Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we are facing a dramatic paradigm shift in Pharma Commercial Models. Digital is becoming a key part of the new paradigm and data-driven insights are a strategic pillar for reaching customer and stakeholders with the right message at the right time through the right channels and for improving performance and efficiency. This new approach requires an important cultural and organisational shift.

• HCP habits and needs have changed
• Adoption of digital channels has increased and new real-world insights that are there to understand our customers
• Advanced and dynamic segmentation and recommender systems enabled by artificial intelligence are needed
• Merck has performed various projects adopting this new approach that will be displayed during the presentation

In February 2019, our digital marketing focus was on lead generation and driving adoption of marketing automation. From one day to the next, the company was facing an unprecedented amount of web traffic and online demand, disrupting the standard customer journeys and challenging internal processes. Within three months, more changes happened that in the past three years.

• Redesigning customer journeys for mass traffic
• Leveraging digital marketing for internal efficiencies and cross-functional collaboration
• Monitoring KPIs that matter

Studies confirm that a team made of top talents outperform four times a team made of average individuals.

In this presentation, Marco Basile is going to share examples and best practices to attract and retain Top Talents in the Sales Organisations, based on articles, books and studies made by different authors.

The five main areas we will explore during the presentation to attract and retain talents will be:

• Company culture
• Competent leadership
• Purpose and recognition
• Career and growth opportunities
• Salary, rewards and benefit schemes

The COVID-19 crisis and substantial acceleration of the digital transformation have profoundly shaken but also challenged the more traditional commercial approach in pharma.

These drastic changes also offer the opportunity to rethink more fundamentally different commercial models across the organisation to actually foster transformation, experiment and reallocate resources while keeping focus on patients, differentiation and investment effectiveness. Responding to internal and external pressures for precisely assessing ROI remains one of the bigger challenges.

As the pharma customer engagement model evolves and digital channels becomes a greater part of the overall customer coverage model, what role should more advanced ‘Customer Engagement Analytics’ play in a future Commercial Excellence set-up and what does a strong roadmap look like.