3 Benefits of Improving Strategic Account Planning in Biopharma

Feb 27, 2023 | Kim MacLeod

Imagine arriving at a healthcare professional’s (HCP’s) waiting room and finding a sales, key account manager (KAM), or brand manager from your company who is already there. The reality is that many biopharma teams working in large and complex health systems don’t take full advantage of the tools and processes that could reduce this type of redundancy. By standardizing your account planning process, you can make it easier to coordinate and collaborate across teams, analyze and share insights, and provide a better HCP experience.

Explore a new account planning approach

Many account managers are accustomed to working in PowerPoint, Excel, or other legacy account planning tools. But this approach isn’t optimal for cross-team coordination, deriving insights to inform the next actions, measuring HCP interaction effectiveness, and providing legal, ethical, and compliance governance.

When we partner with customers to help solve account planning challenges, we begin by assessing the current state of account planning, identifying the gaps between the current and desired state, and sharing successes from recent customer engagements. These assessments help:

1. Provide visibility into your team’s mindset and existing processes. Through workshops, your team can identify pain points and primary areas for improvement.
2. Understand the organizational goals and vision for the future. Next, you can identify your value drivers and determine how you and your team would like to measure success.

Solving account planning challenges

One company needed to improve coordination and collaboration among its account managers after consistently receiving negative customer feedback on their engagements and partnership.

Account managers were completely unaware of what other team members were trying to accomplish at the account. They had no visibility into recent and planned activities and lacked alignment on shared priorities and goals. Ultimately, HCP feedback helped the company recognize the need for new approaches and working methods.

You can achieve several benefits by taking advantage of the Veeva CRM Accounts module as a strategic tool for better planning.

1. Account alignment: Instead of struggling with a coordinated approach to planning and execution, you can capture centralized customer data in one place to enable a shared understanding and align field planning to brand objectives. Information can also be partitioned to surface the appropriate information for the use case, e.g., commercial vs. medical users.
2. Real-time information and measurement in one place: When sales or other leaders request information about an account, teams often have to search through PowerPoints or sift through emails for an answer. Instead, with data captured in a central repository, you have plans, quarterly objectives, and the current account status at your fingertips. You can quickly measure account value and progress, keep track of stakeholder changes in your accounts, and ensure critical information is shared across teams and isn’t lost when account team changes occur.
3. Improved HCP experience: No one wants to waste HCPs’ valuable time. With cross-team visibility into accounts and real-time collaboration, you protect your credibility with HCPs by providing them with a unified experience.

Account planning isn’t one-size-fits-all

Every biopharma has different challenges and opportunities for improving strategic account planning, and companies are also at different stages of their account planning processes. Our Business Consulting Services team has engaged with nine of the top 20 biopharmas to address account planning business challenges. For example, we recently worked with Alexion on an account planning transformation based on clear goals to achieve optimal outcomes.

“The collaboration around developing this set of tools has exceeded my expectations…we have achieved innovation and adaptability as a practice.” Ross Bradley, Head of U.S. Sales, Alexion

Connect with me to discuss account planning and your goals for achieving commercial excellence.