Indian pharma industry scores poorly on Digital Savvy Reps Survey

Indegene announced, a new analysis ‘The Digital Savvy Healthcare Sales Rep 2017 Report’ on technology needs and adoption by healthcare sales reps. The study covered over 500 healthcare reps across US, China, India and rest of the world.

The report provides perspective on healthcare sales, medical, institutional, devices, and other insights on present realities including challenges in Healthcare Practitioners (HCP) engagement, current software tools, perceived utility, and their digital capability wishlist. "The study reveals compelling evidence that suggests that healthcare reps are not fully equipped to meet the changing needs of HCPs. Perhaps, the low utilisation of existing HCP engagement technology is just the tip of the iceberg." said Manish Gupta, CEO Indegene.

Reportedly, 50 per cent respondents indicated that their companies did not provide them with relevant physician engagement technologies. Worldwide, healthcare reps constantly face challenges accessing physicians, covering their geographical and digital territories completely and providing relevant content on-demand. Strict compliance norms have further accentuated issues for reps with unavailability or delayed provision of approved medical content to be shared with physicians. A staggering 85 per cent respondents allude to this problem.

Nearly 70 per cent respondents indicated that anytime, anywhere access to digital tools is their first priority in improving physician access. Another 55 per cent demanded that their companies provide them with compliant, digital leave-behinds. In order to improve reach and frequency of physician visits in earmarked territories, 44 per cent reps advocated the use of omnichannel fluid motion detailing. Another 41 per cent saw on-demand information.