZeneca
PV Sankar Dass, CEO of Curatio Healthcare shares insights from their digital initiatives.
Curatio Healthcare team – fine tuning their digital approach
Faculty and participants at DigitStorm 2018
Digital entrepreneurs interact with pharma business leaders
Time to meet mentors and friends – MVSMA Raja with PV Sankar Dass
Many thanks to Sunil Attavar and Harish Jain of KDPMA for making DigiStorm 2018 happen in Bengaluru
Dr. Karthik Anantharaman, Business Unit Head (Metabolics/Branded Formulations/Biosimilars) at Biocon
The MedicinMan journey – from 2011 to now – making a difference to Indian Pharma…
Vivek Sharma, Sales Training Head at Allergan is all smiles at the whiff of aromatic soup
DigitStorm participants enjoy the spread at The Lalit Ashok
Debashish Bannerjee, Chief Compliance Officer at Juggat Pharma chats up with Sathyanarayanan R, Chief Marketing Officer at Group Pharma
Dr. Pankaj Gursahani, Director, Sales Training at AstraZeneca answering audience in his inimitable way – insight with humor.
Deep Bhandari, Member, Editorial Board at MedicinMan, moderates the session on Future of Work.
Time for a little fun and exercise to beat the post prandial inertia. Anup Soans takes participants on an African Safari
Time for a little fun and exercise to beat the post prandial inertia. Anup Soans takes participants on an African Safari
MVSMA Raja, Vice President at Dr. Reddy’s Labs shares insights from their global digital initiatives
Salil Kallianpur, Principal Consultant at Digital Transformation Lab and Executive Editor at MedicinMan sets the Context for Content – Digital in Pharma
A selfie moment – “I came all the way from the Philippines to listen to you” says, Ms Kamini Sharma to Prabir Jha, President & Global Chief Human Resource Officer at Cipla
A pleasure to welcome Suresh Subramanian, Head of South Asia, Branded Formulation at Biocon, a veteran business leader with deep insights into pharma business
Amlesh Ranjan, Deputy Director, Superspecialty at Sanofi India, speaks on his journey from Medical Rep at Navada, Bihar to SFE & Market Access and now Business Leader on a global stage
Harish Jain, Secretary of KDPMA &
Director at Embiotic Laboratories presenting memento to S. Varadarajan, Vice President, Corporate L&D at Micro Labs
Harish Jain, Secretary of KDPMA &
Director at Embiotic Laboratories presenting memento to Dr. Pankaj Gursahani, Director, Sales Training at AstraZeneca.
Harish Jain, Secretary of KDPMA &
Director at Embiotic Laboratories presenting mementos to Deep Bhandari and panel members, Jiten Karani, S. Varadarajan and Pankaj Gursahani.
Milan Hoogan, VP Sales & Marketing, Erfolg Life Sciences – Our mission is to create an “United Ecosystem” of Physicians, Pharma Marketers, Bio Technology Companies, Manufacturers, Distributors, Retailers and Consumers, enabling seamless communication & collaboration amongst them, thereby transforming the marketing landscape by providing higher Market Access, Sales Penetration and facilitating Better Healthcare for Patients.
http://www.erfolglifesciences.com/
Ms. Madhubala Radhakrishnan, founder & president at mCURA speaks on how mCURA, India’s first technology platform that converts desk services into integrated mobility services to covers end-to-end patient experience in OPD.
http://mcura.com/
Sunil Attavar, President of KDPMA and CMD of Group Pharma, signing off the certificates for the participants
Participants from across India and overseas attended DigiStorm 2018
DigiStorm 2018 Faculty – Who’s Who of Indian Pharma
