Everybody Hates Pharma

Episode 20-Audio
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[00:00:00] Stefan Repin: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Today, we have another episode of the Pharma Sales and Tech Podcast. Our guest today is coming all the way from India. Her name is Snehal Gholap, and she has wide industry experience. I cannot highlight this enough. Currently she's working for Pfizer, but she's worked for many different international brands, [00:01:00] and she works as an accounting brand manager.

[00:01:03] Stefan Repin: I think there would be some more details that Snehal can cover. And I will let her do her intro herself. Welcome to the podcast, Snehal.

[00:01:14] Snehal Gholap: Hey, thank you, Stefan. And thank you for this great opportunity and allowing me to share this platform with you. So it's almost a decade I'm a part of pharmaceutical industry.

[00:01:25] Snehal Gholap: I got an opportunity to work with four mega pharmaceutical giant companies. I handled 19 comprises

[00:01:41] Snehal Gholap: of both the prescription business as well as OTX one. So that's how about me and my journey.

[00:01:50] Stefan Repin: Cool. Can you well, that was very short. Can you, can you tell us a little bit about your, the positions you have in different companies? And like, why, why did you like working there? Maybe [00:02:00] let's start with that.

[00:02:02] Snehal Gholap: Okay, so I started my journey with Merit Abiotics. It's a nutraceutical company. It's a UK based, number one nutraceutical company. I joined there as a management trainee. It was a wonderful experience. I managed a brand named Wellbumin there. And I also got an opportunity to launch Wellwoman 50 it was in brand extension.

[00:02:23] Snehal Gholap: An excellent opportunity, yeah, to work with. I spent a couple of years there and I moved to CIPLA where I was a senior brand manager. I handled a big portfolio of anti infectives. Post that I worked with Sunpharma wherein my portfolio was quite bigger in size and where I worked on various therapy shaping activities and brands.

[00:02:45] Snehal Gholap: I will soon go. Magsdell, managed OTX business of it and another anti infective, a pain management, a systemic or a vessel protective launch. And that's how almost a journey of approximately three years. Then [00:03:00] I joined Abbott as a group product manager and there again I handled Wymox, Phytox, Azro and set up a branch which come under anti infective portfolios.

[00:03:11] Snehal Gholap: So the continuous engagement and motivation was in learning for me and you know, the experience which I was gaining. And right now it's Pfizer, and here also I'm handling a bucket of anti-infective and I'm into hospital business. We manage the critical care part of it. Yeah. So that's how, okay.

[00:03:33] Snehal Gholap: So my journey is

[00:03:35] Stefan Repin: So as a brand manager, you certainly had them. Maybe marketing or sales tangency, right? To the business. Can you share a specific example of a successful, let's say marketing or sales strategy, a tactic you've implemented in the past, any job that you had worked?

[00:03:54] Snehal Gholap: Okay, Stefan. Yeah, actually, if you ask me one, it will be really difficult [00:04:00] to gauge out, out of multiple experiences.

[00:04:03] Snehal Gholap: But yeah, definitely, I would like to elaborate something which led into a successful outcome. And definitely it was amalgamation of both sales and marketing strategy, which we did for a new launch of our systemic vessel protective. It involved lot amount of pre work into it. And that's the reason why I would like to share that story with you.

[00:04:26] Snehal Gholap: And before starting the story, we were clear on our sales and marketing objective, what exactly we are willing to drive. We made KPIs very clear and they were quantifiable right? We were very clear what kind of a behavioral shift we're trying to drive out of that strategy. Right.

[00:04:44] Snehal Gholap: And and we ran it for a specific time period. It was a time bound. So the very first thing which we did before launching the systemic vessel protective into the market, We identified the key accounts. So usually we name [00:05:00] this activity as potential mapping activity either or we also call it as an R C P A, which is a retail KMS prescription audit.

[00:05:09] Snehal Gholap: You can also name it as in market research survey. So where, we identify the high accounts. Right. So who have got a potential for the brand. So the ones who write my brand or those who write my competitive brand, right. And this is how we define the customers. So basically you segment the market and then you target it based on your need.

[00:05:32] Snehal Gholap: So the low hanging fruit. So obviously the ones who are writing my brands. And the ones who are writing the molecule right? So that was the first step for us. And then we gave the second priority, the ones, those who are not writing my molecules and the ones who completely have a different set of regimen or a line of treatment to treating Systemic Vessel Protective Regiment.

[00:05:56] Snehal Gholap: Right? So that's how we went about [00:06:00] identifying the key potential. I think so this is, you know, really very important for any strategy to be very successful to identify your target. So that was number one step which we did. Apart from that, the second one was creating a personalized content. Okay, which is, I definitely feel as a marketer, which is the need of the hour, right?

[00:06:22] Snehal Gholap: So the one who have a potential or the ones who are rightly prescribing, as I defined after the market analysis and survey, we figured these are the two set of customers on which you know, We will be targeting our promotional sets. The idea was to go a little bit more on to the you know, customized approach.

[00:06:43] Snehal Gholap: So idea is somebody is writing, why he is writing, how he can, if he's giving me an X share out of his entire prescription, how it can go to X plus N plus one. So every day, how do I drag more business from the [00:07:00] existing one? How do I go about consolidating the existing set of my accounts and the prescribers?

[00:07:08] Snehal Gholap: Right. So the, yeah, the idea was giving them the experienced based sale or the communication. So retain the base was prime of AC objective of this set, which we decided. And for the second set. Those who are high potential, for example, they write the molecule, but they don't select my brand as a primary choice.

[00:07:29] Snehal Gholap: So how do we go about stating my USP, creating a unique value proposition about my brand defining the communication, which talks about the differentiation about me in a competition. So yeah. And the result based communication, which talks about the efficacy and the purity of my molecule. Right.

[00:07:49] Snehal Gholap: And that's how we designed our communication. So this was approach number two. The third important thing which we did about is the multi channel engagement. As [00:08:00] the experience which I'm sharing with you, Stefan it is the era when, you know, pandemic wasn't started. So the pre work of the brand, we did prior the lockdown and the time when we are about to launch it it was the era of COVID. I hope you understand the gimmick of the marketing. It changed 360. The way we were too much into the physical, the idea was to go digital and then to physical, how do we combine them together? And then we, you know, went about making the omni channel approach or a multi channel engagement, whatever communication or a strategy we have designed for the promotion of the brand.

[00:08:43] Snehal Gholap: We decided to create multi channel engagement, one on the physical aspect, the other one on the digital aspect.

[00:08:50] Stefan Repin: I have a question. How did you do this technically? How did you make sure that the, the omni channel approach physical and digital are both aligned?

[00:08:58] Stefan Repin: So my first question, [00:09:00] and this other question is how do you make sure? The content you're delivering is fit to the persona that you need to. Okay,

[00:09:08] Snehal Gholap: okay. So going about answering your second question first, how I went about selecting the content of it. The way I mentioned we did a lot of pre work for the brand.

[00:09:20] Snehal Gholap: We did one ad board. It was inclusive of 21 surgeons and 21 general physicians. We understood in which different indications they are writing my brand. What is the current need gap and that need gap analysis study basically we did. And what are the expectations if somebody is coming new into the market, which has got a verbal yeah.

[00:09:44] Snehal Gholap: The origin which is not, you know, very chemical or a synthetic based a natural origin, yet it is effective. And what are your expectations from it? So content was majorly driven on that aspect. So if I have to give you a brief about my market here, [00:10:00] it's much about a surgery driven, right? An idea was to give them something which can be prescribed orally, which acts on the root cause of the disease.

[00:10:11] Snehal Gholap: So one can stop or, you know, Change the duration of the surgery. So that, that was a key customer insight. We figured it out from the Ad Board, from the fieldwork, and from one survey. It was kind of a questionnaire of 21 questions we conducted. It was, yeah, I don't wish to go much deeper on it, but yeah, it was based upon much of an insight from the customer and consumer and the n we derived the communication part of it. Then now as we classified two different sets, the one who are prescribing this and the one who are not prescribing this, we defined our strategies of communication. So one who are prescribing that channel should have a physical engagement where a person is reaching out to them, having frequent calls.[00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Snehal Gholap: I have something in clinic like a studies report, leave behind literatures. So that physical engagement is quite solid in the first set of a group. And second one, who have a high potential and the likelihood of prescribing my brand. We selected that set of a customer for digital approach so that in order to create awareness about my brand, you know, the idea model, how, how does it works and, you know, and then they start making them into a converted customer kind of a thing by email, by social media approach.

[00:11:32] Snehal Gholap: I remember I have conducted near about 25 webinars within a couple of months time. It was really a hot mess though. But we want to us to reach as many customers as possible because that was an advantage of, you know, taking a digital route. The time it takes less and the reach is really maximum.

[00:11:54] Snehal Gholap: And also the infographic messages and GIFs we created, the smaller, smaller contents we started [00:12:00] creating on the brand. And that's how we went about, you know, promoting it and yeah, going it ahead.

[00:12:06] Stefan Repin: Tell me more, please, about the webinars you've conducted. You said you've conducted 21 webinars within two months.

[00:12:11] Stefan Repin: That sounds like a lot.

[00:12:14] Snehal Gholap: Oh, yeah. I understand. So, as I mentioned, we conducted the ad boards initially. So, these ad boards, there were different, you know, the surgeons and physicians which came, Across the nation, they came together. So then, the idea is, as they all belong to all different parts of the nation, they become the key leader speaker and, you know, train the trainer, kind of.

[00:12:42] Snehal Gholap: Once they are pretty aware of my molecule, they are aware of my USPs, I took them as a QUL. They become my key opinion leader, they became my advocate and they drive the brand promotion in their specific region. And then that was being attended by another set of, you know, thousand [00:13:00] doctors down there in their particular local area.

[00:13:03] Snehal Gholap: And that's how the advocacy about the brand was being built digitally.

[00:13:08] Stefan Repin: How about physically, did you approach the doctors personally and thought like, did you give them booklets? How did you go about persuading them?

[00:13:18] Snehal Gholap: Yeah, so idea was first of all to identify the customers and then first one we went about giving the teaser sets, like something is coming which is, which can break the traditional approach of printing ad. Then the second the brand is available in Nearby Chemist, the set of names we went about giving them.

[00:13:41] Snehal Gholap: The third about a welcome kit. The fourth was Monograph. The fifth was the Molecular USPs. Sixth was how it is breaking the monotony of the market and the current treatment options and how it can overcome, you know, the need gap, which is there into the market. [00:14:00] So that's how the series of communication was built in terms of the physical literatures.

[00:14:05] Snehal Gholap: So that's how it was bounded together.

[00:14:09] Stefan Repin: And who was helping you on the physical side of things? Were you connected to the

[00:14:14] Snehal Gholap: Yeah, we have. It was a sales team approximately 500 people down the ground, like they were quite active in promoting it. Once the first lockdown was over, people started joining it.

[00:14:28] Snehal Gholap: Yeah. So that's how, when we started physical approach of the brand promotion, we have a Complete good team of 500 people on the ground and inclusive of first line and second line manager around 150 people out there.

[00:14:47] Stefan Repin: Oh wow. So you literally had to align. Were you the one who aligned the physical and digital strategies together or no?

[00:14:56] Snehal Gholap: Yeah, yeah, the, as rightly [00:15:00] mentioned, aligning was the task, right? So before setting an objective, bringing them all together to a common platform, training them, guiding them, hand holding them, you know, and teaching them what is to be promoted and claimed, it took about a month's period before having an actual launch on the ground.

[00:15:23] Snehal Gholap: Yeah, so training them was the priority first.

[00:15:29] Stefan Repin: I'm thinking, how do you go about like using data and analytics to create and improve your let's say, brand marketing, marketing campaigns, and how do you sort of make them relevant to your HCPs, to your customers, like personalization wise?

[00:15:47] Snehal Gholap: Yeah, sure. So being a part of pharma industry, I understand data is a sacrosanct and there are various levels at which, you know, we understand the data, we dig down and come up with a conclusion.

[00:15:59] Snehal Gholap: [00:16:00] So yeah, first of all, at the customer segmentation, we do the data analysis and data mining. It is very much important, you know, to improve the relevance of the messages, which is going to the doctor. So this segmenting them on the basis of geographic. Demographic approach, acceptance of the molecule, preference, the choices, the behavior, gender, the economic state of the patients.

[00:16:23] Snehal Gholap: Not many things we kept into the parameter. Second was the behavioral analysis, what we did. So it is kind of a perception mapping which we do. So kind of a dipstick analysis, which helps us giving the insight about the differences and choices about selecting the molecule. Third important was the predictive analysis.

[00:16:44] Snehal Gholap: In order to, you know, forecast the number which we are driving for the brand where the market is going, where my competitors are growing. And with the help of the existing growth and the compound annual growth rate [00:17:00] basis on that, where we land in, you know, couple of years or after a decade. And for this financial year, what should be your target?

[00:17:07] Snehal Gholap: And the another set of data mining we did, I think, so it was for a personalized content delivery as we have a very, you know segmented set of data to whom we are taking the brand, depending upon which specialty you're targeting. It is surgeons, it is gastros, or, you know. What should be my communication?

[00:17:28] Snehal Gholap: So that was a time when, you know, we had to understand the data mining of the customer side. Apart from that, we also had a data analysis of competitor analysis. Like you know, we went about understanding the regional variations where the market is strong, where I am strong, where the competitor is weak, that area can be developed.

[00:17:50] Snehal Gholap: So that regional competition analysis was something which, you know, we did in case of data analysis. Apart from that, we also did the ROI [00:18:00] measurement. This is a return on investment. We basically do it in order to understand E by S ratio is your expenses to sales. Because I hope you understand we both being a part of the same industry, we have a stipulated amount of budget for doing anything.

[00:18:16] Snehal Gholap: So how are we fitting into it and yet optimizing it and making best out of it was, you know, something that's the reason that we went about using and crunching much of a data sheets. Then the sales forecasting, yes. Based upon the raw material API, as it was imported and, you know, meeting those timelines, setting the realistic goals.

[00:18:38] Snehal Gholap: Procurement till goal setting and targeting for all that data mining was the thing for us. So we used to sit on the forecasting on the weekly basis. On the monthly basis, are we up to the mark and should we procure more units? So how should we go about it? Yeah, that was something where the data mining was the thing for [00:19:00] us.

[00:19:00] Snehal Gholap: Then the customer journey mapping. Yes. This was another set of analysis we did. You know, wherein we tried to understand. The journey or what we say the life cycle of the patient and where my brand could exactly do the impact or you know, the prescribing pattern of that particular customer and where he can put prior surgery brand can be prescribed post surgery, it can be prescribed during surgery, as it has got a good property for keeping that surgical area.

[00:19:31] Snehal Gholap: You know, away from the blood and provide a clean surgical area. So that's the reason why all three placements were made in terms of promotion. So yeah, it was very important to understand customer and you know, the process journey as well. Apart from that, yeah kind of a real time analysis, which we used to do which is a weekly sales tracking, monthly sales tracking and review meetings, which helps us to understand are we [00:20:00] on target or not, basically.

[00:20:01] Snehal Gholap: So once we decide the target, the continuous feedback mechanism or a continuous analysis or reviewing makes important. So that, you know, you can understand whether it is effective or not, whether the. Strategy, which you have applied, it is working or not. I guess there's certain on the moment changes which are required to make it more better that's how those real time interventions are needed.

[00:20:25] Snehal Gholap: So that's the reason we, we also used to look at this daily and weekly data sets also. And apart from that, and the last one, so we went about taking customers feedback of the brand. And yeah, yeah. Whether they're satisfied or not, what is the satisfaction level? What is their feedback? Whether the gap which they've identified earlier would be being satisfied by the brand launch and you know, Whatnot in the world.

[00:20:52] Snehal Gholap: So yeah, that's what the various avenues that we went about where we went about using the data to optimize the [00:21:00] effectiveness of the sales team.

[00:21:03] Stefan Repin: My question would be so this is actually very exciting because you're going into very detail. It's not very often we hear this much detail on the podcast. So thank you for that.

[00:21:17] Stefan Repin: My question would be this in terms of like sales and marketing alignment, like when you do this campaign, how do you like, it's certainly a big challenge for like a lot of the brand managers, a lot of the sales people, I mean, how do you make sure you have, you actually have this alignment in place?

[00:21:32] Stefan Repin: Like, are there any steps you go about that you align your physical sales force and your digital sales force? Because like activities, maybe marketing activities, because what I'm seeing is a lot of the managers in big brand managers or sales managers in pharma are afraid of using digital because they're, they are afraid of the challenges that lie ahead.

[00:21:54] Stefan Repin: And they're not sure of the ROI that comes with using digital. So maybe you could light [00:22:00] put some, shed some light into that as well.

[00:22:03] Snehal Gholap: Yeah, definitely. So I try addressing the question on both the aspects. The very first one is the managing the team, I guess, and how we align the marketing and the sales objective and sales.

[00:22:16] Snehal Gholap: The second part I would go about addressing is how do we welcome this digital era and make people welcoming it and all. Okay. So the very first is the idea was making people you know more aware of it. Change is the only constant thing. We made them accepted and the continuous meetings and, you know, motivation building leading with the examples.

[00:22:42] Snehal Gholap: So it's something which we direct somebody that doesn't happen the way we feel. But if we lead it with example, we create some innovative ways of communicating it to it with some demonstration example. We encourage the people who are bringing the change in their current working [00:23:00] lifestyle. And this is kind of on the job training where somebody is doing really good.

[00:23:04] Snehal Gholap: His success story is being shared with others that encourages them, that motivates them. You know, to do something which is beyond which they haven't done it earlier. And idea is we do this lot, a lot of oath taking activities where we try and, you know bring all of us on the same page and a platform.

[00:23:24] Snehal Gholap: And try to define our ethos and ensure that this is a business objective. This is a marketing objective and the sales team needs to align with it because of the vision, which we are driving for the brand. And a lot of, you know, momentum and info has been pumped during the cycle meets and all so, you know, that's how making them, winning them, making them part of a success.

[00:23:49] Snehal Gholap: Recognizing them, creating the platforms where the reward and recognition is given, right? Then the people work for people basically. So you need to create a safe and welcoming and warm [00:24:00] environment for them. Where they get a sense of, you know, belonging or the sense of victory or sense of doing something valuable, meaningful for the healthcare industry, or, you know, to overall domain as such.

[00:24:14] Snehal Gholap: Their contribution has to be valued. Then all of us become one, right? And we drive that objective or vision which we wish to drive. It's basically creating a culture. And making them adaptable, bringing the agility in the environment and driving that one ethos. Yeah, that's how it is quite engaging activities though.

[00:24:37] Snehal Gholap: Team building activities and aligning them. And, you know, always the idea is to have always one on one interactions, two way open discussions. Continuous feedback mechanisms, which helps each other understand better to drive successful outcomes. So that's how we went about doing it. And [00:25:00] yeah, the moment you mentioned the digital era.

[00:25:03] Snehal Gholap: Yeah, definitely. So it was a time when we, you know, have to give them a proper training in order to understand what are the challenges and what are the pluses and minuses of welcoming these digital technologies to our world and how can we best achieve our objectives by doing this. We gave the hands on training to them and we set a support mechanism.

[00:25:29] Snehal Gholap: So there was a set of small technical team which addressed their queries on the go. And yeah, and We make them try it, do it, have a hands on experience. We did small kind of pilot studies first, send it to Amongst Yourself, and then do the mass emailing, then do the, all those things. So that's how we went about, you know, creating it, a mega thing.

[00:25:53] Stefan Repin: Gotcha. Interesting. So I got like basically two more questions for you. And my question would be,[00:26:00] how do you go about using AI? Your daily activities, a lot of people are afraid of ChatGPT or any sort of AI, especially in pharma, and how do you go about it?

[00:26:11] Snehal Gholap: Yeah, I understand it completely. So I believe it'll be quite early to, you know, comment on the AI being used in the pharma industry because I completely feel it's a pre people and a value driven asset where the pharma industry looks at themselves.

[00:26:29] Snehal Gholap: But yeah, AI can be a game changer. It can change the way a healthcare system can be built. A solution can be brought to newer diseases, more complicated diseases. It can be a helping aid to surgeons like various, surgeries or treatments, protocols can be driven. Apart from that, I completely understand AI can also be used to improve the Salesforce effectiveness, right?

[00:26:57] Snehal Gholap: Even converting data into a more [00:27:00] analytical sets and something into a portion, which can be easy to consume by Fieldforce. The training can be more made more simpler and easier with the help of AI. Right? The actual detailing practices, how can you improve the in clinic communication, the in clinic effectiveness of that particular communication with the demo videos can be given to the field force so that, you know, the practice mode can be made for them.

[00:27:26] Snehal Gholap: So I'm not saying I'm using it. This is how I can interpret the future of the AI in the pharma industry can take a shape. So it can also bless the healthcare system. It can also you know be an added tool for training team members for data analysis in our industry. And apart from that in developing a very insightful, engaging communications also can AI help us out?

[00:27:53] Snehal Gholap: Yeah, the way from paper based communications. To now, iPad communications, now [00:28:00] GIF mailers, it can go to another, you know, new ways or era of taking the communication to the end consumer. This is how I would see.

[00:28:11] Stefan Repin: So, last question. This was very insightful, by the way. Thank you so much. So, last question.

[00:28:17] Stefan Repin: If you had to give advice to people in the position of a sales manager, national sales manager, national brand manager, what would that advice sound like?

[00:28:30] Snehal Gholap: Okay, so the more important advice which I would like to give to the leaders who will be listening to us is focus on the bigger goal. Right? The idea should be your mind should always have that bigger picture and never to get set back with the rejections, learn from them. If you face any kind of a setbacks or a rejection, they should be treated as an opportunity to grow above it.[00:29:00]

[00:29:00] Snehal Gholap: And we need to celebrate small, small wins. And we always have to be optimistic and positive in our approach. We should have this continuous learning attitude, because I strongly feel it is a mindset which, you know, can move the mountains. So basically that's something which one has to completely work on, how the leadership mindset can help.

[00:29:22] Snehal Gholap: The people to those who are following us, we have to be always mindful you know, and how do we address our stress apart from that, always have very realistic expectations or having a smart goal because that, you know, somehow lowers the burden on the team, which who are following us.

[00:29:42] Snehal Gholap: So that's the second thing which I would like to share with all the leaders. And yeah, apart from that, always maintain a transparency and a healthy balance in the work and a life that creates a sets an example for others also to do more [00:30:00] productive work at a workplace. Take the breaks, wherever possible, recharge and come back, bounce back with a great amount of energy to do wonders.

[00:30:10] Snehal Gholap: So, yeah, these are the three things, basically, I feel like I would like to give as a message to all the leaders.

[00:30:18] Stefan Repin: Awesome, Snehal. Thank you so much for this episode. It was very insightful, personally, for me, and I bet it was insightful for our listeners as well. I'm gonna look ahead and ask you for another episode in, like, in about a year's time.

[00:30:32] Stefan Repin: Maybe you'll have some... Well, I'm pretty sure you're gonna have some new episodes, new in your life and new strategies that you have implemented with success. And we'll be super glad to hear about those again. Okay.

[00:30:45] Snehal Gholap: Sure. Definitely, Stefan.. It was wonderful interacting with you. It was amazing experience.

[00:30:51] Snehal Gholap: Thanks a lot.

[00:30:52] Stefan Repin: Thank you. The pleasure is mine.

[00:30:55] ​[00:31:00]