Challenges and Effective Practices for Optimizing a Customer Relationship Management System for Field Medical Teams

Industries Profiled:
Pharmaceutical; Medical Device; Biotech; Biopharmaceutical; Manufacturing; Consumer Products; Diagnostic; Consulting; Health Care; Clinical Research; Laboratories


Companies Profiled:
Adamas Pharmaceuticals; Alcon; Alkermes; Amgen; Arvelle Therapeutics; Bayer; Boehringer Ingelheim; Clovis Oncology; Daiichi Sankyo; EMD Serono; GlaxoSmithKline ; Harmony Biosciences; IQVIA; Kyowa Kirin; LEO Pharma; Merck; MyoKardia; NextGen Healthcare; Novartis; Novo Nordisk; Orchard Therapeutics; Sage Therapeutics; Sanofi; Santen; Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Terumo Corporation; Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd; TRPharm; UCB Pharma; Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Study Snapshot

Best Practices, LLC engaged 31 leaders from 30 leading biopharmaceutical companies in this research through a benchmarking survey. Over 60% of participants serve at the director level or above. Deep-dive interviews were conducted with selected study participants. Study data is segmented by mid/small vs. large pharma; US/Global+US vs. EU facing teams to offer multiple lenses on strong performance.

Key topics covered in this report include:

• Field Medical Team CRM Utilization
• Field Medical Team CRM Support
• Field Medical Team CRM Management and Budget

• It is common to have a dedicated CRM for medical, especially for US and large pharma: While most participants (55%) share their CRM system with other functions, 45% have a medical-dedicated CRM; as do 42% Global+US/US Segment and 54% of the Large Pharma Segment.

• Medical operations position not prevalent but seen as strengthening CRM effectiveness:

• Only a quarter of all participants and Global+US/US-Only segment have a medical CRM operations position.
• Those with a medical operations position spoke of its value to the FMT and medical function, in general, because it provides a dedicated way to improve FMT utilization and insights generation of the CRM system.

Sr. No.	Topic	Slide No.
I.	Executive Summary	Pg. 4
	Study Overview	Pg. 5
	Study Findings	Pg. 6-8
II.	Study Participants, Objectives and Overview	Pg. 9-13
III.	Key Findings	Pg. 14-16
IV.	Field Medical Team CRM Utilization	Pg. 17-29
V.	Field Medical Team CRM Support	Pg. 30-40
VI.	Field Medical Team CRM Management and Budget	Pg. 41-49
VII.	Voices from the Field	Pg. 50-57
VIII.	Best Practices, LLC	Pg. 58

• CRM system utilized by field medical teams (FMTs) – Total benchmark class
• CRM system utilized by field medical teams – Segmented data by company size and region
• Unique medical features in the CRM system utilized by field medical teams
• Interview narrative around the key medical feature for CRM
• Effectiveness of CRM platform for field medical teams – Total benchmark class and segmented data by region
• Effectiveness of CRM platform for field medical teams – Segmented data by company size
• Missing/difficult-to-use features in the CRM systems utilized by FMTs
• Interview narrative around the key ability for CRM in 2021
• Presence of dedicated/independent CRM system for field medical teams
• Shared CRM system with internal functions – Total benchmark class
• Shared CRM system with internal functions – Segmented data by company size and region
• Types of field medical CRM information accessible to Commercial

• Dedicated support for field medical CRM platform
• Interview narrative around dedicated IT support for field medical CRM
• Role reporting for field medical CRM support; Outsourced services for field medical team’s CRM system
• Effectiveness of support for field team’s CRM – Total benchmark class
• Effectiveness of support for field team’s CRM – Segmented data by company size and region
• CRM support activities for field medical team – Total benchmark class
• Interview narrative around utilizing a particular CRM system to generate reports and handling reporting
• Top three CRM support activities for field medical team – Segmented data by company size and region
• Time spent on generating each report from CRM data
• Time taken for CRM updates

• Reporting and analytics support and location for field medical team CRM
• Interview narrative around effectively utilizing a CRM system to show the value of a FMT
• Budget ownership for field medical team CRM
• Annual budget for field medical team CRM
• Medical CRM operations position – Total benchmark class
• Medical CRM operations position – Segmented data by region
• Interview narrative around effectiveness of dedicated CRM operations support
• Interview narrative around the benefits of having a dedicated medical operations position

• Interview narrative around platforms used by MSLs for video meetings
• Executive narrative around using CRM to demonstrate medical value
• Interview narrative around CRM usage policy for MSLs
• Executive narrative around desired CRM capabilities for field medical teams
• Interview narrative around keys to successful utilization of CRM system by FMTs
• Executive narrative around winning resources to boost CRM capabilities for field medical teams
• Interview narrative around requisite metrics in a dashboard to measure FMT value