31 Medical Leaders Share How to Create an Effective CRM System for Field Medical Teams

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Dec. 21, 2020/PRNewswire/ -- Field Medical Teams (FMTs) often are using customer relationship management (CRM) tools that don’t align well with the needs of medical science liaisons and other medical affairs team members.

As the role and importance of medical affairs and FMTs continues to grow, so too does the need for a CRM system that is more aligned with medical while generating metrics that show value and patient needs.

"Challenges and Effective Practices for Optimizing a Customer Relationship Management System for Field Medical Teams," is a new report from Best Practice, LLC that lays out a vision for what an effective CRM system looks like for medical affairs, and FMTs in particular.

The study found that while a medical operations position is not prevalent - only a quarter of respondents had one - it was seen as strengthening CRM effectiveness.

Why?

“Two things: first, having someone who really understands the uniqueness of the medical organization and business requirements, our SOPs and our standards and really gets the business well.

The other is the reporting structure …[if not under medical], it’s hard to tell these people that we need them to do stuff for us and they do not report to us through the medical organization. So it is difficult to get them to do things because we don’t have that reporting structure [in some countries]. They say, ‘Okay, first we have to do these 8 things for commercial and then we will get to your stuff.’"

Best Practices, LLC engaged 31 leaders from 30 biopharma organizations via a benchmark survey. Deep-dive interviews were conducted with selected study participants. Data segmented by mid/small vs. large pharma; US/Global+US vs. EU facing teams.

Key topics covered in this report include:

• Field Medical Team CRM Utilization
• Field Medical Team CRM Support
• Field Medical Team CRM Management

In another qualitative findings in the study, a medical operations leader spoke of the importance of having a CRM system that was easy to use and access:

"The number one thing for us is for them to have the sum of their content in CRM readily available and easy to find for scientific exchange. Let’s assume people are facing out sometime next year - they need to be able to find stuff in 5 seconds or less is what they tell us…they are in a meeting and a doctor asks a question and they need to be able to research quickly.

We have a lot of work to do to shore them up with Veeva…it’s not like a complicated tool but just driving it make sure everyone is using it and following our SOPs.” - Medical Operations Leader, Medical Affairs

To learn more about this research, download a complimentary report excerpt at https://www.best-in-class.com/rw112.htm.

ABOUT BEST PRACTICES, LLC

Best Practices, LLC is a leading benchmarking, consulting and advisory services firm serving biopharmaceutical and medical device companies worldwide. Best Practices, LLC's clients include all the top 10 and 48 of the top 50 global healthcare companies. The firm conducts primary research and consulting using its comprehensive proprietary benchmarking tools and analysis. The operational insights, findings and analysis form the basis for our Benchmarking Reports, databases and advisory services to support executives in commercial and R&D operations.