Network Intelligence is becoming a key enabler of commercial strategy



Achieving commercial success in tomorrows challenging healthcare marketplace will require a more holistic understanding of regional health economies and a more integrated multi-disciplinary approach to cultivating long-term, trust-based relationships with a wider group of influential stakeholders.

The market for selling pharmaceuticals is an increasingly complex one, involving an expanding number of stakeholders who are influencing treatment options and reshaping the prescribing landscape. Increasingly influential stakeholder groups include payers, formulary members, health technology assessment (HTA) bodies, service managers, prescribing advisers, commissioners, pharmacists and independent nurse prescribers.

It is imperative for Pharma companies to develop new capabilities in order to build winning commercial strategies for the future. These new capabilities include improved environmental analysis to piece together and make sense of the bigger picture, and involve taking a more integrated multi-disciplinary approach to engage more seamlessly with influential players across all levels of this increasingly complex environment. Achieving this will require the methodical cultivation of network intelligence.

Network intelligence is a critical enabler to understanding regional health economies and the contextual and environmental factors which impact and shape the opinions of key players and decision makers throughout the system. In this article we will highlight a few key elements of commercial strategy which can profit from adopting a holistic networked perspective. This article will briefly address the following topics:

Stakeholder interaction (cultivation of long-term, trust-based relationships)
Stakeholder coverage (integrated, multi-disciplinary, sales and marketing teams)
Stakeholder network management (engaging cooperative and competitive networks)
Stakeholder segmentation (segmenting all stakeholders, even non-prescribers)

Beyond the traditional application of network analysis for Key Opinion Leader (KOL) identification and influence mapping, we are finding that when the scope is expanded to include the methodical capture of network intelligence on a broader scale (the regional health economy as a whole), the result is an opportunity for improving commercial innovation, while providing a platform of knowledge to support establishing and sustaining long-term stakeholder relationships.

Stakeholder Interaction

Increasingly, winning commercial strategies will require taking a long-term view and doing everything possible to develop and maintain trust-based relationships with key influencers throughout the regional health economy. Network intelligence can impart a much deeper appreciation of the environment that stakeholders are operating in, and provide insight into what the reality is really like for the people inside the system.

Visualizing this picture enables a deeper understanding of the conflicting priorities practitioners face, and the interplay of influences on decision making. Understanding these complex dynamics is particularly useful when field personnel are aiming to establish and develop relationships with new stakeholder groups.

The network-oriented stakeholder interaction approach has, at its core, a keen focus on stakeholder needs, goals, and priorities. This approach recognises that the dialogue with stakeholders needs to change. The stakeholder exchange must move away from being a one-way download of product messages. It must become a more personal interaction centred on understanding the priorities and challenges that they, and their practices, are facing. By better understanding these priorities Pharma companies can develop and position value-added service offerings around their brands which align with stakeholders key objectives and priorities.

And as field representatives engage differently and focus more on stakeholder needs, this gives them something new to say beyond delivering scripted product messages. Results have been encouraging, and are showing positive effects on both customer satisfaction and employee morale.

Stakeholder Coverage

A holistic understanding of regional health economies also enables a more integrated, multi-disciplinary team-based approach to the market, overcoming the traditional sales and marketing silos.

Whether launching a new product, or shaping the market for a mature brand, it is increasingly important to consider questions which often involve stakeholder groups that have previously been disregarded. Will there be sufficient resources and capacity for the uptake of a new therapy? How might establishing new treatment networks improve service provision? What value-added services would improve patient outcomes? Is there a business case to be made for the treatment?

Addressing this new complex reality requires regional account planning, informed by network understanding, and executed by taking an integrated approach to stakeholder coverage. Bringing marketing and sales together as an integrated, multi-disciplinary team should be central to an account-based approach. Account (sales and field-marketing) teams that understand the regional networks for relevant therapy areas can develop value propositions for the key constituencies that comprise these networks. This approach is driven by a unified regional operating plan (account-based approach) and should address the needs, goals, and priorities of the health networks and their members.

Such an approach provides marketing with a much improved understanding of the local environment, as well as the effectiveness of programs and initiatives on specific stakeholder groups. And with everyone contributing to filling-in the detailed network picture, data sharing is seen in a positive light, and customer data quality improves dramatically.

Stakeholder Network Management

One of the interesting dynamics in the evolving healthcare provider landscape is the increasing formation of integrated care networks. The changing burden of disease, particularly the increased prevalence of chronic conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, and asthma, is encouraging primary and secondary care providers to work closer together, often organising into multi-disciplinary teams (networks) to treat specific diseases or conditions, and better address the needs of growing patient populations.

Additionally, acute care and emergency services are increasingly being delivered by multi-hospital networks of care in order to sustain 24-hour service across a number of key speciality areas. There is a clear trend toward increasing formation of networks across the provider landscape and beyond.

At the same time, market forces are driving increased competition between these same providers. In some cases health system reforms are intentionally designed to stimulate competition as a way of creating incentives for providers to be responsive to the needs of patients, and use resources more efficiently. These developments create new opportunities for Pharma companies to engage as business partners to help healthcare providers compete successfully as businesses and, in some cases, to survive.

Network intelligence is essential to understanding both the competitive and cooperative dynamics taking shape in regional health economies. By cultivating network insight and becoming more adept at identifying partnering and collaboration opportunities, Pharma companies will be better able to align with, or facilitate development of, appropriate networks and to target value-added services to the most relevant networks for their brands.

Stakeholder Segmentation

The sophistication of stakeholder segmentation that is possible using network intelligence goes beyond the peer-nomination approach used by vendors of KOL influence data (although this type of data can also be usefully included alone, it is not sufficient). The stakeholder focus must necessarily go beyond KOLs and prescribing clinicians, to include all relevant stakeholders in the regional health economy.

The three primary dimensions which are essential to network-based segmentation include intrinsic value (magnitude), connectivity score (amplification), and advocacy (alignment).

The intrinsic value of any stakeholder can be calculated using a role-based method which scores any individual stakeholder according to the aggregate set of professional roles that the person performs (e.g. educator, budget holder, board member, etc.). Roles may have different weights according to relevance, and individuals may serve in different roles to varying degrees. Prescribing may also be a role, so the traditional segmentation approach, using prescribing potential, can be subsumed within this approach. Intrinsic value measures each individual as an isolated unit, without regard to their environment, interactions, or scope of influence (amplification).

Connectivity score is a measure of environmental influence, amplification, or reach, and attempts to reflect an individuals importance relative to the impact they can have through their associations. Each relevant (professional or social) relationship, association, membership, etc. (network connections), can be scored using a combination of the type and strength of the connection and the intrinsic value of the individual they are connected to. When aggregated, these connections sum-up to provide a connectivity score for each individual in the network. The calculation can be performed for a single therapeutic area, or across a portfolio.

Advocacy is also quite important as it is an indication of the strength of the trust relationship established thus far between the company and each of its stakeholders, as well as their belief in the value of a specific treatment. Since the objective is to develop and maintain long-term trust-based stakeholder relationships, it is essential to measure and track advocacy, and its affects on network influence.

The resulting picture provides far more information about each stakeholder, and his relative strategic importance, than traditional segmentation techniques, as it also considers the significance each individual has as a member of the wider community.

It is also worth mentioning that beyond the ability to segment the entire stakeholder base in a more sophisticated manner, this approach also has an important advantage in that it is not dependent on (nor is it impacted by EU restrictions on) brick-level prescription data.

Conclusion

It is important for Pharma companies to begin now to prepare the foundation for network intelligence in order to reach the next level of sophistication with their commercial strategies. With an integrated understanding of the players and the dynamics of regional health economies they will be better positioned for promotional innovation and managing long-term stakeholder relationships.

Author: Robert Mark, Partner at Executive Insight AG, where he focuses on developing network intelligence solutions for the healthcare market.
www.executiveinsight.ch r.mark@executiveinsight.ch