How a pharmaceutical company involved frontline staff to shape its R&D strategy.
Situation
A pharmaceutical company needed to make more effective use of its R&D budget for a high-selling drug. They wanted to get input to form their strategy from people on the ground since they have a lot of knowledge about the customers’ needs.
However those views were difficult to gather and analyse, often they were distorted by one or two more vocal individuals in focus groups.
They needed a way to give everyone an equal voice, so that they would have information that they could trust and build upon.
Approach
An online brainstorming session using the Synthetron methodoloy was used to engage the people on the ground: the front-line sales representatives of the pharmaceutical company.
Synthetron consultants developed the script together with representatives of the pharmaceutical company. The questions were specifically prepared to meet the needs of this case.
We moderated the sessions to ensure a good experience for the participants and get the right results for the company.
By engaging these experts the session collected wisdom from every corner of the market, which was later processed and prioritised. Everybody was able to voice their opinion on an equal footing.
Results
The result was a clear ranked requirements list for development (these included the drug itself as expected, but also generated valuable and actionable ideas for packaging, communications and distribution).
The salesforce were motivated by their inclusion in the decision-making process and the priority changes identified by them were cheaper and easier to implement than the developments the R&D function had in mind.
The peer review of the ideas during the online Synthetron session took everybody ’s view into account, including those who never speak up at a meeting. Nobody had to wait for their turn to speak, or be embarrassed at expressing a “silly” point of view.
