Guest Opinion: Shutting the stable door on the salesforce
Breaching the ABPI Code of Practice invokes clearly-articulated sanctions that leave no doubt as to who is liable for corporate slip-ups; unerringly it is the company itself and its senior managers wh
By on Jul 20, 2004Breaching the ABPI Code of Practice invokes clearly-articulated sanctions that leave no doubt as to who is liable for corporate slip-ups; unerringly it is the company itself and its senior managers who carry the can for mistakes (deliberate or otherwise) made by those further down the line. The message is clear: contravening the Code will bring heavy fines for the company, jail sentences for company officers, or both. What is less clear, however, is how managers can remove the sting of corporate liability by preventing the mistakes made by those publicly fronting the company, so that maintaining corporate credibility becomes a case of good practice, rather than mere damage limitation. In other words, how to secure the stable door before the rogue sales horse's has bolted.
The problems facing management with regards to regulating the standards of those representing the company lie in the uncomfortable gap between those obligations held to the ABPI and the practicality of implementing its legislation in reality.
In an ideal world, you train your sales staff thoroughly, test them for a complete understanding of product and regulatory knowledge, equip them with approved and signed-off sales materials and send them out into a wider world hoping that everything they say to a customer is honest, ethical, factual and as it should be. According to the Code of Practice, sales representatives must at all times maintain a high standard of ethical conduct in the discharge of their duties's, ...must comply with all relevant requirements of the Code's and ..Representatives must not make claims or comparisons which are in any way inaccurate, misleading, disparaging....or are inconsistent with the summary of product characteristics.'s Yet, it is far from being an ideal world, and mistakes happen. The question is how can we avoid them?
If training is extensive and Representatives understand the ethical Code at least in theory, there seemingly arises a shortfall in the system somewhere between training and delivery. Essentially, once the Representative has left the training room and is sent off to sell, all corporate credibility hinges on his or her actions and performance. Thus, the sales reps are the people who wield active power over the company's image, and who can very publicly contravene the Code, yet they are not the ones who are held accountable. Therefore, the problems occurring between training and delivery are ultimately unresolved issues of control between those causing damage and those bearing the brunt of responsibility.
This problem takes on a very real dimension when we consider the actual opportunities for abuse presented by the flexible, technological tools of the salesman's performance. Let us take a hypothetical example:
As a manager, you go to endless trouble to ensure that all presentation materials are complete, up-to-date, accurate, and signed off according to the Code of Practice. Some time afterwards you learn that certain facts on your unhelpfully accurate's electronic slides were nothing like impressive enough for a certain sales Representative, who has seen fit to improve's them. Before the sales pitch, ABPI signatories will have certified that the final form of your promotional materials were in accordance with the relevant advertising regulations and that the materials were ...a fair and truthful presentation of the facts about the medicine's.
However, if the Representative is able to take control after this authorisation occurs, they may, perhaps even unwittingly, invalidate the legitimacy of the material. The Code offers precise guidelines for the presentation of factual material, covering statistical information and erroneous or hyperbolical claims. Often the Code even specifies the direct juxtaposition in which information must be placed. As many Representatives employ easily-altered electronic slide presentations (in PowerPoint form, for example) it is likely that in certain cases, just by altering the order of the slides, the representative may contravene the Code, thus laying the company open to litigation.
There is a clear duty under the Code to ensure that only approved materials are being used for promotional purposes and that the approved materials remain in their final form. Liability for any post-ratification materials falls to the company, not the offending Representative. The Code therefore contains something of a paradox the burden of punishment falls most heavily, not on the guilty party (the sales person) but on the company itself for permitting the presentation to be altered. Whist the Code does not actually outlaw the changing of materials, it does deal most harshly with material that is uncertified. Given that changing material may render it illegal, it is the company's responsibility to more effectively police the scope for changing data once it has been signed off. Thus it is a Representative's power to unacceptably alter authorised material which needs to be the focus of the solution.
In the interests of economy, many Pharmaceutical companies today distribute sales and marketing material in the form of signed-off PowerPoint slide presentations in preference to un-alterable interactive multimedia or paper presentations. However, in almost every case we have encountered, salesmen are also equipped with a copy of PowerPoint so that slides may be selected and sorted into a different sequence (a sequence that may or may not have been approved). Worse; that same copy of PowerPoint may then allow staff to make as many changes as they wish to the slide contents. One possible approach to regaining control of the sales force is to target the plausibility of manipulating such technology. In response, there is a growing need for a technology-based answer that would help to streamline and regulate Representatives's output in accordance with the requirements of governing bodies.
At Digital Image, we understand Pharma companies need software that allows them to minimise this exposure and decided to develop a software solution with features that helps prevent sales staff (or anyone else) from making changes to signed-off PowerPoint slides, or to approved slide sequences if necessary. We appreciate the need for password-protection and encryption of presentations (lest they fall into the wrong hands) and the enforcement of expiry dates as per the ABPI recertification rules. Also, while some Pharma companies may not worry about staff building a new presentation from existing slides, or even re-sequencing slides to deliver a different message, we are familiar with providing security features to severely curtail these freedoms if and when management control and accountability becomes important.
In addition to essential security, such software can provide support for some useful sales features such as dual-screen presenting, whereby a user can see their slide notes together with the upcoming slide on a laptop screen, whilst an audience sees the current slide on the big screen.
Of course, even the most advanced tools will never stop people doing regrettable things, but there is now a way to lessen potential damage whilst demonstrating that you, as a manager or company officer, have taken all reasonable steps to control the use of dangerous non-approved messages. There is, at least, one way senior staff can shut the stable door while the horse is still inside.
Author: Stephen Brabbins
Stephen Brabbins is Senior Partner of Digital Image LLP, a software company providing presentation and Web solutions to the Pharmaceutical industry. To learn more about their presentation tools, visit www.QPresenter.com, call +44 (0)1274 551 007 or Email: stephen.brabbins@digitalimage.co.uk
References:
(1) ABPI Code of Practice, 2003, 19, Clause 15.2
(2) Ibid, 19, Clause 15, Supplementary Information
(3) Ibid, 8, Clause 4
(4) Ibid, 20, Clause 15.10