Biopharma's Rapid Transition to Omnichannel Marketing

This podcast, sponsored by Veeva, provides an in-depth discussion on the rapid transition of biopharma companies toward omnichannel marketing, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and recent advances in artificial intelligence. The conversation features commercial leaders, Andy Eeckhout (Global Head of CRM and Digital Solutions at ADVANZ Pharma) and Mokhtar Elsayed (Head of Global Go-to-Market Commercial Transformation at Sanofi), moderated by Veeva's European customer experience and multichannel strategy leads. The core theme revolves around defining the right channel mix for HCP engagement, empowering field teams, and navigating the associated challenges of content creation, data utilization, and regulatory compliance.

The executives agree that while face-to-face engagement is returning, HCP access remains challenging, necessitating a structured omnichannel approach. A key debate centers on balancing centralized guidance with field force autonomy. Sanofi's approach involves setting a "frame" or model based on segment/persona and adoption level, allowing sales teams a specific percentage of flexibility to optimize the channel mix based on customer interaction. ADVANZ Pharma emphasizes putting the Key Account Manager (KAM) in the "driver's seat," supported by extensive global guidance and training on both hard and soft skills (e.g., developing "gravitas" during virtual engagements). Both firms stress that the transition is a multi-year, iterative change management program, not a one-time training event.

A significant bottleneck identified by both companies is content creation. Andy Eeckhout notes that it is better to choose fewer channels initially and focus on high-quality content rather than deploying a broad variety of channels with insufficient material. The challenge is shifting from content built for traditional face-to-face interactions to content optimized for diverse digital engagements, requiring a new mindset focused on content reuse and cross-functional collaboration (Medical, Marketing, Sales). Furthermore, the discussion highlights the need for a holistic, cross-functional approach to customer engagement, integrating medical affairs and market access early in the process, especially during pre-launch phases, to start capturing consent and building relationships.

Looking forward, both leaders are focused on leveraging the influx of digital data. Sanofi is actively working on integrating internal and external data sources and leveraging AI to build personalized content and next-best actions. They emphasize the importance of visualizing this data in an accessible, "one-stop-shop" view within the CRM, ensuring sales reps can utilize insights without needing to be data analysts. Compliance remains a critical hurdle, particularly regarding non-compliant channels like WhatsApp or SMS. While both organizations prioritize staying compliant and securing broad consent, they acknowledge the difficulty of controlling all rep-initiated communications, advocating for transparency and open discussion with the field force to address potential compliance gaps proactively.

Detailed Key Takeaways

• Omnichannel is a Necessity, Not a Complement: The shift to digital engagement is no longer a "nice-to-have" complement to face-to-face, but a fundamental transformation driven by challenging HCP access and evolving physician preferences for specialized, in-depth scientific information, particularly for innovation and new launches.
• Empowerment within a Framework: Field teams must be in the driver's seat for channel selection, but this must occur within a defined, global framework. Sanofi uses a model based on customer segmentation (persona/adoption level) that allows reps limited flexibility (e.g., a specific percentage change) to optimize the channel mix based on customer interaction.
• Focus on the "Why": Organizational readiness starts with clarifying the value proposition for the field team. Reps need to understand how omnichannel improves their competency, career opportunities, and, crucially, the quality of engagement for their customers (HCPs).
• Iterative Change Management: Omnichannel adoption is a continuous, multi-year development program, not a single training event. Consistency is key, requiring diversified development methods (classroom, online, safe environment practice) to reinforce messaging and skills over time.
• Content is the Bottleneck: The biggest challenge is creating high-quality, channel-optimized content. Organizations should prioritize quality over quantity, starting with fewer channels and focusing on maximizing content reuse across different formats and platforms.
• Cross-Functional Engagement is Essential: The customer journey should be holistic, involving Medical Affairs and Market Access alongside Commercial teams. This cross-functional approach is vital for building long-term customer relationships and streamlining processes like early consent capture during pre-launch activities.
• Data Visualization for Actionability: With the increased volume of digital data, the focus must shift from mere collection to actionable utilization. Data should be visualized in an easy-to-use, "one-stop-shop" view within the CRM so that sales reps can leverage insights without requiring advanced data analysis skills.
• Leveraging AI for Personalization: Sanofi is actively working on leveraging AI to analyze integrated data and build next-best actions or mixed content recommendations, aiming for highly personalized customer engagement journeys.
• Compliance Strategy Must Be Proactive: Early engagement with global legal and compliance teams is crucial to define consent strategy (e.g., broad vs. specific consent) and ensure alignment before local implementation, which shortens the country-level approval process.
• Transparency over Control for Non-Compliant Channels: While organizations must strive for 100% compliance, acknowledging that reps may use non-compliant channels (like personal email or phone calls) due to strong relationships is necessary. ADVANZ Pharma encourages transparency by allowing reps to capture these interactions in the CRM, fostering open discussion to address consent gaps.
• Website Strategy as a Pull Channel Foundation: ADVANZ Pharma is consolidating its web presence into a single landing page for HCPs, aiming to build a bridge between the website and the CRM to facilitate a push-and-pull strategy and gather valuable digital behavior data.
• Avoid Consent Misuse: Once consent is obtained, organizations must be selective about communication frequency and respect channel preferences. Bombarding HCPs with communications, even with consent, can lead to opt-outs.
• Governance Model Development: For organizations starting their digital transformation, establishing a clear governance model for omnichannel strategy is a critical foundational step that often needs to be built from scratch.

Tools/Resources Mentioned

• Veeva CRM: The primary platform discussed for managing customer relationships and digital engagement channels.
• Veeva Pulse Field Trends: Insights used by the executives to understand current HCP access challenges and market realities.
• AI (Artificial Intelligence): Referenced by Sanofi for leveraging data to build next-best actions and personalized content.

Key Concepts

• Omnichannel Marketing: Moving beyond a multi-channel approach (using multiple channels separately) to an integrated strategy where all channels (face-to-face, email, remote meetings, web) work together seamlessly to deliver a personalized and consistent customer experience.
• Multichannel Cycle Plan: A structured plan used by the field team to define the sequence, frequency, and mix of channels used to engage specific customer segments or personas throughout a promotional cycle.
• Digital Affinity/Preference: The concept of segmenting or grouping customers based on their preferred digital behaviors and channels, which Mokhtar Elsayed suggests is a future direction for pharma engagement models.
• Content Reuse: A strategy for developing materials that can be easily adapted and deployed across multiple digital and traditional channels, addressing the content creation bottleneck.
• Analysis Paralysis: The risk of overwhelming field teams with too much raw data, making it difficult for them to extract actionable insights for customer engagement. The solution is providing curated, visualized data.