Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman? Commercial Excellence in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Many companies fail to deliver their numbers in distributor markets such as Sub-Saharan Africa. This cluster of African markets has proven to be a death blow to many seniors assigned to deliver a P&L across Africa.

These executives, like the biblical story at The Last Supper, drank their wine from a poisoned chalice and suffered a metaphorical death by crucifixion, without ever leaving behind a shroud for a remembrance.

The common feature is that these emerging markets are typically characterised as 'distributor' or 'partnership' markets, and these markets have eluded many executives. I write and explain why in my forthcoming book.

Given that so few pharma companies can deliver their numbers, even after successive or numerous changes of senior leaders, it must mean that excellence is missing despite having a Commercial Excellence Department for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Logical? Yes.

Rational? Yes.

In the past, I have discussed the swings in staff numbers and the investments made in the past few years in SSA. Sadly, far too few have succeeded in delivering their numbers despite swinging in one direction and then swinging in another direction.

“Commercial Excellence” - The Frankenstein of Pharma in SSA?

In the past decade or more, the word “Excellence” has become an oft-used cliché. There is 'excellence' in Marketing (ME); there is 'excellence' in product launch; there is Commercial Excellence (CE); and of course, there is 'excellence' or 'effectiveness' in Sales Forces (SFE).

But very few define or describe what excellence is. So often, it can be just a costly resource of questionable value.

SFE and CE staff have swollen the headcount and payroll budget of several companies in the past few years. Some even have a whole CE/SFE Department situated in an MEA Regional Hub with an additional sprinkling of headcount sitting in key markets of SSA. But what value are they delivering?

I question whether a Commercial Excellence or an SFE role is a permanent headcount. In my experience and opinion, these should be fixed-term project roles over a 12-18 month period.

I was "Commercial Excellence Director" alongside my role as Territory Director Africa. I was not two headcounts but had the responsibilities of two headcounts.

CE and SFE understanding in SSA is very variable.

"Excellence, in my view, should not be based on activities delivered by an Excellence Team. Rather, excellence should be judged solely on the outcomes and improvements delivered. What gets measured gets done!"

Many companies in SSA have not been delivering to seniors’ expectations versus the investments made over the past 5 years or more. Perhaps there needs to be a recognition that commercially excellent businesses in SSA consistently deliver forecasts and budgets.

Ask any senior local manager in SSA if they delivered the budget and the reply will typically evade an answer by saying vaguely something along the lines of:

• "We grew at 40% IMS/ex-factory/ex-South Africa/ex-Serengeti Park...".

To which we might ask:

"But was the budget met? What was the budget growth??

If the budget was set at 50% growth, then the budget would not have been met at 40% growth!"

If that budget delivery is not happening, we must conclude that Commercial Excellence or Sales Force Effectiveness is absent. Then what is the Commercial Excellence or the SFE department doing?

Is it Frankenstein meets Werewolf in the company?

Why does anyone have a CE or SFE department that fails to deliver excellence? I define excellence as being the ability to consistently deliver the budgets.

CRM Platform for Sub-Saharan Africa? Another monster?

For some, Commercial Excellence is probably a CRM/IT platform. Such a platform involves considerable one-off costs as well as ongoing future upgrade costs in hardware and software plus training and roll-out costs for the same.

Training and upgrade costs create "lost selling days" through "time off the road".

These CRM and IT platforms mesmerize for sure. They make a lot of money for those selling them as the panacea for all ills. Beyond their mesmerizing effect and costs, I’m not sure what they add to the SSA pharma business.

The benefits of a CRM platform hinge on the accuracy of customer and sales data. In SSA, this is either not available or at best, unreliable. Therefore it may not be cost-effective to buy such poor quality data. In developed markets of Europe, the data is strong and CRM has an important role to play in driving excellence.

Implementation of CRM is often poor. In SSA, reps often self-select target doctors on the wrong criteria such as access or location. Data on the potential to prescribe is limited, making it difficult to ensure that reps are spending time with those prospects who can move the needle in the business.

A CRM platform relies on reps using the data before the call (reviewing prior calls and setting call objectives) and updating the data after calls with the next call objective.

These activities, in my experience, are pretty thin on the ground in SSA.

I rarely see a pre-call review of the last few calls and setting objectives for the call. And again, I don't see post-call review notes being entered into the system. First-line managers may fail to reinforce the need to use the CRM platform before and after every call, thus discouraging change in behaviours.

Therefore, any benefits of the CRM platform may be limited.

Let me be clear, do not confuse a CRM platform with a call reporting system that highlights customers seen and products detailed.

In SSA, people perhaps may not have asked the questions of a CRM system:

“Will this work if we don’t have the reliable data as we do for the US and Europe?”

More importantly, has anyone asked:

“Where are we today in terms of CE?”

“What does excellence look like?

"How do we get there?” ?

"What are the priority areas that will give the most bang for our buck?"

There are some fundamental basics outside of CRM/IT platforms that appear to be missing in my experience, which if addressed, can enhance the delivery of results at little cost.

If the performance of the SSA business is not meeting expectations, we assume there is an absence of Commercial or Sales Force Effectiveness.

If that is the logical conclusion, then "What value is the cost of such a department adding to SSA business today?"

"What investment has it consumed so far on the journey over the past few years where companies have failed to deliver budgets to seniors’ expectations?"

Is it the two vampires (CE and SFE or CE and CRM) draining the blood and costs out of the organisation with a meal ticket for life?

In my view, companies will realise better value by focusing on getting the basics correct.

Delivering sales force effectiveness in Anglophone SSA requires a different multi-disciplinary (holistic) approach that reflects the complexity and the scant availability of reliable customer data. It needs an approach adapted for individual markets aligned to some commonality across most markets. It is not about activity targets.

In my experience, it is possible to deliver CE and SFE without initially, any investment in CRM or IT. In my view, CRM/IT is a downstream activity once 'the basics' have been implemented. There is tremendous room to improve the basics through training and development and reinforcing behavioural change.

Commercial Excellence in my view should not be based on activities (how many workshops or programs) delivered by an Excellence Team. It should be defined by outcomes delivered - sales budgets; call metrics; sales per capita versus targets set across all parameters. Do you set sales per rep targets in your forecasting and budgeting discussions?

Excellence must be judged solely on outcomes and improvements delivered. What gets measured gets done!

Does your senior CE team have metrics (from x to y across different parameters per market) at different levels for improvement within the sales organisation from reps through to 2nd line managers? Is your sales team optimised in terms of structure and ability to promote a mix of products?

If it does not, my experience is that it is likely to be a Frankenstein monster in your organisation ‘busy being busy’ with activities but unlikely to deliver any measurable improvement in effectiveness or excellence.

This might explain why so many companies finish successive years with (yet) another set of mixed or disappointing results for SSA – and they have a CE team for SSA and the costs that go with it! Bizarre! Truly bizarre.

So there we have it.

My few thoughts on why the Commercial Excellence and SFE teams may be sucking the blood out of the business, consuming costs but delivering little value.

It is my belief and judgement that many companies in SSA still carry too many people and costs as a percentage of the total value of sales business they achieve in SSA. This is especially the case in non-customer-facing roles in head and country offices.

I have seen numbers of reps and managers completely out of step with customer numbers and revenue.

Many have struggled to reach a critical mass despite soaking up costs and investments over the past few years with still woefully swollen headcount versus their small value of total sales.

I firmly believe some companies can take down costs even further with little or no impact on top-line sales. I can highlight where these could be by reviewing the models in SSA and this can lead to an improvement in financial metrics.

New product uptake for many new products has seen disappointing results.

New products have often not been able to take up the slack created by companies selling off old mature brands or companies de-prioritizing efforts on the older brands. I can help companies by leveraging my experience of what it takes to succeed in SSA and how to reach a critical mass - from an organization, process excellence and people perspective.

How can failure be avoided?

Involve an independent expert for an assessment. Accept that your staff and business may not have all the answers. STOP relying on the same internal resources year in/year out. Those same resources have often tried one thing after another but have not changed the results. They prove there are cognitive gaps.

A fresh perspective from the outside looking in could be of benefit. Rather than the past perspective of inside looking out?

Seniors are now waking up to this after hearing the same excuses at each quarterly review as to why their SSA business is behind budget and we can sense that there is now a willingness by seniors to bring in expertise to support internal teams and not wanting to rely solely on internal intelligence any more.?

This external expertise also provides independent assessment and challenges to the latest ideas from local management and supports seniors in their decision-making. It may save throwing money at 'yet another idea' that has a good possibility of not delivering the results.

Clients who are receptive to an honest appraisal, substantiated with reasons specific to their business can avoid a Lemming migratory journey in our experience and opinion.

It always remains the client's choice: to follow my recommendations OR continue to sink costs and investment in blind faith like Lemmings about to jump off the edge of a cliff in the belief that “next year will be OK” based on another set of (same again) excuses and some fancy graphs citing stock-outs, low re-order rates etc. They will all point the blame for failure outside the organisation rather than inwardly considering the internal factors I have raised.

But which company can continue to sink money into a business that fails to deliver seniors' expectations?

The answer is "MANY" - judging by those that have teams for CE and SFE yet they consistently fail to deliver the numbers and fail to deliver excellence.

Is it time to think about thinning down the monsters in your Commercial Excellence and Salesforce Effectiveness Teams who have failed to deliver excellence or effectiveness to deliver the numbers? Time to slay the man-made monster? Who will win when Frankenstein meets the Werewolf?

About Samkoman Consulting Ltd (SCL)

Amit Vaidya is the Director and owner of SCL based in North West England. He set up the company after a successful career at AstraZeneca for more than 20 years, the last seven years as Territory Director Africa based out of England. SCL works exclusively with clients across Africa to help with international expansion into new markets, to address performance issues in current markets, and to develop strategies with companies that set an ambition to be more successful but need help with "how to close the gap between where they are today and where they aspire to be in the future".

Suppose you want to address some of these issues in your Sub-Saharan Africa or any distributor model business. Maybe you want to explore how my experience can help your teams deliver excellence. In that case, you can reach out to me and explore in a free 'discovery' Teams or Zoom call by booking a slot directly into my calendar using the link below:

https://www.calendly.com/amitvaidya2021/