Sanofi is a diversified global healthcare leader. It is well-known for their extensive lines of prescription medicines and vaccines, as well as consumer health products.

It would be an understatement to say that the pharma giant has an impressive global presence! It has offices in around 100 countries and provides healthcare solutions to 170+ countries. 

At Sanofi India, 1700 employees use the secondary sales data. This includes the sales force working in the field along with HO based employees from functions like Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain and Business Operations.

It is therefore surprising that the Secondary Sales effort at Sanofi India is managed by a small team of just 3 members. Needless to say, there were a range of challenges that the Sanofi team was facing which led them to opt for Kennect’s secondary sales solution. 

This case study explores said challenges, details the impact of Kennect’s solution on Sanofi’s secondary sales process, and outlines the company’s future plans with the solution.

But first, let’s try and understand why pharma companies should track secondary sales. 

Tracking Secondary Sales: Why is it Important?

Pharmaceutical companies often track secondary sales for several reasons:

1. Market Monitoring: 

Secondary sales data allows pharmaceutical companies to monitor the performance of their products. By tracking secondary sales, companies can assess the demand for their products, identify market trends, and make informed decisions regarding production, marketing strategies, and distribution.

2. Inventory Management: 

Secondary sales data helps pharmaceutical companies manage their inventory effectively. By understanding the sales patterns and demand at different distribution levels, they can optimize their production and supply chain to ensure sufficient stock availability without excessive overstocking or stockouts. This allows them to streamline their operations, reduce costs, and improve overall efficiency.

3. Revenue Analysis: 

Tracking secondary sales enables pharmaceutical companies to analyze their revenue streams accurately. By monitoring sales at various stages of the distribution channel, they can assess the financial performance of their products. This information helps in evaluating the effectiveness of pricing strategies, assessing sales performance across different regions, and identifying potential areas for improvement.

4. Compliance and Regulatory Requirements: 

Pharmaceutical companies are often required to comply with regulatory guidelines and reporting obligations. Tracking secondary sales helps ensure compliance with these requirements, such as reporting accurate sales figures to regulatory authorities, maintaining transparency in business operations, and adhering to industry regulations and standards.

Mr. Sandeep Ingale- Credentials:

Mr. Sandeep Ingale (Country DPO and Special Projects) is a stalwart at Sanofi India. Sanofi’s success with secondary sales can be directly attributed to his stellar career of 14 years.

Out of these 14 years, he has been heading Sanofi’s secondary sales for 7 years. Moreover, he is also responsible for multiple projects at Sanofi that he along with his team have implemented. 

While large companies like Sanofi are usually hesitant to make a switch like this, all it takes is one person like Mr. Ingale to take that leap of faith. His conviction has paid off. Sanofi has seen various benefits come their way including data availability on mobile devices, visibility of actual distributor statements, and significant improvements in coverage, speed, accuracy, and cost.

Challenges:

For a global leader like Sanofi, there is no dearth of options. We asked Mr. Ingale: Why did Kennect stand out? 

He said “Accuracy, Speed of Processing and Cost”

We’ll explore Kennect’s impact in detail, but first let’s understand the roadblocks. Sanofi had a couple of unique challenges:

• Sanofi sells SKUs to stockists in boxes, but more often than not, the data is reported in strips/tabs. This is nothing short of an administrative nightmare. If the rate of a box is multiplied with a tab, sales get bloated exponentially. This was leading to consequential inaccuracies in the data received from the stockists. 

• Sanofi was working with 4 vendors to manage their secondary sales process, from extraction to reflection of data. It was a situation of too many cooks spoiling the broth! Sanofi was under the impression that each vendor had their own expertise, and that this was an impossible task to accomplish for 1 vendor. 

• Due to compliance reasons, large stockists who were on patch were also required to send data on non-patch. This led to a lot of confusion amongst the sales force as the data they would see in patch would not match the data reflected in the stock and sales statement shared by the distributors. 

Lookout Process and Decision-making Factors:

Like we mentioned, Sanofi was already using other tools and softwares from 4 vendors to manage their secondary sales prior to implementing Kennect’s solution. They were using these solutions for more than 7 years. 

When we spoke to Mr. Ingale, we understood that while the team at Sanofi was satisfied with their offerings, it took Sanofi a couple of years to get the accuracy and consistency they were looking for. Even then, they faced some challenges. 

Kennect was able to catch up in just 6 months! 

More than this, the Sanofi team now has a single source of truth for secondary sales. Kennect is their one-stop solution for email extraction, data processing, the app, and the web portal. Notable changes include-

• Sanofi’s vaccine team used to compile their own data. After experimenting with Kennect, they have also moved to the data generated from Kennect’s solution.
• Due to the confidence in data, all brands at Sanofi use the data generated via Kennect’s solution.
• After switching to Kennect, the vaccine team was also able to figure out that a product sold by Sanofi which was discontinued for the last 1 year was showing up in statements from various vendors. The Sanofi team was able to go back and check with their stockist regarding the whereabouts of these purchases.

When we asked Mr. Ingale to describe which features of Kennect's solution were most appealing, he replied:

“Availability of data on a mobile device”

Surprised? We were too. Visibility of data on a mobile device for the field force was one of the main motivators for Sanofi to give us an opportunity. For them, this was a very unique proposition. The reason is simple. Reps could now access this data through the same app where they access other sales data. Statements could easily be downloaded, and a rep could crosscheck discrepancies without going through multiple data checks across vendors. 

This may seem like a small feature, but the impact is huge. Think about it this way. The field force makes up 95% of the users. This is a staggering majority! 

Mr. Ingale confidently states that the feature made a big difference in the day to day query management for the Sanofi team.

“The availability of actual statements shared by the distributor was a big hit with the sales force.”

We asked Mr. Ingale if cost was a factor. If yes, how big of an influence did it have on the decision to switch? He replied saying 

“Significant cost saving compared to earlier solutions prompted using Kennect’s solution.”

Sanofi was saving 30% if they switched to Kennect for secondary sales. According to Mr. Ingale, this was the final push that Sanofi needed to go with us. He could see that the company was getting a range of benefits at a significantly lower cost than before. 

Solution Implementation:

Once we got the go-ahead from Sanofi, we ran a pilot program with them for 2 months for random distributors. Validation with data from their existing vendors was done, and data was checked for accuracy at the row level. 

Sanofi gave a few people access to the new system, before making it available for the larger pool.

Mr. Ingale seems satisfied with the efforts of the Kennect team during the implementation process. He goes on to say:

“Kennect supported in processing the data from sample statements of distributors.”

Since its implementation, the solution has come a long way and has become the only source of secondary data for Sanofi.

Future:

When asked if Sanofi plans to keep using Kennect’s solution in the future, Mr. Ingale seems optimistic and hopes we can incorporate daily/weekly processing of data and party-wise data in the future. 

Would he recommend Kennect’s solution to others in his network? Mr. Ingale says

“Yes. Due to the accuracy of the data, ease of process and cost benefit.”

The truth is that most companies hesitate to automate processes for the fear of dismantling the status quo. Sanofi’s journey with us is testament to the fact that breaking the status quo might not be such a bad thing after all.