Yesterday, our new (well, new-ish--she joined the company in February) North American Pharmaceuticals president, Deirdre Connelly, hosted a town hall meeting for all in-building employees. These meetings are a good way for senior leadership to update employees on the business and focus on a few key strategies. A central topic of the discussion was the transformation of our field sales organization.
In recent years, our customers have made clear they'd like to see fewer representatives and sales professionals who are better trained and have more in-depth therapy area knowledge. As such, we've made some pretty dramatic changes to our primary care sales force aimed at providing doctors offices with representatives they know and trust--individuals who understand reimbursement issues and what it takes to operate a healthcare practice.
In the meeting, a GSK sales professional talked about how these changes are playing out in the field with our customers. Sometimes we can forget how major corporate decisions impact people on the ground and his comments were pretty bracing: in this representative's situation (which is not unique), since the beginning of the year his territory has changed (it doubled in size, which means many new customers), he has a new manager, and he is responsible for a new product portfolio. As you can imagine, like any major organizational or business change, this transformation has been challenging and even occasionally disruptive for our sales professionals.
But we're hearing that doctors have noticed the difference and they appreciate the fact we are listening to them. We're convinced that these changes ultimately will deliver greater value to our customer and put more focus on where it belongs: on our medicines and the benefits they offer patients.
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