With the coronavirus outbreaking wreaking havoc worldwide, it goes without saying that it has also disruped the workflow of organisations.
Due to the prevaiing circumstances, many Indian pharmaceutical companies have asked their sales representatives to work from home.
Pharma executives told Moneycontrol that several doctors' associations and hospitals have asked sales representatives to minimise visits or stop them completely.
India's largest drug maker Sun Pharma which has field force of 9,500 plus sales representatives covering over 400,000 doctors in every nook and corner of the country, said it is encouraging employees in the field globally to work from home.
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"Use of virtual collaboration tools and digital technology is being adopted and wherever necessary, employees are working on rotation to ensure business continuity," Sun Pharma said in a statement.
Mankind Pharma, which has India's largest field force of over 12,000 with deep penetration into small towns, has also taken the same route.
"These are extraordinary times, our first priority is towards ensuring safety of our human resources, business will come next," said a top executive on condition of anonymity.
Cipla is among the companies that has asked its employees to work from home. Its MD & CEO Umang Vohra tweeted:
Recently, we rolled out several #COVID19 precautionary measures like work from home mandates, so that most of our associates are confined to the safety of their homes. However, we at Cipla are cognizant of larger responsibility to patients. (1/2)— Umang Vohra (@Vohra_Umang) March 18, 2020
Multinationals like Glaxosmithkline Pharmaceuticals (GSK) too have asked their employees including sales representatives to work from home.
According to McKinsey report it is estimated that there around 300,000-350,000 sales representatives in the country. They constitute about 70-80 percent of the workforce in many organisations.
Indian pharmaceutical companies employ thousands of sales representatives - the foot soldiers who knock at the doors of doctors in clinics and hospitals, to promote products and generate prescriptions.
The field force are imperative in the Rs 1.4 trillion Indian pharmaceutical market dominated by branded generics, representing more than 80 percent of total sales.
Going digital
Typically a day of sales representative starts with the daily calls (meetings) with clients or doctors according to the specialty assigned to them. On visiting the doctor, the sales rep pitches the sample and the product.
Depending on how the call goes, the 'sale' is made. In other words, the doctor agrees to prescribe the medicine.
The representative later verifies with local chemist or distributor whether the doctor is prescribing the medicine or not. The sales representative will update all his meetings in the digital portal of his company.
His incentives depend on how many calls he is able to make and the sales outcome for a particular product. The sales representative is also monitored on the quality of interaction he had with the physician.
Now with the representatives working from home, companies have asked them to use digital channels to communicate with doctors.
Calls on digital channels include telephonic or video calls like Skype as per the convenience of doctors.
To be sure, companies have been investing on digital to monitor sales force productivity. This is now coming to their rescue now.
The representatives have to make more calls on digital compared to face-to-face calls to doctors, to earn their incentives.
The companies however say that the effectiveness of a digital call and traceability is something the industry is still working to figure out.
"The digitalisation is still in evolutionary phase," the executive said.
Companies say that COVID-19 preventive measures will have bearing on new launches and hiring of sales people in the short term.
Manufacturing unaffected
The manufacturing operations of pharma companies remain unaffected due to the virus.
The companies say that they have specific instruction from the government not to stop manufacturing.
"Most of our plants are using infrared thermometers to check temperature of all employees on a daily basis apart from conducting random health checks on the shop floor. Appropriate hygiene and safety measures are implemented along with regular awareness drives for employees to stay safe and healthy,” Sun Pharma spokesperson said.
"We assess the situation in terms of availability of raw materials, but we haven't stopped manufacturing ," the above executive said.
On positive side pharma companies say they are seeing higher sales as people are stocking up on medicines fearing shortages in coming days.
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