Pharma Field Force Automation addresses key issues faced by pharmaceutical distributors including: competing in non-exclusive territories, tracking a large variety of small products, and cash losses from bill collections. The Impel Mobile solution allows sales representatives to access up-to-date product inventory and place orders directly from their phones, improving productivity, order accuracy, and timely deliveries. Payment collections can also be confirmed online, reducing delays and losses. By automating processes with mobile access, the solution cuts costs while increasing sales through faster fulfillment.

1. simply effective
Pharma Field Force Automation
PK4 Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
No. 37, Kempapura, Hebbal
Bangalore 560 024
Phone:+91-80-3008-0000
e-mail: info@impelcrm.in
www.impelcrm.in

2. PK4 Pharma Field Force Automation
Impel for Pharma Field Force
Automation
Introduction
Pharmaceutical distributors in urban areas have unique issues to deal with on the field force automation side.
Some of them are listed below.
They work in non-exclusive territories, since manufacturers appoint multiple distributors in the same
geography. So they compete against other agencies that deliver the same product to the same chemist.
They deal with non-perishable commodities, so predicting shelf-life and replenishment points at a chemist
level becomes difficult.
The products themselves are small in size, sometimes breakable and of a huge variety. This makes tracking
products, particularly those moving fast due to localized outbreaks of illnesses, complicated.
Salespeople are also bill-collectors, leading to unfortunate situations with large amounts of cash in transit.
This leads to cash losses due errant employees.
A cost-effective software solution is essential for addressing these issues. But such a solution needs to address
other organizational issues, too. For example:
Pharma distributors typically use home-grown or custom-written software to track the inventory status of
products. These solutions may be off-the-shelf software products or custom solutions and may run on DOS,
Windows, be database-driven and be built using Fox Pro or large relational databases. Reasonable
integration with this software is an important issue for most distributors.
Typically, a pharma distributor has anywhere from 10 to 50 field representatives, depending on the size of
the operation. Most field representatives carry mobile phones and for those who do not, most distributors
are willing to invest in one, if they are able to identify a viable solution to the problems faced by them.
PK4’s solution has been structured following consultations with various pharmaceutical distributors in
understanding the day to day problems that they face with their field force. PK4’s Impel Mobile is one of the few
CRM products that squarely address the issues in this domain.
The Problem
While specific problems appear with each distributor, these are some of the key problem areas:
1. Field sales representative typically have a daily beat or at least clearly defined geographical territories,
so they have a list of customers that they need to visit. Pharma distributors face a variety of problems
in the order booking process for these customers.
a. Due to intense competition, some distributors want orders to be logged into their system
immediately so that product can be delivered to the pharmacist right away.
b. In the current scenario of phone-call-based data-entry, there are high chances that the data called
in over the phone to data entry operators is error-prone and not timely.
c. Most distributors would like to cut down on the manpower cost of data entry operators and
redeploy that money in salespeople or better infrastructure.
d. The time taken in the repetitive activity of booking an order in the field and then logging them
again in the office can be used more productively by salespeople in meeting more customers.
e. The distributors see a major loss of field sales representative productivity in the waiting time
between meeting customers.
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3. PK4 Pharma Field Force Automation
2. Since inventory status is dynamic, the field sales representative does not have access to up-to-date
information unless s/he calls the office. The product list is large and runs into 3,000 to 8,000 product,
so it is difficult to accommodate that amount of data on a mobile or a PDA, for that matter.
3. Payment collection is another major issue. In some cases, sales representatives collect cash from the
chemists but do not deposit it with the distributor for some days. In other cases, the sales
representative collects the money from chemists and disappears with the cash collected.
4. Some distributors would like a mechanism of sending payment reminders to chemists that owe money,
so collection becomes easier and more efficient.
5. Since field representatives are on the field most of the time, it is difficult to inform them of situations
like bounced cheques from customers. This again causes a serious delay in collecting payments from
chemists.
The Impel Solution
The Impel CRM Mobile solution addresses the issues that pharma distributors face in a clear, cost-efficient
manner.
1 All field personnel carry mobile phones with them. They use these phones to access the Impel Mobile app,
via a WAP connection. For some transactions, SMS can be used, instead.
2 The central portal is hosted at PK4’s Level 3 data centre where the data of the distributor is uploaded (one-
time activity), using a regular Internet connection - dial-up, cable, DSL, etc..
3 Field sales representatives can access this data from their phones whenever necessary - for example, when
they are at an outlet and need to check the inventory status in real time. Based on that, they can give the
chemist an accurate delivery time, log in the orders to the system and move on to the next outlet.
Considering that the product-list is large, a search option gives the salesperson the ability to enter first few
letters of a product name and thereby get to a list starting with those letters.
4 A field sales representative can check the system for amounts due from a chemist and collect them, too.
Such collections can be entered online and, in cases of a non-cash entry (sale with credit or check
payment), the system can send the chemist’s phone an SMS query to answer, thereby validating a non-cash
transaction.
5 The distributor at a predetermined interval synchronizes data with the central server. This process
downloads the orders logged into Impel, so that the distributor can raise invoices for the orders and
dispatch goods to the chemist immediately.
6 Payment status can be checked from the field; payment reminders can be sent to the chemist’s mobiles.
7 Collection issues can be addressed by the SMS confirmation model described above. Alternatively, we could
establish a mechanism where the chemist would confirm a credit sale by using a pre-authorized PIN.
8 Time log for field sales people can be generated based on the number of times they log in from the field
(which will be at every call).
The Benefits
1. Since real time information is available to the filed sales person and s/he is able to enter orders directly into
the system, s/he is able to give the outlet accurate delivery commitments, reducing delay in deliveries.
2. Actions can be initiated quickly and overall cycle times reduced dramatically. This improves sales, since it
takes away the possibility of a competing distributor delivering products to the chemist in the interim.
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4. PK4 Pharma Field Force Automation
3. Field time of the sales person goes up significantly since s/he does not have to come back and enter data.
The sales person can enter orders at the retail point instead of keying it in at the end of the day in office.
4. Salesperson productivity increases since s/he can use the waiting time between customers for reviewing
account and product information.
5. The entire ordering process is simplified and made more accurate. The person directly associated with the
event is the person capturing the data, so it’s the authenticity and timeliness improves greatly.
6. In-office data entry nearly completely goes away, thereby reducing the payroll costs of data-entry operators
and other overhead.
7. Field time logs ensure that the sales person is spending the time judiciously in the field and will also be able
to generate data on how much time is spent with each outlet.
8. Collection confirmations and payment reminders deter delinquency on the part of the sales person and
delayed payments from the chemists, thereby improving profitability.
9. The mechanism is cheap and easy to implement, since it needs no special devices or infrastructure. Field
personnel need to carry a WAP-enabled phone – that's it.
……..and much more.
*****
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