What you’ll learn

• The importance of compliant and synergistic commercial teams
• Challenges faced by field force teams (including sales reps, key account managers, thought leader liaisons, and field reimbursement specialists) in the current healthcare landscape
• Ways to support field force team members

Introduction

Understanding and supporting the critical role of your field force teams is paramount. These teams, often consisting of sales representatives, medical liaisons, thought leader liaisons, and field reimbursement managers, are the closest to the market and customers. Although these individuals have different roles, they all work towards the same goal: to educate and support healthcare providers and patients.

Field force team members receive real-time feedback from healthcare providers and expertly navigate the intricacies of multiple stakeholders. Their efforts are essential in educating, improving patient identification, and enhancing the overall healthcare provider and patient experiences.

It is imperative for healthcare and biopharmaceutical organizations that these teams work in the most effective way possible. However, from regulatory constraints to the rapid evolution of healthcare technology and patient needs, they operate in a challenging environment. In this article, we’ll explore the essential strategies for optimizing your field force to navigate these challenges and improve their impact on healthcare commercialization.

Is your field force optimized?

If you are unsure whether your field team is operating at its highest level, there are a few questions to consider:

1. Do your teams work together to create synergy in their approach and messaging? Many field teams experience a high level of frustration due to competing goals, which can lead to misalignment and inefficiencies.

2. Does your field force have the right tools, training, and resources?

3. When was the last time you asked your field teams for feedback? Regular feedback and acknowledgment can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your strategies and initiatives. It’s essential to foster a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration, where successes are recognized, and challenges are addressed promptly.

By considering these critical aspects, you can begin to understand where the gaps are in the effectiveness of your field force team. Addressing and correcting gaps early on can optimize your commercial team’s effectiveness and how they represent your organization. By correcting these small issues, you can improve field team engagement, retention, and your organization’s overall reputation.

What is field force optimization and why is it important?

Benefits to optimizing your field force:

• It creates more cohesive field teams—enhancing overall health care provider and patient experiences
  
• It ensures that resources are used efficiently—time and investment are allocated to the appropriate activities
  
• It improves the quality of interactions with healthcare professionals—building trust and credibility
  
• It keeps the company agile and competitive because teams are better equipped to respond to market changes and regulatory demands
  
• It sets the tone for how a product will perform after the initial launch

Ensuring that your team has everything it needs before the launch supports the success of your product throughout its life cycle. According to a 2020 report from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, performance in the first year of launch shapes the trajectory for the long-term product outlook. The study found that the majority of drugs “that miss expectations at launch continue doing so in subsequent years.” However, most products that meet or beat expectations likely continue this success in year 2 and year 3, respectively.

Ways to activate your field force

While it may feel overwhelming to consider all the ways you can improve the effectiveness of your field force team, it’s important to create a multifaceted approach.

• Connect to purpose: The healthcare industry attracts individuals with the same calling: to improve patients’ lives. Are you as a leader focusing solely on performance and data, or are you sharing stories of patient impact? By ensuring your team has opportunities to connect to their purpose, they will be more passionate in their role.
  
• Strategic alignment: While individual team members might be performing exceptionally well in their specific roles, it is crucial that their efforts are aligned with the broader organizational goals. Ways to ensure strategic alignment across your teams:
  • Clearly communicate the organization’s goals and how each role contributes to these objectives.
  • Set measurable and attainable goals for your team members, reflecting both their specific contributions and the broader mission.
  • Regularly schedule time to discuss their progress and realign efforts as needed, fostering a collaborative environment where individual and collective achievements are celebrated.
    
• Training and development: Regular training sessions are essential to keep your field force up to date with industry trends, product knowledge, and regulatory changes. This ensures that they are well-prepared to answer questions, handle objections, and provide valuable insights to healthcare providers. However, product knowledge training is only the beginning. Focusing on your team members’ professional growth is equally crucial. How are you supporting your leadership? At BioLaunch Solutions, we assist in creating comprehensive 12, 24, and 36-month training plans for your team. Connect with us to discuss how we can help you shape the trajectory of your leadership development beyond clinical and product knowledge.
  
• Utilizing the right tools: The right tools can help improve your team’s collaboration and compliant engagement, if they are implemented correctly. How are you currently utilizing tools for clinical, product, and professional development? Do these tools help you create a long-term strategy for how your team will evolve in the market?Providing your field force with the right tools, such as CRM systems to ensure clear key account management, data analytics platforms, and applications to improve collaboration, can significantly enhance their productivity and effectiveness. These tools help maintain critical information and insights about interactions with healthcare providers, which can be leveraged for better engagement strategies. At BioLaunch Solutions, we can help you determine the right tools to keep you from slowing down progress and instead, enhance your team’s engagement

When determining the tools your team needs, it is critical to understand what types of technology will help them to be the most effective.

How can technology improve field force efficiency?

How is your organization currently embracing digital transformation? Technology plays a pivotal role in optimizing your entire team, especially your field members. Here are three ways you can maximize technology to improve overall field team collaboration and efficiency:  

• Communication platforms: In an era where remote interactions have become more prevalent, technology that facilitates smooth, effective communication is table stakes. Ensure your team has the communication platforms they need to cross collaborate with other field partners including video conferencing tools, instant messaging, and shared workspaces. This technology helps keep your team responsive and connected.
  
• Data analytics: Leveraging data analytics to understand trends, predict healthcare provider needs, and personalize interactions can significantly boost the relevance and impact of field force activities.
  
• Automation tools: Automation can free up valuable time for field force members by handling routine tasks such as data entry, appointment scheduling, and follow-up reminders, allowing them to focus more on engaging directly with clients and healthcare professionals.

How can BioLaunch Solutions help?

When preparing to commercialize a first-in-class treatment, one mid-size healthcare company faced challenges with leadership aligning on the necessary professional attributes, competencies, and behaviors for successful launch execution and strategic goal achievement.

As a commercial success partner, BioLaunch Solutions helped the company achieve its goals by developing a core competency blueprint, a foundational document for an organization defining its culture, mission, and vision. This blueprint clearly outlines what it takes to be successful as an employee and aligns this with each job description.

The document serves not only the current state of the organization, but is intentional and thoughtful about the company’s growth, creating a solid platform for the leadership team to build on when bringing in new members. This blueprint helps every individual understand the core values, competencies and skills needed, making it easier to maintain a cohesive and effective team.

By setting the stage for success from the very beginning, it ensures everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.   With the support of the core competency platform, BioLaunch Solutions helped the company recruit top talent and reach and maintain a 90% retention rate for field-based employees the first-year post implementation. The creation of a core competency platform was crucial to ensuring leadership alignment, guiding talent acquisition, and supporting post-launch retention, ultimately contributing to the successful introduction of a transformative product.

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Ready to optimize your field force?

By investing in training, aligning goals, and harnessing the power of technology, companies can ensure that their field teams are prepared and thriving in the marketplace. The impact of these strategies on your commercial success can be profound and measurable. At BioLaunch Solutions, we’re here to help healthcare and biopharmaceutical organizations optimize their teams to drive employee satisfaction and organizational success. If you are passionate about your team’s success and want them to be more effective and impactful, let’s connect! We want to hear more about your experiences and challenges.