Leading pharmaceutical company uses CRM and BI to drive business results

PLIVA was established in 1921 and with headquarters in Zagreb, Croatia, it is the leading Central and Eastern European pharmaceutical company with a portfolio of more than 1,200 products competing in over 30 countries worldwide, including the key markets of Croatia, Germany, Poland and Russia. 

PLIVA’s success in the highly competitive pharmaceuticals market is highly dependent on its sales team, working with customers that include hospitals, pharmacies and other medical care institutions using PLIVA products. To ensure success of their sales force, PLIVA is constantly looking to provide them with the tools they need to do their work.

In providing these tools, the company has faced a number of challenges. Sales teams in different countries were using different software tools to support their business processes. All of the solutions used had specific limitations and the company was looking to replace them with a unified solution that would provide all the necessary functionalities.

”The flow of information from the sales teams to the head office was slow and marketing and sales people were unable to access the right information they needed to make the right decisions,” explained Igor Haralović, CEE Region Marketing and Sales Effectiveness Director. “This reduced our competitiveness on the market and negatively affected our costs. We also had difficulties reaching our sales goals as the sales representatives did not have the tools to properly target their customers.”

PLIVA’s infrastructure also lacked the necessary security as VPN connections were not available in all markets and the sales force was equipped with old hardware and software. In some markets, an additional challenge was posed by slow internet connections that prevented users from working online or regularly synchronizing their information.

To improve the effectiveness of their sales force, PLIVA began looking for a solution that would improve the effectiveness of their sales force and be flexible enough to meet different market requirements in all of the countries where PLIVA is present.

”We were looking for a flexible solution that would be open to customization and would accommodate our requirements in the future,” said Haralović. ”One of the key requirements was cost effectiveness of the solution. We were looking at a number of solutions, including market leaders in CRM solutions for the pharmaceutical industry.”

A comprehensive solution
In the end, PLIVA chose to work with ADD, a leading provider of comprehensive business solutions in the CEE region. ADD is marketing add.PHARMA, a solution designed for the pharmaceutical industry that includes both CRM and business intelligence functionalities. The solution is developed on Microsoft platform, using .NET Framework 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server as a database server.

ADD was involved throughout the project and worked with PLIVA in the initial stages to define solution requirements and functionalities. The company developed new features and customized the solution so it would comply with PLIVA’s needs and requirements. ADD also provided implementation and deployment services, user training and support. The solution is currently used by 500 users in Slovenia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Russia. It is also being implemented in Slovakia and Ukraine.

A single solution for BI and CRM
The solution covers two separate functional areas: customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence. The CRM part of the add.PHARMA solution is used by PLIVA to support their sales and marketing personnel. The solution offers advanced functionalities, including sales support, marketing campaign execution and cross-selling. PLIVA uses the solution to plan goals for individual marketing campaigns and then track sales force performance. The data between the end users and back office is being constantly synchronized and enables the company to better track how well its sales team is performing.

”ADD’s add.PHARMA solution enables us to segment our customers according to preset criteria and then use these criteria to plan our sales and marketing activities,” explained Tatyana Laricheva, Sales Force Effectiveness Counselor in PLIVA’s Moscow office. ”We are also using the solution to monitor and track each sales representative’s effectiveness.”

When developing their add.PHARMA solution, ADD also managed to overcome the challenge of low-bandwidth and non-existent internet connections. “In environments with low quality internet connections it is extremely difficult to ensure that all data is synchronized between the client application and the server,” explained Andrej Hudoklin, Executive of Business Solutions Department, ADD. ”We finally managed to come up with a solution that enables very quick synchronization. For the 180 users in Russia, the average time required for synchronization is between three and four minutes and synchronizations are 98 percent reliable.”

add.PHARMA also helped Pliva to expand and improve their business intelligence operations. The solution enabled Pliva to reduce the time required to provide sales reports to just a few minutes. The data used by the company is also refreshed more frequently, enabling the employees to base their decisions on real and actionable data.

The Business Intelligence system is used to analyze sales data and gets its information from a number of data sources. Secondary sales information is gathered from PLIVA’s distributors and is also produced by research agencies, such as IMS Health, PharmExpert, DSM and other companies that report on national or regional level of sales to consumers. This complete information enables PLIVA to get a comprehensive overview of the market and gauge their sales on the ground.

”Gathering information from both secondary and primary sales gives PLIVA insight into the market,” explained Hudoklin. ”The company can compare both types of sales and gain insight into the purchasing potential of their distributors or healthcare institutions. They can use this information to tailor their marketing and sales approaches to the market.”

Improved control and better results
An important benefit of the solution is the ability to link sales data to marketing information contained in the CRM application. This means that data about secondary sales can be linked either to individual customers or to regional areas, called BRICK, where it is not possible to collect data about sales to specific customers. This integration of sales and marketing information enables Pliva to exercise more control over their sales force and drive improved results.

The solution also allows the company to track individual geographical areas to track sales representative performance in individual geographic areas, while using the CRM application to track information about individual customer, their loyalty, sales opportunities and purchasing potential.

add.PHARMA also integrates with PLIVA’s SAP enterprise resource planning system. The systems exchange information about primary sales, plans, expenses, inventory and financial details.

Among the greatest benefits is the increased productivity and efficiency of sales representatives. ”ADD’s solution is very user friendly and easy to use,” explained Tatyana Laricheva. ”The required training can be completed very quickly and the interface is simple to understand. The solution also gives us a wide range of options to create reports and present information we gather through our representatives and other data sources.”

With add.PHARMA, PLIVA deployed a solution that enables them to improve the efficiency of their sales team and marketing organization. CRM functionalities enable them to improve customer loyalty, tailor their marketing campaigns to the needs of local markets and increase visibility of sales opportunities. The CRM suite also integrates tightly with business intelligence functionalities, enabling the company to analyze the market and sales team performance, and achieve greater agility in responding to changing market conditions. By working with ADD, PLIVA found a reliable partner that delivers comprehensive and integrated solutions, customized to the company’s needs and requirements.

www.add.si/en/business_solutions/add_pharma
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www.pliva.com

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