eyeforpharma.com

When a brand has only a few given years to live in a competitive marketplace, timing is everything. Global pharmaceutical brand teams have been looking for the right tactics and strategies to beat their competition, making huge investments in vast amounts of competitor and competitive information by purchasing CI databases and reports. While much of this information may be relevant, a study conducted by Skila (www.skila.com) showed that little of it is used or communicated or acted on internally. As such, the costs have proven to outweigh the benefits, with insights being nominal and results very short-lived.

One common mistake is to start purchasing massive information without thinking how the information will be used and how it will be turned into intelligence. There is no value in information that will just sit on a shelf if it cannot be used to inform the business's strategic or tactical decisions. This means that the time, money, and effort spent purchasing or collecting is wasted. Rather than collecting information in a random or haphazard manner, the search needs to be focused and planned, and aimed at answering the various intelligence requirements of the business. Information will come from a variety of sources, both within the organization and external to it.

• - Sales representatives deal on a daily basis with customers, and will hear what the competitors have been doing. They are your field intelligence - with the ear to the ground - who can forewarn management about impending competitor campaigns.
• - Research & Development may come across new patents.
• - Purchasing may find out that a supplier is now also supplying a competitor.
• - Market research can give feedback on the customer's perspective.

The resultant information will need to be validated, shared and stored so that when new information comes along, it can be quickly linked to similar information previously found. The relevance and importance of each piece of information needs to be interpreted and analyzed - on its own and in conjunction with other information, the other pieces in the jigsaw. Properly conducted, this interpretation and analysis is where information becomes intelligence. Finally, this intelligence needs to be selectively communicated with those who need to make decisions and/or take immediate action.

We want to know what you think. How would your organization accomplish such a task? Are the right processes, technology and support structures in place to take advantage of the opportunity to gather field intelligence?

Susan Dorfman
VP, Global Marketing
Skila
www.skila.com