If it is true that the source of competitive advantage for any company is the distinctive value it can create for its stakeholders, it will increasingly be necessary to enhance the company's ability to create it.
The impact of the pandemic on the economy is showing us that the speed at which new value is created and adaptation to new contexts is a key success factor.
Over the years, we have observed that one way to accelerate the ability to create distinctive value in a company is to promote diversity, for example by bringing in people from different sectors than the current one, who bring differentiated skills and ways of working.
The case of the pharmaceutical sector
An industrial sector that has always been particularly reluctant to hire people without specific sector experience is the pharmaceutical industry. To give a quantitative example: if we search on LinkedIn for profiles that have worked in "Consumer Goods" or the pharmaceutical sector in Italy, we find over 160,000 people, but only 172 have both sectors in their professional experience.
Pharmaceutical and consumer goods, an effective union
For some time, Consumer Healthcare divisions, which are companies or divisions that market over-the-counter drugs within the pharmaceutical sector, have been hiring people from the consumer goods industry, thus bringing a "consumer-centric" culture into a sector that is often more "product-centric."
More recently, some prescription pharmaceutical companies seem open to hiring directors in the Marketing and Commercial areas from the consumer goods industry.
What has been the strategic thinking of the company in these cases, and what opportunities have been generated as a result?
The evolution of the pharmaceutical sector
In the cases known to us, in general, the company's objective was experimental, for example, generating an innovative approach to managing pharmaceutical products by leveraging typical Consumer Goods levers. Over time, however, the objective evolved: to create real, distinctive, and innovative value for stakeholders by introducing a new mindset into the company.
3 examples of "consumer-centric" application
Here are three examples where "consumer-centric" logic can bring substantial innovation in the way of working and the development of the offering:
- New go-to-market models:
In the case of generic products, how to manage increased market competitiveness using levers more aligned with the mass market? It becomes crucial to work on target segments:- Analysis of doctors' needs with the creation of informative materials useful for patients and a remote and on-demand medical scientific information system;
- Analysis of distributors' needs and the creation of "canvass" commercial strategies, with discount systems targeting specific groups and varied for periods;
These new strategies can increase the relevance of products for the target audiences, making them more "top of mind."
- Distinctive Competitive Strategies
Also specialized products can benefit from a new approach of co-creation and consumer centricity. It is essential to go beyond the product and deeply understand the patient:- Analysis of the "patient pathway" with patient and clinician associations to understand their needs;
- Co-creation of relevant services for the patient and other stakeholders with an agile approach based on the analysis of patient journey. These strategies can help define a distinctive positioning for pharmaceutical products, facilitating the doctor's role and better serving the patient in dealing with their illness.
- Integration of missing skills within the organization
- The continuous focus on understanding consumer needs and all stakeholders can lead to greater market and motivational analysis skills across all target segments, facilitating a vision multistakeholder and systemic, and the use of methodologies for design-thinking in the creation of value-added services;
- The agility learned in the consumer goods markets allows for transferring into the pharmaceutical company a greater ability to challenge the constraints and barriers typical of the industry, a new mindset;
- The advanced digital skills introduce a broader use of technologies to reach target audiences and agile work processes.
For innovative hires to be successful, it is crucial that the company is open to experimentation at all levels and that the bearers of the new culture have the ability to integrate into the new context.
The ideal profile
The essential characteristics of these profiles will therefore be curiosity, flexibility, resilience, and learning agility, especially demonstrating the ability to ask questions to generate alternatives to the status quo, to the “we’ve always done it this way”!
In our opinion, bringing in people from outside the sector in which the company operates is a key element to accelerate the growth of learning and the innovative capacity of an organization, generating diversity and alternative viewpoints.
