On one side there are pharma companies that invest billions in research, come up with unique molecules and sell unique, patented pharmaceutical products at exorbitant prices. Then there are thousands of smaller pharmaceutical industries engaged in formulations. Even in this sector there are companies that have attained brand status and can command premium prices and there are companies that sell generics. These last two are in an extremely cut-throat competitive segment where profits are pared down. The only hope is to have as large a customer base as possible and let numbers contribute to profits.
In this backdrop, it becomes imperative to adopt CRM and do it wholeheartedly. Standard CRMs rarely give you the hoped-for outcomes so it is best to go for custom CRM development services to derive the full advantages of CRM in the pharma industry.
Tie Together Leads, Customers, Inventory, Manufacturing, Sales, and Marketing
The CRM development company should have a very good idea about how pharma industries operate if they are to deliver a CRM solution that neatly ties together all your operations. To digress, your people will use the CRM only if it is intuitive and easy to understand. If it involves a steep learning curve or extensive menu systems then employees are less likely to explore and find out. Therefore, getting the right CRM from an expert CRM software development company is essential if you want to derive advantage of the software. To get back, employees in various departments must be able to access information or, better still, let the CRM feed relevant data.
- Funnel leads to marketing and to sales so they can stay on top and convert without a waste of time.
- Keep careful track of inventory and raise flags for products close to expiry date so these can be put on sale or bundled in cross-sell and up-sell strategies you can devise with the help of the CRM. Expired inventory is a dead loss, something to be avoided at all costs.
- Know what products are in the pipeline do that sales and marketing people can start campaigns by the time products are ready for shipment. Unlike machinery and tools, you cannot have a stockpile of inventory and maintain it for months. A properly set up CRM, with analytics that gives insights on speed and movement of products, will also help production planning.
Fast Services
As stated before, pharma is a competitive segment and customers expect fast services. With a CRM allied with IP PBX or call center solution, you can respond and even be proactive with existing as well as proactive customers.
The CRM for pharma helps you get there first and fast and get it right. It helps to have an IVR to let customers help themselves. At the same time, with the right CRM, you can connect through social media platforms, through mobile, and through chats. Each channel may be funneled into the CRM and you may even keep track of these channels. Apart from fast services you know what is happening where so you can intensify efforts on that channel if required.
Collaboration
It is sad but it is true that the bigger a company becomes and the more departments it has, the tougher it becomes to get all these various wings to collaborate together like a well-oiled machine. The right CRM from the finest CRM software development company can promote collaboration by including in-house communication and collaboration platform. Collaboration is crucial in the pharma sector to meet emerging demands and to avoid mistakes like letting stocks pile up or delay purchases that would lead to cost increases. A spinoff to the collaboration features is that it could lead to better relationships in workspaces.
How Teams Perform
Pharma industries may have just a couple of manufacturing units but they certainly will have dozens or even hundreds of teams for sales. It becomes difficult to manage this hierarchical structure since errors of omission and commission may creep in and inter-team rivalry flourishes. The CRM short-circuits these drawbacks since each team and each member in a team is in the CRM loop. Managers at the top can analyze team performance, know roadblocks and take steps to bring about cohesive coherence.
Intelligence through Analyzed Reports
Get the best CRM from top CRM development service provider and you will get AI and ML thrown in along with intelligent reporting and analytics. This feature helps managers at the top derive intelligence in a jiffy, even in a graphical format that is easy to take in at a glance.
You can drill down to individual teams and analyze their performance; you can analyze the performance of production or movement of product types; you can have a bird’s eye view of sales and you can even derive information on how well campaigns have performed. Include AI and ML and what happens is that your CRM becomes smarter as it ages.
You can, for instance, collect granular information on patients regarding their BMI, weight, medical history, drug usage patterns, success rates and so on, each of which contributes to your decision-making process. You can garner information on how doctors prescribe, what they prescribe and what influences them. You can study hospital purchase trends and let the AI/ML detect trends and thereby help you anticipate and be ready for production. Study raw material market fluctuations and book materials at lower prices.
Increased Efficiency, Increased Effectiveness
Get a CRM development company to design and put in place CRM that suits your working model and you have a tool that increases efficiency. Coordination becomes swift. Key personnel have precise and updated knowledge of operations that helps them to take better and faster decisions making the operation more effective. It helps managers decide about targeting prescriptions from doctors, about channel partners and about hospital sales in isolated channels and then tie all the information together. The technology can assist in defining goals and developing a strategy to achieve targets at the least cost or with the best outcomes or both.
A well-designed CRM for pharma makes communication effective and brings along other benefits such as:
- Market alignment
- Mobile access
- Social media
- Nurturing leads and reputation building
- Managing documentation
- Customer segmentation and segregation
- Trends insights
Smart Sight Innovations custom designs CRM for the pharmaceutical industry to help them align and realign policies for better performance, cost reductions, and revenue increases.
