April 3, 2016–
“…but the species that survives is the one that is able best to ADAPT and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself” said Darwin.
Spine Market: Changing Environment
In the recent years, the Spinal Industry has started a transformation .Governments and health insurers worldwide are implementing measures to control costs, public hospitals are operating on tighter budgets, and private facilities are receiving lower reimbursements. At the same time, the Spine market dynamics are changing due to the following issues:
- Difficulty to Maintain Differentiation:Differences among implants and systems has become less substantial.This process fundamentally is changing the nature of competition in the spine segment. Instead of competing on attributes such as brand, and quality, products compete now largely along just on price.
- Price Reductions
- Change of the Key Influencers Spinal Implant Purchases: Surgeons have historically been the key influencers that impact Spinal Implants buying decisions. However, the recent shifts to value-based healthcare and restructured business models have seen an expansion in the number of influencers.
- Stringent Reimbursement:Receiving reimbursement for spinal implant procedures has become more difficult in the U.S. as insurers attempt to control costs. Because spinal implant procedures are expensive and insurers believe they are overperformed, they are requiring additional information for successful claims, especially for treatments for degenerative disc disease.
All these circumstances have triggered a transformation of the purchasing process of the Spinal Implants that will change the role of the Sales Reps.
Spinal Sales Reps: The Importance of their Role Until Now
In the spinal industry, they have provided a very important and crucial added value to hospitals, operating rooms, nurses, doctors, and hospital administrators, helping them when necessary.They have speeded procedures along, providing effectiveness to the hospital environment.Either deliver devices as needed, or inside the OR (making sure the scrub techs know precisely which instruments and components the surgeon will reach for next), they have made time for more.
Until now, the main and almost sole decision-maker was the spinal surgeon and the priorities for a Sales Rep where the following:
- Build or reinforce the relationship with the surgeon allowing him to obtain first level information about the customer needs.
- Promote differentiated products that could satisfy his target surgeons needs.
- Managing Trainings and Congresses Supports: With wide margins, it was easy to incorporate Surgeons as Consultants or invite to Congresses or training courses focused on differentiated products.
- Service: Involvement of the Sales rep in the operating room giving support and generating a value added with the nursing.
- Price: It was not a critical issue.
This commercial approach required Sales reps very marketable, capable of close relations with the surgeons in the long term, and at the same time technically trained in their products and surgical techniques.
Tomorrow: ADAPTATION is KEY
Market and legislation are changing the surgeons mentality making them more sensitive to costs, evidence-based science and giving patients more information about what works and what doesn’t. Also, although the surgeon continues to have many importance in the decision, he is not the only one. Much of the information is economic and has to be obtained from different sources due to the expansion in the number of influencers.
As a result, priorities undoubtedly have changed and the Spinal Sales Rep will have to adapt and focus on new skills:
- Relationship with the Surgeon will remain important but not enought since decisions that used to be the sole preserve of doctors will also be made by regulators, hospital administrators, and other nonclinicians.
- Price: Since it has become the most important issue, Sales reps will need the qualities of bargaining, obtain economic information, identify opportunities and global negotiations with equipments.
- Product: Sales will not be based so much on the promotion of features and benefits that are no longer differentiated but negotiate global agreements including technology equipments as robots or Navigation systems. The Spinal Implants demand will be redirected to products “good enough” and competitively priced.
- Service:Hospitals will demand training for their own employees to provide technical assistance to operating room staff, displacing company sales representatives.
- Congresses: Compliance regulations in the Spinal Market will set the rep aside of these issues.
Therefore the Spine Sales Rep of Tomorrow will be required to be commercial, with a capacity of relationship but trained and focused towards the economic field.
Adaptation is the key: Remember if you want to Survive! “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change!