Flexibility of digital solutions – the real thing or just a slogan?

An interview with Grzegorz Dembicki about the flexibility of digital solutions supporting work — on the example of medical representatives, manufacturers and distributors in the pharmaceutical and medical industry. Originally published in Experts in Pharma portal.

Experts in Pharma: Flexibility has been a popular word for many years, a slogan, especially in the world of business or IT. You can get the impression that it has come up and does not preach anything new. But for some reason, you’re still eager to use it. How is it with digital solutions? Is flexibility still important?

Grzegorz Dembicki: Yes, definitely. This is because we are still in the process of transformation. Changes in working methods and tools are a process that is happening here and now, not something that has already happened and we see it as normal. Until some time ago, the digital systems were extremely rigid. I mean literally — every change required development work, time, it generated costs. In turn, modern systems are built in accordance with the low-code idea. To put it simply, you do not need to use developers who are the most expensive resource in IT. The ability to interfere with the functionality, or the mode of operation of a system, is now its usual feature, a function. We no longer need special qualifications, an ordinary user is now able to do what until recently was the domain of professionals. If we are talking about the pharmaceutical industry or trade at all, it is all about providing manufacturers with the opportunity to manage the system themselves. Without the help of programmers. Of course, they don’t have to do it completely on their own, because they can get help with the setup, but it’s something else than programming a new solution. And this is the flexibility that has come to us in digital solutions.

EIP: So, in short, it’s about users being able to adjust the solutions to their needs as much as possible?

GD: In a large part, yes. For example, in sales support systems, the user has the right task and activity editors at their disposal. Tasks include, for example, commercial visits, and activities are the steps of these tasks. These are the most basic processes that the user can fit for his own needs. But at the moment, these possibilities are widening. The sale uses the processes of local promotion campaigns, Perfect Store, exchange, discounts, or representatives’ coaching. They work at every manufacturer, but they’re a little different for everyone. It is “a little different” that is where flexibility enters the game. Digital solution providers therefore create the backbone of individual processes and intuitive editors in which the user will give the final shape to these processes. It has to happen quickly and as easily as possible. So that those responsible for sales processes are able to set it up by  themselves, without having to write and call developers, let alone the system provider. In conclusion, users expect that they will be able to do a lot on their own, quickly, and the entire platform will be well adapted to their individual needs.

EIP: When it comes to goals in sales support systems — which has always been an individual case — we also have more and more opportunities today?

GD: Goals are always set by the client, that is obvious. Such systems have always been designed in such a way that objectives can be set, implemented, verified and finally analysed. Of course, there may be such goals that are very complicated and which the system may not be able to handle, but that’s what flexibility is all about, so that we give the customer this opportunity to define even such a goal. This is the moment when it is worth answering the question of exactly what the goal is. The purpose is to provide a reference value and then to refer the result to this reference value. We need to see the whole process of implementation. In our company we use the term “reference value tables” (RVT) — this is the place where the customer uploads/supplies the system with reference values. These may be targets, but also many other reference values.

What is really developing now is the last step — the analysis of the results. We have more and more advanced, flexible tools for business analysis at our disposal — e.g. Microsoft Power BI, or our Biqsens which is based on it. Such tools allow the user to freely configure what he sees. Users can create dashboards with indicators of their choice (for example the achievement of individual goals). Suppliers of analytical solutions constantly create ready-to-use analytics in almost every area of the company’s business. With a sales support system linked to the business analysis environment, the manufacturer is in fact armed with incredible weapons, which he can use in any way. Configure almost everything he or she sees to get access to the information needed on an ongoing basis.

EiP: To what extent do digital tools help to do what we want, and to what extent do they define our possibilities / impose a strategy?

GD: That, of course, depends on the rank in the hierarchy of the company. This flexibility will not be the same everywhere. It will be larger in the management, these people are responsible for the strategy. They decide, “We want it to be like this.” But then, the lower the organization’s hierarchy, this flexibility is theoretically less. However, this is not exactly the case, as digital tools reflect what is happening at every level. The assumptions made with regard to the ‘top’ work model must be reproduced in the solution used by field workers. So in the case of IT systems, we should talk about flexibility in the context of the whole organization that acts as a combined vessel system.

Digital solutions in general have changed the work of people in the field a lot. We remember the times when everyone was working on paper, when orders were sent by fax, there were lines at the post office in the evenings. At that time, orders were also delivered personally to the distributor. How much time the representative had to waste on matters that no one even thinks about now. A sales person sitting in front of the laptop late in the evening and updating excel data was not a rare sight. They entered data manually and had to remember when and where they were.

Thanks to digitalisation, representatives can focus on the most important aspect of work, forget about the tedious activities that take place almost automatically. Digital systems help them to remember about orders, displays, promotions they have arranged for. The representative gets in the car in the morning and knows where to go, that’s very important. Previously it was so that the representative traveled to different places, because had such area and decided, for example, to go to the “this” pharmacy, because the pharmacist is nice, so he was eager to visit her. This did not always translate into the volume of orders. Currently, the representative has all the information about the history of cooperation with a particular client in the app. He knows immediately what clients should be dealt with in the first place, what actions should be taken with them. The system really does it on most of the issues that have taken an incredibly long time so far. So he or she is not a slave to tables and reports — they have time to take care of relations. It can be said that the more digitalisation, the strangely more space for human factors and relationships.

Another thing is the fact that modern sales support systems can combine data from many different sources. From distributors, from research agencies such as AC Nielsen, PEX PharmaSequence or IQVIA. From pharmaceutical chains. This gives you a completely new perspective when it comes to strategy planning and understanding the market. More knowledge means more possibilities. So modern systems do not define our way of operating, they provide us with information and shed light on hitherto hidden aspects. What the user does with this knowledge is up to him. He has tools in his hand that allow him to use it in a thousand ways. Although, of course, in a detailed fragment of the whole, we can talk about running by the hand – where it is, of course, useful. At the end of the system, they also tell you what actions should or should be taken. For example, they say “visit this customer and suggest these products or promotion, give him a gift”. All based on previously collected data on cooperation. However, it is just help, the automation of certain issues, and not imposing some action.

EIP: We talked about merging data from different sources. I guess that’s one of the most important aspects of trading software right now? It is said that companies are becoming data-driven organisations. What is the use of data in practice?

GD: Yes, we can safely say that the direction of development of IT tools is definitely going towards data integration. Digital solutions provide information here and now — that is their greatest value. These are no longer the times when we were staring at the excel table, which came with a delay of two days or longer. At that time, it was difficult to respond to warehouse shortages. This is a good example, because out of stocks are a great evil in any business. This kind of situation should never happen. Fortunately, digital supply chain management keeps stock shortages to a minimum. When it comes to our solution, the Emigo system, it receives inventory data from distributors practically every hour. Thanks to this, the representative sees all the time in which warehouses products are available. That’s one thing. The second thing is the level of analysis. Analytics are available to monitor the entire supply chain on an ongoing basis.

You can clearly see how much of a given product is in a given warehouse. Such analytics are also able to predict for how long this product in this warehouse will last, taking the historical rotation into account. This brings us back to the topic of flexibility. It takes a few seconds to find out about the situation and if we see that a product may be out of stock, we can immediately send a demand suggestion from the analytics level. Here, flexibility is understood as the ability to quickly respond to market needs. Thanks to the data, we can also monitor, for example, the resale of our products from the distributor or the resale in pharmacies. We can see every stage of the chain and we can manage it in agile way, avoiding out of stocks.

If we look at this more broadly, we can say that digitalisation makes the whole industry more flexible. The dynamics of work or distribution have increased. It became faster and more confident. The changes that have taken place in this area are tremendous. It’s hard to compare 2021 to what we had at our disposal 5 or 10 years ago.

EiP: If new opportunities open up for almost every aspect of sales, does that also apply to the execution of display standards?

Of course. First of all, as I mentioned earlier – producers, and their sales teams, have advanced tools to support all sales processes at their disposal, including the examination of display standards. It is enough for the representative to take a photo of the shelf and the system will read all the necessary information from it. He no longer has to count faces, share in a shelf, or check if the prices are correct. Photo recognition is already here, and it will be even more present in our systems, processes and the daily work of our representatives.

Another interesting novelty is making it easier for salespeople to work in a way that was unthinkable a few years ago. Currently, a representative who determines the choice of displays with a pharmacy or shop does not have to carry them with him and show each one in turn. We have augmented reality, thanks to which it is done on the screen of a tablet or phone. The representative directs the camera of the device to the selected place in the pharmacy or store, selects the type of display and after a while its three-dimensional model is visible on the camera image. You can freely rotate it, move it, and finally take a photo. It is worth noting that this augmented reality system maintains the true dimensions of the displays, so you can immediately see where it can be placed. After scanning and inserting a virtual display, we can take a photo of the entire wall or pharmacy with the display already set up virtually and send it to the pharmacist’s email address. Sometimes he has to consult the appearance of his pharmacy with the headquarters of the chain or with the person responsible for the display and decor of the place. In this way, the entire process is significantly shortened and the representative’s work ismuch easier.

EiP: Thank you for this conversation

GD: Thank you very much.