Allergan’s Palm Tops Gets Reps to Meet More Doctors
A case study on Wireless / WiFi / WiMAX in RetailReader ROI
Executive Summary
'Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse,' said Winston Churchill. When Allergan India took Churchill's advice, it carried innovation beyond art. It needed to take on a problem that was slowing down its eyes and ears on the street: its medical representatives. And it did it the IT way
"A medical representative only gets a five-minute window with a doctor," says K.T. Rajan director operations IS and projects for Allergan India. This a problem medical representatives, Allergan's sales force, faces everyday. With about nine calls a day, each medical representative only has 45 minutes a day with doctors. It is three-quarters of an hour they have to make count, Rajan says, especially because they travel seven hours out of every eight to get to those doctors. Busy doctors, however, aren't likely to give them time if they sense that medical representative are wasting their time with old questions or aren't giving them data they need. Typically, medical representatives work off spiral pads to stay updated with a doctors needs: what he normally prescribes, his remarks about a new product, etcetera. The paper approach invariably resulted in a loss of data. And starting every conversation from scratch, because they don't have data or their notes ready, makes them unpopular with doctors. Rajan wanted to put that information in the hands of his representatives and - over time - better sales turnover.
Case Study Highlights
- According to a Mckinsey report, the Indian pharmaceutical industry is worth Rs 25,200 crore and is likely to triple by 2015
- The 50 lakh project was started in February 2006 and completed in July 2006
- Before the implementation, it took 7-to 10 days to submit a report. It is now submitted daily
- Earlier the amount spent on couriering was Rs. 2400 which has become zero now
We need to able to get into their minds quickly and stay there for a long time," says Rajan. Giving them PDAs made sense. "We are not a large company; we have around 150 reps, which means we can't afford to spend too much. This is why we chose a low-tech solution," says Rajan. Allergan gave its representatives palm tops (Tungsten E2), which were attached to mobile phones. Using Reliance's network and Allergan's own wireless (LAN/WAN) network, medical representatives could transmit intelligence to headquarters every day. The elegant solution, christened 'Envision', would keep medical representatives in a real time loop with new information from Allergan and feed them brief histories of the doctors they would meet.
It would also keep area sales officers (ASOs) more informed of the medical representatives who reported to them. Finally it also gave analysts at Allergan an open-window view into the needs of a doctor. "The interaction between a doctor and a representative is very important because everything from marketing to the development of a new product is driven by it," says Rajan.
What was harder was putting together such user-friendly system. With 
medical representatives traveling often to remote locations, connectivity was chief among these problems. The PDAs were attached mobile phones, which wrote to a server. Marrying the three different technologies took time says Rajan. Arming the PDAs themselves against an inherently unfriendly environment was also a challenge. While connectivity improved over time, says Rajan, designing the PDAs to withstand all climatic conditions took work. Along the way they also learnt the importance of adding battery backups. Today, with the palm, Prasad says he spends the time waiting for doctors more judiciously.
The solution created more time for medical representatives - enough to meet one more doctor a day. And because the solution saves medical representatives time (they write their reports while waiting for doctors) the solution has made medical representatives more productive. "Today, when a doctor gives feedback to representative, it is immediately relayed across the organization," says S. Ganesan a manager of retail business. The palmtop boasts of 95 percent sync rates and Rajan plans to introduce flash cards to facilitate a faster transfer of data. "CIOs should stop talking technology. Only then they will be able to fight this battle from the other side. CIOs today are doing away with the mundane work of networking.
The Person Behind It
It is well-proven that a 10% increase in doctors calls amounts to a 10% increase in business.
Post- PDA, capturing the doctor’s needs and remarks about our product in a palm has saved time considerably and has made us more organized.
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