Pharmaceutical Brand Management in India (4 Case Studies)

Pharmaceutical Brand Management in India (4 Case Studies) are explained below:

Study 1

The high and rapidly increasing popularity of social media platforms such as Face book, YouTube, and Twitter is expected to revolutionize the marketing strategies employed in the pharmaceuticals industry.

In addition to marketing, an increasing number of pharma play­ers have also begun leveraging these platforms to enhance consumer relationships and im­prove brand management, based on the market intelligence generated by monitoring and analyzing user-generated content.

The ability to incorporate consumer feedback to develop new products is also expected to initiate a strategic shift in the operational model of pharma companies. Social media involve­ments are expected to increase product sales, especially those of OTC drugs, in the long term.

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Novartis for instance has already begun using Youtube and Facebook to enhance the sales for its OTC drugs such as Comtrax, Orofar and Bufferin. J&J, one of the first pharma giants to enter the social media space, has used online platforms for crisis management – when the company recalled its products (Tylenol and Benadryl tablets) it used social websites to apologize to consumers for irregularities in its manufacturing plant found during FDA inspection.

Further effective social media strategies are discussed in detail that can be useful in devel­oping a successful social media campaign for pharmaceutical market. Benefits, Risks and Future impact of social media are analyzed separately. Geographic variations in terms of social media usage and regulations are also covered.

Questions:

1. Based on above facts design the new model for pharma marketing

2. How this new era of marketing will change the future of pharmaceutical marketing, Discuss

3. In what way these website will be helpful for brand image building

Study 2

The description of Ethics can be given as that branch of philosophy, which is concerned with what, is good or bad, right or wrong. Ethics is philosophy in action. Ethics is governed by something is good or not and based on the various principles of Morality, Welfare, Rights & Duty, Justice, Equality, Liberty and Virtue and is the subject matter of daily life of doing things and living with various disciplines in life what pointed above .

Law, Ethics and Economics such depends on each other that sometimes it is difficult to clarify that which is to be valued more. Ethics is about for what the thing is done, who has done it and how it has done. Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance as burning issues are sub­ject matter of ethics now a days.

Frameworks of ethics provide the platform for many modern concepts for business and enterprises, which extend the individual and corporate priorities far beyond conventional business aims of profit and shareholder enrichment.

Ethical factors also a significantly influences institutions and public sector enterprises, for which the conventional priorities of quality of service and cost management increasingly taking account of these same ethical considerations affecting the commercial and corporate world.

The issues considered under modern concept of ethical organizations are:

a) Corporate Social Responsibility:

Corporate social responsibility means corporations have a responsibility to help society in solving some of its most prominent social problems (many of which were caused in part by corporations) by devoting even some of their re­sources.

b) People, Planet, Profit:

The triple bottom line (abbreviated as “TBL” or “3BL”) cap­tures an enlarged spectrum of values and criteria to measure organizational (and societal) success whether it is economic, ecological and social.

At practical base, TBL accounting means expanding the conventional framework of reporting to take into consideration about ecological and social performance in addition to financial performance.

c) Leadership and Ethical Management:

Every aspect of traditional or modern leader­ship, management and organization which relate to ethics can be added to the list, but the difference between Moral, Amoral, and Immoral managers, leaders and organizers could be taken in view when explaining and examining them.

d) Fair Trade:

Fair trade is a system aimed at offering (the most disadvantaged producers in developing countries) the opportunity to move out of poverty through creating market access under beneficial terms rather than exploitative. Fair Trade offers the objective of to empower producers to develop their own business and wider communities through interna­tional trade.

e) Globalization (Its Negative Effects):

Same as the anti-nuclear power movement right from the 1970s to till date, we have witnessed the rise of a new worldwide culture of ‘anti- globalization’ campaigners because Globalization is not unanimously viewed as a positive development.

Like a yearly global festival, against of globalization turn up at every meeting of the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, or the summits of G8 or EU leaders and articulate their profound criticism and often violent protest against the ‘global world order’, ‘global capitalism’, the ‘dictate of the multinationals’, and so on.

Riots in various countries like Seattle, Davos, Prague, and Genoa have made the public aware of the fact that globalization are highly contested and controversial topic on the public agenda.

f) Sustainability:

Though not universally accepted the concept of Sustainability appears to have been widely promoted as the essential new conceptual frame for assessing business activities specifically and industrial and social development more generally.

Since the 1980s, especially following the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, human sustainability has implied the integration of economic, social and environmental spheres to: “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

g) Mutually Cooperative Employee Ownership:

Narayana Murthy & Infosis, Mumbai’s Dabbawalas, are best examples.

h) Micro- Finance:

Originally developed in Bangladesh, pioneered by NGOs and aid agen­cies to finance small entrepreneurs ignored by commercial banks. This is now practiced and promoted by Citigroup and many other banks.

I) Balance In Well-Being At Work And Life:

Highly debatable since ever.

We see many different definitions and interpretations of the concept of Ethics because Ethics is a very broad area. There are no universally agreed rules of ethics, no absolute standards or controls, and no fixed and firm reference points. This is fascinating given how hugely important ethics have now become in modern life and society.

Questions:

1. Describe pharmaceutical marketing ethics

2. Discuss the applications of ethics in brand management

Case Study 3

Although Ravindra took a circuitous route from nursing to pharmaceutical sales 15 years ago, every step of her professional journey made her more qualified to work in the pharma­ceutical industry. Ravindra, a veteran sales representative at one of the country’s top ten pharmaceutical companies, says that her healthcare background alone wasn’t enough to give her an edge over the competition, but her clinical experience combined with her sales and marketing knowledge won her the job.

Ravindra, who has a bachelor’s of science in nursing, started her career as an ob/gyn nurse working in hospitals and county clinics. After five years in patient care, Ravindra switched gears and went to work as the manager of a nursing personnel agency.

Ravindra’s favorite aspect of the agency job was marketing, prompting her to change her professional direction. Soon thereafter, Ravindra leveraged her clinical experience and went to work for a company that sold ob/gyn equipment to doctors. One year later, she “decided to take the big leap to pharmaceutical sales.”

Ravindra responded to newspaper ads and garnered several pharmaceutical sales interviews.

To prepare for the interviews, she picked the brains of pharmaceutical sales representatives she knew from her hospital and clinic days, inquiring about the industry and what kinds of interview questions she should expect.

Ravindra spent hours at the library researching the product lines, management structures, and leadership styles of her target companies, and she even reviewed the companies’ annual reports and their stock market performances.

Ravindra focused her search on the top 20 largest pharmaceutical companies, and recom­mends that other nurses do the same. “The biggest companies tend to be the most stable and lucrative, and seem to have the most room for growth,” she says.

“They are also more professional and tend to treat their employees much better.” Pharma­ceutical companies only hire candidates who have at least a bachelor’s degree for sales rep positions, and generally don’t make exceptions for experienced RNs with associate de­grees, Ravindra says.

Ravindra’s job hunt was successful because of her combination of healthcare experience and sales savvy, she says. “I think I got the job because of my familiarity with the region and with some of the physicians I would be calling on,” says Ravindra, who has worked for the same company her entire pharmaceutical career.

“I had also kept my credentials current, which gave me credibility,” she says. Additionally, Ravindra had independently completed the Dale Carnegie sales course, which showed her commitment to mastering sales techniques, she says.

Ravindra surmises that pharmaceutical companies’ hiring processes may be even more rig­orous now than 15 years ago. However, the basic characteristics Ravindra tried to display during her interviews – ambition, enthusiasm, assertiveness, professionalism, and the desire to make a profit for the company – will still impress potential employers, she says. “Nurses who are interviewing with pharmaceutical companies have to realize that this is a business.

You’re stepping away from the bedside and selling products. If the products don’t sell and you don’t increase profitability, you won’t succeed. You have to show you recognize this aspect of the job,” Ravindra says. Nurses aren’t shoo-ins for pharmaceutical sales posi­tions, Ravindra reiterates, but they certainly have what it takes to succeed if given the opportunity.

“Our knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and chemistry definitely help in the job,” she says. “And I also think doctors take us more seriously because of our backgrounds.”

Questions:

1. Discuss in detail case study of Ravindra with its strengths and weakness

2. How the decision of Ravindra is valid? What are the challenges in front of Ravindra?

Case Study 4

Now that we have entered the 21st century, the gimmicks that worked at the dawn of the web age are being replaced by web techniques of more substance with a solid strategic vision behind them.

Whether the site is interactive or totally interactive, it should speak to the audience (stakeholders) for whom it is intended. Unfortunately, because the owners of the sites want to see their vision on the site (which is rarely expressed in the same manner, visuals, architecture, or words, as what the customer warfts to see on the site) and because traditional market research methods aren’t as fine tuned as they need to be to distinguish the needs of highly segmented markets, few sites really hit the mark when it comes to speaking to their audience.

Meeting the demands of today’s high-segmented and fast-paced internet audience requires a new approach. With that in mind, we created a new methodology that we call Open mind Research. It should address the needs of today’s highly segmented and fast-paced internet audience.

Equally important, you have to extract the information from both in a single session. We decide on what type of information we are looking for, for instance, back­ground for creating the tag line, the information architecture, a hierarchy of how informa­tion should be delivered on the site, feeling about colors, and degrees of interactivity, etc.

Then we gear the research towards those endpoints. In short, we find out how the end user wants to be “told and sold” in their own words. And we really listen to what they say and follow through on what they want. The finished product, or website, is totally unique and often paves the way into new territory that leaves the competition eating your dust.

Questions:

1. Design the website that fulfills the answers of the following questions,

a. What do you want to see on the website?

b. How do you want to see it?

c. What are your concerns around this topic?

d. How can we solve them?

e. What will bring you back to the website?

2. What information do you need in order to buy or try a product?