By 2022, worldwide investments in the digital transformation of business practices, products, and services are expected to reach nearly $2 trillion (Source: International Data Corporation (IDC)). However, research by Forrester indicates only 27% of businesses have a coherent digital transformation strategy in place for creating customer value. Furthermore, in a recent survey conducted by Wipro Digital, out of 400 US companies with an articulated digital transformation strategy, 50% of their executives felt their company was not successfully implementing those strategies.

How to love. How to live. How to fix anything. How to lose weight. How to stop worrying. How to train your dog, bird, cat or dragon. How to manage projects. How to manage time. How to set goals. How to influence people. How to negotiate anything with anybody. How to survive the zombie apocalypse.

We live in a "how-to” world. A quick search of “how to” in Amazon.com yields over 800,000 books and videos with the phrase in the title. The popular For Dummies series has over 2,500 titles and the Idiot’s Guide series has nearly as many. And take a look at your local newsstand and you’ll see covers littered with articles telling you the 5 things you must know, the 3 insider secrets that will guarantee success, or the 7 steps to improved performance.

A marketing exec friend of mine gave me a call the other day to catch up. After swapping stories about families and our current work, he finally asked after years of knowing me, “What exactly is change management anyway?”

The other day I was explaining the results of a change readiness assessment to an executive and shared a piece of news he found disturbing. He believed that everyone wanted the change that he was leading because when he spoke with others in the organization about it, they all told him it was a great idea.

Emperor . . . you have no clothes, I explained.

Pharmaceutical companies have been talking about patient-centricity for years.
Yet, many pharma companies find it challenging to make patient-first thinking a pervasive trait throughout their organization. 

In its simplest terms, creating a patient-centric culture is about being authentic and open in communicating to patients, taking care to understand their needs, and giving them a voice in the management of their care. Patient-centricity simply requires putting the patient first or being empathetic to their story. 

Are you searching for ways to get better results from your sales team? Here’s a chance to look back at some of the top articles and tips from 2018. As we shift into the new year, you’ll have a valuable perspective on how to get the most out of your sales team.

The health care industry has made strides to involve the patient across the entire value chain, from research and development to differentiating the needs of patients, to ensuring efficient ways for access to medication.

There is a movement towards patient-centricity, typically defined as more than just feeling empathy and a connection to patients. More and more, patient-centricity is about creating the intersection between a positive patient outcome and a business benefit.

Pharma sales teams can leverage and form this value-based intersection of patient outcome and business benefit by creating a patient-centric approach in their daily work. If you can increase the pharma sales team effectiveness in creating a patient-centric culture, it likely equates to more sales, more lives saved, and a greater impact on the community. 

Digital transformation is top of mind for many organizations, large and small, these days. However, knowing exactly what digital transformation means to a company and its leaders can be fuzzy at times. The complexity of the needed transformation can be daunting, and the path to realization of a digital transformation strategy can be filled with false starts and resistance.

Coaching is an investment and should be a positive experience for your pharma reps, where they learn what they do well and discover where they can improve.

Below are three proven coaching actions used by effective pharma sales managers to help their teams reach business goals.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are at the core of pharmaceutical sales. They are simultaneously the output and driver of sales representative behaviors.

Sales representatives use performance indicators to evaluate their relationship management and district sales strategies, ensuring they get the best results. Regional directors use them to identify training and development opportunities in sales reps, revise targets, clarify their own vision and direction, or find new or different ways to motivate performance. National directors use them to make strategic hiring and market development decisions, coach regional directors, and remove barriers.

But while pharma sales KPIs are valuable to all members of your organization, many companies fail to use these metrics to their full potential. Learn how the following three steps can ensure you’re aligning with KPI best practices and maximizing performance improvement.