Territory Alignment & Sales Force Deployment
Implementing a sales force strategy through optimized field alignment requires better resource utilization and target coverage. The territory field alignment and deployment process needs to be designed to facilitate better change management and field buy-in.
Some of the many pressing questions pharmaceutical companies want answered successfully are:
- What is the best sales force structure and deployment to implement my sales and marketing strategy?
- How can I “do more with less” and increase sales force productivity and therefore my Return on Investment?
- How can we enhance customer coverage, increase performance and lower travel costs?
- How do I minimize disruption and manage change effectively while resizing my sales force?
- How do I ensure resource utilization as well as personnel aspects of sales force deployment resulting in rep buy-in and better acceptance?
According to an Arcus market research study, nearly seventy five percent of pharmaceutical companies have imbalanced sales territory alignment and that includes pharmaceutical companies as well. When territories are out of balance, too much effort is deployed against low potential customers and too little is deployed against many high potential customers. The result is that companies often leave millions of dollars on the table.
With access issues and a competitive marketplace, it’s a challenge for any pharmaceutical company to align its territories effectively and then deploy its sales forces according to the skills and capabilities of its sales people with respect to its product-portfolios. An important aspect in this scenario is the timely availability of information in an integrated and easy to use manner. Even when the data is available, most companies lack the sophisticated analytical tools to analyze it, and understand the impact of adding/reducing number of sales reps in a particular territory.
A territory alignment affects all the customers and sales teams. It becomes critical to have the right approach from strategy to implementation to ensure high quality territory alignment and deployment solutions using proven methodologies and flexible tools across the entire territory allocation process.
Arcus has designed a well tested process that delivers on four key success factors to ensure successful implementation of the field force strategy.
- Strategy implementation
- Change Leadership
- Process Management
- Data Management
Arcus works with sales operations and human resources to develop the objectives and constraints of the sales deployment process (in the context of the issues such as new launch, integration of forces, level of disruption, future changes, redeployment). We create a sales alignment and deployment strategy based on the expected activity by customers and the location of target customers or accounts. In addition, workload indices are created and supported by local geographical knowledge to design territories. A review of proposed territories (with maps and reports) with field and deployment team helps to finalize territories. It is also critical to validate the alignment periodically through the Territory Expert Report Card.
Our Benefits
Arcus has provided sales and marketing effectiveness solutions to global life sciences companies, and utilizes its strengths in analytics, research and technology to deliver actionable and measurable results. Territory Alignment and Deployment solutions from Arcus lets you benefit from our vast experience in building sales force strategy capabilities and implementing the same for our clients across all major global markets and therapeutic categories.
