Case Analysis: Laurs & Bridz

(L&B)
 Why CRM in the Pharma Sector?
The salesforce in the Pharma sector collects a comprehensive range of data related
to Physicians, retail pharmacies and distributors. However, the inability to extract
useful information and insights from such large data sets puts L&B at a great
distinct disadvantage.

CRM solutions can strengthen L&B’s relationships with all its stakeholders and help
increase the salesforce efficiency and effectiveness.

It is critical for L&B to focus less on “product profitability” and more on “customer
profitability”.
CRM could provide benefits at different levels of L&B.
1) Salesforce Level: Design and monitor activities of sales reps on a daily basis,
prepare call sheets with optimum travel plans, improve effectiveness of different
sales calls, ensure customer call pipeline management and analyze opportunities.
 Why CRM in the Pharma Sector?
2) Physician Level: Gather information about Physician’s product preferences,
prescription habits, meeting times, personality traits, birthdates, preference for
different promo materials.
Segment Physicians according to criteria such as # of patients, type of patients (low vs
high income), affliation with medical associations, regions (rural, urban).
Enhance Physicians’ practice-oriented insights to assist in prospecting and targeting.
Increase the number of prescriptions and customer loyalty
3) Retail Pharmacy: Collect information about purchase patterns, stock cycles thereby
achieving accurate demand forecasting.
Profile pharmacies based on consumption patterns and in-store competitive activities.
Develop jointly with pharmacies collaborative promotional campaigns for ne and
existing products to ensure cost-effectiveness and competitive advantage.
 Why CRM in the Pharma Sector?
Assist in managing complaints from the distribution network and chemists through
consolidated repository.
 Impact of L&B’s CRM Initiatives
Direct Effects: Increased sales revenue from Physicians based on an increase in the # of
prescriptions.
Better segmentation and targeting of customers
Increased revenue due to better availability of products at retailers and stockists
Increased customer satisfaction, retention, equity and repeat buying
Better SCM due to increased efficiency as a result of more accurate forecasts, lower
levels of stockouts at retail level
Increased Sales rep productivity
Indirect Effects: Increased brand equity,
Increased WOM,
Leading customers acting as ambassadors leading to customer loyalty
Development of joint promotional campaigns
 What should be the rationale for L&B in choosing the CRM?

Budgeting is a key activity in the Pharma sector and covers 2 components –

promotions and R&D. Further, Pharma is subjected to changing legal requirements,
limited medical patents and the need to maintain long-term relationships with
many stakeholders.
Good CRM systems can facilitate maintenance of these relationships through
contact tracking, Cloud-based data management and customization. Further with
on-the-move sales rep using mobile devices they need real-time data support for
their devices.
So L&B needs a CRM infrastructure with basic features comprising of sales pipeline
management, customer tracking, mobile CRM, real-time data sharing and cloud
support.
Pros and Cons of CRM Alternatives -- Financials
 CRM Implementation Plan
L&B has a sales force of 80 employees who contact 15000 physicians, carrying and
forwarding agents, pharmacy retailers and stockists. The plan’s success is
predicated on several factors such as the following.
1) Readiness of the sales reps: L&B should have the reps buy-in before
implementing the CRM solution.
2) Infrastructure readiness: L&B should purchase appropriate hardware – servers,
mobile tablets, network connectivity tools, and so on
3) Should analyze existing data and reporting formats. Conduct data clean up –
eliminate duplicates and other redundancies and ensure seamless migration with
the new CRM software.
4) Training: Appropriate and adequate training of the end-user is a must to avoid
failures or delays. Sales reps must be trained in all facets of the CRM software.
Continuous and timely IT support must be ensured to assure success.
 CRM Implementation Plan
5) Management support: Support from both line and top-management is critical.
Efforts should be made that the Sales reps do not feel that use of the CRM is onerous.
Incentives should be provided to enhance the intensity of use.
6) Implementation strategy – Sprinkler or Waterfall: In the Sprinkler strategy, L&B will
implement the CRM simultaneously in several different sales territories. It may be
rolled out to all sales people at the same time to avoid dissonance. This may also
provide cost savings.
In the Waterfall strategy, the implementation is sequenced or phased. Start with reps
who are keen to adopt and are tech-savvy. They are early adopters who can help and
convince other reps. This would be less expensive and disruptive if minor changes are
needed in the modules after implementation has begun.

Irrespective of which strategy is preferred, it would be wise for L&B to consider in a

systematic way the cost implications of the 2 implementation strategies.
 Implementation Challenges
Integration of people, processes and technology are the key pillars of successful CRM
implementation. Effectively implementing CRM solution enables firms to increase
customer retention and strengthen customer loyalty.
1) Low-user involvement: Resistance to change by the reps leads to low user
involvement and this is responsible for about 70% of CRM failures. To reduce this
problem, involve sales rep from each territory in all phases of CRM selection and
implementation.
2) Failure to analyze existing sales and customer management systems: The firm
needs to know where it stands and where it is headed. Management needs to
understand where gaps exist and areas that need improvement.
3) Poor Data Quality: Unchecked and poor quality data lead to poor customer
management, poor and inadequate forecasting and distorted strategic decisions.
Maintaining clean and accurate database is essential for CRM success. Make data-
entry process convenient for sales reps.
 Implementation Challenges
4) Lack of trust by Sales reps: Many sales reps keep key info about contacts,
customers in their head and do not want to put in a central database and lose
control.
5) No pilot testing: Implementing CRM systems are more complicated than most
realize. It is always better to run a trial with a few sales reps to understand the
problems.
6) Inadequate training: This effects both the readiness of the users and ease of
implementation.
7) Inadequate Management support: This signals low commitment on the part of
the firm.
8) Political Friction: Inter-departmental friction with IT and others could be
detrimental to the success of the implementation effort.
9) Implementation Costs should not be underestimated.
L&B decided to pursue CRM suite (small and home office) of CRM Next with
implementations in the west (Jan 2018), south in 2019 an din the east in 2020.