Novo Nordisk is perhaps best known for mainstream obesity and diabetes medicines. However, the company is also committed to expanding into new disease areas where there are significant unmet patient needs. A growing circle of HCPs will administer those medicines, yet access to providers is declining, and time is of the essence in reaching patients.
Frank Armenante, Novo Nordisk’s field systems director, is considering the best ways to find and engage HCPs and believes it’ll require new alignment between sales, marketing, market access, and medical teams. He sees a direct route to the goal by providing commercial teams with shared data and technology.
“As we enter new disease states, the customers are changing, and the software has to keep up. The technology is now here, so we made the change,” he says of the decision to be an early adopter of Veeva Vault CRM.
Taking calculated and educated risks moves the business and industry forward in a compliant way, according to Armenante. “Technology changes, disease states change, our industry changes, and we learn. Things change rapidly, and it’s not like it was even three years ago. It’s a nice intersection where we’re going and where the technology to align commercial teams is today.”
Connected engagement with HCPs
Achieving connected engagement — where teams see and serve a customer fully and rapidly in their preferred ways — creates an environment where each interaction informs the next in a ‘continuing conversation.’ Handoffs are seamless, even when multiple teams are involved.
From both patient-treatment and operational perspectives, there’s an urgency to align commercial teams:
- Without a shared tool and a cohesive strategy, data and analytics sit in silos instead of being used to inform and inspire customers.
- Disconnected commercial teams carry out separate outreach campaigns with the same HCPs, draining time and resources on both sides of the conversation.
The results are missed HCP connections and missed commercial goals. However, if sales, marketing, and medical teams can access a ‘golden customer record’ using the same business logic and business rules, the organization will gain an advantage in providing targeted guidance when HCPs need it.
Be bold; don’t wait to innovate
Armenante says the 101-year-old company boldly innovates for today’s and tomorrow’s customers and patients. His advice: If you wait to do things as an organization, you’ll be waiting forever. “I’ve seen companies wait for ‘one more feature’ and never move.”
He continues, “We wanted to stay ahead of the curve. Innovation is about being bold and using the most recent technology, but it also must be flexible.” Serving historical customers while engaging new HCPs, such as case managers, demands that flexibility.
As a result, step one in Novo Nordisk’s technology reevaluation initiative was to ensure the cardio-metabolic team was ready to go with whatever software they chose. That team serves the company’s long-standing customers and thus was a high-priority internal stakeholder. “As we move into different disease states, our software has to be flexible enough to help us build relationships with new types of customers.”
Move in step with internal partners
Novo Nordisk is quickly aligning its commercial teams to use a single customer engagement solution. However, Armenante didn’t skip steps in preparing for the switch to Vault CRM.
Before making the decision, he and his team listened to their internal customers — marketing, market access, medical, and sales — and worked closely with IT, operations, and execution teams to ensure strategy alignment. With IT, he adds, “We’re joined at the hip and don’t make decisions without the other feeling good about it.”
Armenante says the team feels well-prepared to help launch products in new disease states. Innovation, agility, and personalization will matter more than ever, and now, commercial teams don’t need to spend time and resources catching up with each other. That’s time better spent with HCPs.
Read GSK’s reason for becoming one of the first adopters of the next-generation CRM.