Digital Onlookers to Digital Experts – The digital adoption continuum

As a digital brand coach, I am often asked about how the Pharma industry is adopting digital tools in both the Indian context and developed markets. While in the developed world (specifically the US), pharma has been quite progressive in adopting digital tools in customer facing functions, in India the adoption is more sporadic and […]

Differentiation through Customer Engagement and Experience

At the IDMA Marketing and Sales Conference in Mumbai last week, I spoke on “Using digital to create customer engagement’ – a topic close to my heart. I began by talking about how customer engagement is a topic that pharma discusses in posters glued on office walls, on slides of senior executives and in leisure. […]

Pharma’s Digital Lens

As I meet more people and discuss their digital ideas and strategy, I think Pharma looks at digital through the wrong lens. The question I am often asked is: “This is my business model, how can tech help?” I think trying to answer the question framed that way cannot lead to the write answers. It […]

Don’t make it feel like it’s marketing

Changes in pharma marketing will be profound with the advent of technology. Digital marketing will allow pharma marketers to engage the customer in very meaningful ways which were not always possible through the work of sales reps. While sales reps are important in the scheme of things, they are but one channel. In-clinic time with […]

The Digital Economy

The first time I heard the term ‘digital economy’ in the medical context, it was from a reputed doctor who was a co-panelist and speaker at a company town hall event on digital marketing. It did not surprise me one bit that the doctor knew more about the digital economy than most of the pharma […]

The Digital World – Be there or be square!

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk to a group of mid-level pharma marketers on what marketing means in a digital world and how the rules of the game have changed. I began by asking them what they thought was the basic purpose of a marketer. They responded in their own ways […]

Selling in a digital era

Recently I decided to buy a laptop. As I looked around for the right one, I realized how little I knew about hardware. Having always used a company provided one, it was one of the things I had never bothered to educate myself on. As I always do for most things that I know nothing […]

SALES or MARKETING – The Customer Doesn’t Care!

Last month, this picture put up by Anup Soans on his Facebook (FB) page elicited 215 ‘likes’, 361 ‘shares’ and 76 comments (as on Dec 2nd). The popularity of this post intrigued me not because it was something that had never happened earlier – Anup is quite popular on social media – but since it […]