Tempo - Business plan

Based on interviews we found out that potential customers want a detailed view on time spent on a specific project and time spent on a certain customer. Ideally for them is that they can get the data quick and in a simple way. They would like to have it on the mobile device and access it while they are “on the field”. The purpose of having this data available is to enhance decision making and final outcome is to optimizing the work of sales representatives.

From their offices, sales manager has limited options for influencing sales results. They can directly influence it through improvement of sales reps work (sales coaching, incentives ) or through optimization of their work. Till now the latter is done based on gut feelings or programs that offer limited information and/or are time consuming resources. There is a need for application where the information can be obtained easily and fast. Important for them is to get insight into how much sales visits are spend for each drug (product) and at the same time how much time is booked for each customer. Based on our application the measurable data are real and optimization of sales force work can be done. Sales managers want to decide how many sales visits will go for a product and a customer based on the importance of them.

When we did the 2nd round of testing (interviews and survey) with mainly sales managers and sales representatives the responses were very positive about app. Most of them responded that features of Tempo would be useful in their current workplace and over 70% of respondents had never heard of or seen an application like Tempo before. The need, app usefulness and lack of strong competitor combination represent opportunity that we want to exploit.

The customer representing the opportunity

This section will describe the customer in terms of customer jobs, pains and gains. (Osterwalder, 2014). For the first few years we focused on sales managers in pharmaceutical industry. Later on we can adapt our VP for different industries.

The job role of sales manager in pharmaceutical industry is to improve sales results through the sales force. As mention before, he has limited options for improving sales results. Most of his effort is put on sales coaching and very little on optimization of sales force based on measurable data. His main pain is that he do not know exactly how optimized is the work of his sales force and consequently losing sales. He can perform analysis on the data from CRM programs, but they offer limited information and are also time consuming. It is like shooting at the target and not knowing how precise the shots are. Desired gain is to have a precise data on which he can optimize the work of the sales force. He wants to do it in 10 minutes and he want to be easy to perform. The unexpected gains for him are reducing the time that sales reps spend for entering the data into CRM program and knowing where and how long sales representatives were on the field. Latter is impossible without GPS tracking.

There are also other “customers” that we need to convince them. These are people who can directly or indirectly influence the sales and we need to take them into account:

- Sales representative has a lot of (afternoon) work with manually entering sales visits and drugs in the CRM program. Tempo has integrated location tracking which allows half-automated process of data entering. Based on the interviews with sales reps from different companies (Novartis, GSK, Abbot, AbbVie, Chiesi etc) we estimate that Tempo will reduce their work for 1 - 2 hour per week (depend on the existing program to compare with).

- Sales director wants to improve sales results of his sales managers. Tempo also allows him to get analysis in a quick and simple way without waiting for sales manager to perform them.

- Product manager need data about topics that interest doctors. He can prepare a short survey which is filled by sales representative based on the answers got on sales visits. Based on this data he can prepare more relevant promotion material.

Our solution to solve the problem - Value proposition

Authors of Value Proposition Design (Osterwalder, 2014, p. 29.) suggest we should write down a list of everything that product/service offer in terms of product and services, pain relievers and gain creators. Later on we decide what is most important for potential customer and write it in the form of value proposition (VP).

Products and services:

- GPS tracking and half-automated process of data entering in one (!) product.

- Quick and simple to perform analysis of time spent on each product or at each customer (it is a basis for decision making and optimization of the work of sales force).

- Integration of short survey which is filled by sales representative based on the answers they get on sales visits.

- Short survey for feedback from users about app (basis for improving the app).

Pain relievers:

- Cost reduction: GPS tracking and half-automated process of data entering in one product).

- Time saver: half-automated process of data entering, quick and simple analysis.

- Knowing exactly how optimized is the work of sales force. Gain creators:

- Having precise data based on which he can improve sales results (optimization of sales force).

- Having control where and how long sales representatives were on the field. This is impossible to know without GPS tracking. They can stay at home and nobody will know.

- Lower cost and easy to install (pharmaceutical companies are already using smart phones).

1. Based on the Osterwalder, 2014. P. 29

We focus on those features that are the most important for our customers. Here is revised VP for sales manager in pharmaceutical company:

“Tempo is a mobile application that helps sales managers optimize the work of his sales representatives based on objective data.”

It has integrated location tracking, which allows sales representative half-automated process of data entering. Based on that Tempo collect data about number of daily visits and duration of sales call spent on each product at each customer. This procedure is quicker and simpler than existing programs and allows sales manager to be more efficient in allocation of resources. He can decide which products and/or customers should have more sales visits and through this consequently improve sales. It offers him control over where and how long sales representatives were on the field.

Keep in mind that app is also applicable to other industries. In the year five we plan to analyse and decide about our expansion. We could stay in Pharma industry and go global or slightly adapt the VP and expand in other industries.

Our resources to solve the problem

Our biggest resource are team members with experience that are needed for starting a business and developing an app. Another important resource is network potential of two members from pharmaceutical industry. We wrote about this in Chapter 5