Adobe Connect for eDetailing - Pharma Marketing Network

20 July 2011 Vol. 10, No. 12

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Adobe Connect for eDetailing Making Physician Communications More Effective Author: John Mack

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Find resources cited this article online at: http://tinyurl.com/5hgxra This article is part of the July 20, 2011 issue of Pharma Marketing News. For other articles in this issue, see (after July 31, 2011): http://www.news.pharma-mkting.com/PMNissueV1012Jul2011archive.htm Published by:

VirSci Corporation PO Box 760 Newtown, PA 18940 [email protected]

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Vol. 10, No. 12: July 20, 2011

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ntense competition, regulatory scrutiny, and new ways that healthcare providers access information are just a few of the challenges facing pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies when they set out to detail physicians about their products.

Adobe Connect for eDetailing is a secure, privatecloud offering that integrates live chat, online meetings, and your CRM and back-end analytic systems. The results are increased clinician engagement, more effective detailing, integrated systems, and reduced costs (see Figure 1, pg 3).

Traditionally, thousands of sales representatives have competed for face-to-face time with healthcare providers, with only a few getting past the receptionist's desk for only a few minutes with a physician to detail their products.

Aside from limited physician access, Hendrickson noted another factor that is driving the need for eDetailing: skyrocketing costs.

New advances in Internet technology, coupled with government and self-regulation, have curbed face-toface interactions even more, and as a result, healthcare providers are turning to the Internet for selfdirected research. Many eDetailing Flavors eDetailing—the ability to detail products online— promises to increase access to clinicians by presenting product information online at the healthcare provider's convenience. Various forms of eDetailing have been around for a number of years. Usually, these fall into two distinct categories: (1) “self-directed” programs where the physician navigates an online program without any interaction with a sales rep (ie, “traditional” eDetailing), and (2) a Web-enabled interactive program that includes realtime communication with a sales rep. CASE STUDY A case study involving the second form of eDetailing was presented in a previous Pharma Marketing News article. See “Pharma TeleWeb e-Detailing”; PMN106-01; http://bit.ly/pdOAf3; use discount code: TWEB).

This article focuses on Adobe Connect for eDetailing, a specific collaboration between Adobe and ConnectSolutions, a leading provider of private cloud deployments of web conferencing and collaboration solutions. ConnectSolutions Pharma Marketing News recently interviewed Matt Hendrickson, Vice President of Marketing at ConnectSolutions, about the Adobe Connect for eDetailing platform (listen to the podcast here: http://bit.ly/o3OieV). Adobe Connect for eDetailing combines the online meeting platform from Adobe with enterprise-class managed services from Connect Solutions.

© 2011 VirSci Corporation (www.virsci.com). All rights reserved. Pharma Marketing News

Matt Hendrickson

“The expenses of marketing and sales of new drugs and medical devices is really going through the roof,” noted Hendrickson. “It’s a problem for the companies that are promoting drugs and a problem for the patients and payors who ultimately pay higher prices.”

Limitations of “Traditional” eDetailing eDetailing promises to help ease the physician access problems and costs associated with face-toface detailing. eDetailing also helps physicians get the information they need from a vast library of information. Hendrickson, however, identified several limitations of “traditional” eDetailing, including: • Traditional eDetailing solutions are often difficult and time-consuming to setup and aren't available at the moment of need—when a clinician is performing self-directed research on the internet—perhaps visiting your website. • Traditional eDetailing solutions typically do not allow you to control what sales representatives present, making regulatory compliance difficult and your presentations non-standard and possibly ineffective. • Traditional eDetailing solutions are often unable to seamlessly integrate with CRM or back-end analytic systems. “There are several reasons why eDetailing in the past wasn’t as successful as it could have been,” said Hendrickson, who noted that off-the-shelf tools such as Webex and Go To Meeting, which have been around for a long time, are “geared toward webinars and not one-to-one personal communications that is needed for successful detailing.” Continues on next page…

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Enterprise Integration is Key “Another problem with these tools,” noted Hendrickson, “is the lack of integration with enterprise applications such as CRM [customer relation management]. This makes it hard to ensure that all the important information about interactions with physicians is being tracked. The CRM integration piece is a really critical component of the overall solution. One of the things that we do on the back end is to provide a lot of reporting and analytics around this.” Today, eDetailing can make use of streaming video technology because of the ubiquity of broadband access in the last few years. In addition, eDetailing solutions now must be adaptable to mobile devices and smartphones that are used by every physician. These technologies had limited adoption in the past, which explains why eDetailing until late has languished. “We’ve taken a fresh look at the technology,” said Hendrickson, “and we’ve brought out some solutions which will hopefully get wider adoption and address some of these challenges of the past.”

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Adobe Partnership “Every organization has a different work flow,” noted Hendrickson. “When we come in, we design an endto-end complete solution around this challenge of eDetailing. That’s what we add to the partnership with Adobe. Adobe provides the online meeting platform and ConnectSolutions provides the enterprise management services and builds the private cloud infrastructure. We can get the solution up and running in weeks, not months.” Features & Benefits Hendrickson outlined some of the features and benefits of Adobe Connect for eDetailing as follows: • Increase Clinician Engagement Adobe Connect for eDetailing enables pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device manufacturers to engage with healthcare providers as they conduct internet research by giving them live chat options on your website, in your emails, or anywhere you have an online presence. A 30-second live chat can be transformed into a full-fledged online presentation with screen sharing, video cameras, and multimedia. Continues on next page…

Figure 1. Introducing Adobe Connect for eDetailing


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• Make Detailing More Effective When a sales rep launches an Adobe Connect online meeting, the meeting room comes loaded with your centrally-stored and updated presentations, brochures, videos and anything else you want your customer to see so that your rep stays on message and delivers FDA-compliant materials. Clinical trial data, product specifications, and other resources are available to clinicians on-demand or as take-aways from the meeting, enabling them to sift through the information on their own time and streamlining requests for samples and full sales orders. And most importantly, Adobe Connect for eDetailing provides ample opportunity for your reps to distinguish their products from others while informing physicians of new product benefits. • Rich, engaging meeting rooms The Adobe Connect online meeting room makes for a rich, engaging experience: • Web cams, screen sharing, ability to stream video, chat, polls, quizzes Q&A. • Live web meetings are easily accessed via standard web browsers or web-enabled mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, giving sales reps unprecedented access to busy clinicians. • Track attendance and log training usage so you know which health care providers were trained. • Integrates with Existing CRM and Analytics Systems Adobe Connect for eDetailing integrates seamlessly with existing systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, enabling sales reps to: • • • •

Verify clinician credentials Obtain disclaimer signatures Load notes Track business analytics

With Adobe Connect for eDetailing reps can focus on selling rather than on administrative tasks. • Reduces Costs With Adobe Connect for eDetailing you can reduce the cost of doing business by eliminating unnecessary travel and expenses. Alleviating extensive travel helps recoup missed sales opportunities because sales staff has more time to


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engage with more physicians more frequently, moving from one prospective customer to the next. Adobe Connect for eDetailing also allows sales staff and managers to use one solution for a variety of purposes, sparing critical budget resources that otherwise would be used for disparate systems to address individual needs. For example: eLearning. Adobe Connect for eDetailing can be used for eLearning to train a direct sales team, track which personnel has taken specific training courses in developing a comprehensive sales training curriculum. Marketing Webinars. Adobe Connect for eDetailing can help marketers reach larger global audiences faster, providing easy, reliable access to large-scale speaking events for hundreds or even thousands of participants. In all cases, the Adobe eDetailing solution helps shorten the time and decreases the cost it takes for pharmaceutical and medical technology sales professionals to engage with busy healthcare providers. Enhanced Security & Hassle-Free Deployment Adobe Connect for eDetailing delivered by ConnectSolutions makes setting up an e-detailing solution simple and efficient. • The company delivers worry-free global deployment, covering platform infrastructure, installation, managed services, and training. • Deployments are customized to accommodate new or existing workflows and reporting structures. “What our enterprise and pharmaceutical customers expect from us,” said Hendrickson, “is a much higher level of reliability and security than they would normally get working in a public cloud environment or running in their own environment and infrastructure. That’s really ConnectSolution’s strength.” Some Deployment Technical Details Spare Valuable Bandwidth. Leveraging private cloud computing capabilities, companies can spare valuable bandwidth on internal networks while providing optimal data security through encryption and authentication protocols in line with federal and industry regulations. Scalable. The Adobe Connect for eDetailing solution can scale and operate virtually anywhere in the world. Continues on next page…

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Reliable. The Adobe Connect for eDetailing solution provides highly reliable access to back-end workflows and content, boasting a 99.99% uptime and extensive disaster recovery standards supported by multiple global data centers. With Adobe Connect for eDetailing, Adobe and ConnectSolutions offer one of the most comprehensive, extensive sales enablement tools available to medical sales professionals. The platform is highly efficient, cost effective, and scalable to help organizations of all sizes around the world improve critical relationships with HCPs and deliver higher sales returns.

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“In the end, this all adds up to increased outcomes for patients,” said Hendrickson. “If the doctors are more informed, then the patients can be more informed and get better healthcare and that’s really what it boils down to.” Pharma Marketing News

Pharma Marketing News Pharma Marketing News is an independent, free electronic newsletter focused on issues of importance to pharmaceutical marketing executives.

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Contact Matt Hendrickson | VP Marketing Email: [email protected] phone: (510) 350-3516 | fax: (510) 350-3436


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