The global Pharma industry is progressing through major fundamental changes with important implications for India and Indian companies. North America proceeds to be the largest pharma manufacturing in the world contributing to around a third of the $2 trillion in annual global pharma sales in cost terms. All the same, with the rapid movement of growth in pharma sales in Asia across the last ten years and the expected growth in the medium-term future, the center of gravity for the pharma industry is slowly shifting toward Asia.

Asia is likely to soon pass North America in terms of overall pharma sales. This is a leaning that is likely to proceed for the foreseeable destiny due to broad macroeconomic drivers such as population and income growth. Japan and China will indeed continue to dominate pharma sales in Asia. For example, with annual pharma deals of over $120 billion, China is already more than five times the size of the Indian national pharma industry in terms of value. However, rapid annual industry revenue growth rates of over 10–12 percent in countries such as India are likely to see an expanding interest by global Pharma Companies in other Asian industries including India.

Different factor influencing the global pharma industry is the growing pace of branded products losing patent exclusivity in developed industries. Much of this appearance has impacted mass industry small molecule products. Generic companies near the world including Indian company have and will proceed to reap the advantages of this trend. Another possibility that is starting up for Indian pharma majors is the opening of the trend of more complex biologic products losing patent exclusivity in the improved industry through competition from biosimilars. This phenomenon is likely to significantly extend the possibilities for many Indian pharma companies with strong global operations. Today, pharma exports from India are nearly as high as the domestic pharma industry. As this international business for Indian pharma majors grows, companies are gearing up to further strengthen their internal capabilities to manage these international businesses through a mix of strong local affiliate presence and strong centralized capabilities, often located and/or managed from India.

Even inside India, the expanding size of the domestic industry, the expanding scale of Indian pharma companies, and the expanding launching of new products into the business are leading to a significant increase in competitive strength. Growing scrutiny of promotional tactics by the government is only raising the pressure for local companies to find out ways to differentiate themselves in the industry. Increasingly, companies are focusing on enhancing their internal plans and capabilities in this hyper-competitive environment.

Emerging needs of the Indian pharma industry

The evolving International and domestic industry dynamics are likely to result in significant possibilities and challenges for pharma companies operating in India, both Indian companies well as Indian affiliates of MNC companies. Some essential issue areas are already rising to capture the attention of leadership teams within the industry.

Growth acceleration with sales and marketing excellence

With a frequently competitive domestic industry in India, pharma companies are the difficulty of having to work much harder to drive revenue growth. Companies will want to increasingly perfect ways to systematically identify unmet customer possibilities and barriers, identify and prioritize particular promotional strategies to take benefit of the opportunities, and do tactics successfully. Having robust sales and marketing capabilities is going to be critical for pharma companies to differentiate themselves in the industry. Extending these capabilities will need people with excellent skills, robust and well-defined processes, and enabling tools and techniques.

Given the evolving market dynamics the established sales structure, methods, and sales rep’s skills are not enough to succeed today. Companies are beginning to examine ways to assess their current sales capabilities, identify and prioritize gap sectors, and invest in ways to systematically improve themselves in the prioritized areas through a mixture of talent administration and enabling tools and processes. Strong investments in CRM and reporting technologies to enable the sales force and sales management are good examples of that.

More and more pharma companies in India are beginning to think about the best results from their investments by extending their marketing capabilities. Decision-driven analytics to help marketing investment choices is an area that many companies are taking a serious look at. Developing customer needs need targeting, sharper segmentation, and positioning.

Commercial organization design

The role of various players within the healthcare place is continuing to develop in India. Some variations include the extension of corporate hospitals and pharmacy chains, the growing importance of medical insurance businesses, and the growing role of patients in decision making, particularly with ready passage to information and the prevalence of social media. All these developments along with increasing opposition, the trend toward consolidation, and the likelihood of more government scrutiny around pharma promotion tactics will want companies to continuously re-evaluate how to most appropriately structure their commercial organizations. More and more businesses are also realizing that there is a powerful need to strengthen roles such as key account management and medical within their sales groups.

Opportunity assessment

With the constant growth of the Indian healthcare industry, both multinational pharma companies as well as Indian pharma companies have had the need to assess the potential opportunity to include new products and services. Companies cannot afford the downstream implications of poor estimates including sub-optimal investments, salesforce attrition, and guidance to corporate strategy. The need for robust methodologies is also rising as companies invest in more specialty sectors such as immunology and oncology.

As Indian pharma companies begin work to take benefit of the growth opportunities and appropriately address the difficulties to come, there will be an increasing demand for best in class ideas around marketing and sales issues.

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