How IPLAND IT solutions help pharmaceutical companies working with drugstores

Teva, one of the leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, has begun using effie> service in merchandising projects under quarantine and improve the level of control over thei. Irina Zhuravleva, Standards and Procedures Implementation Manager and Akim Kovalenko, National Key Account Manager are telling us how it works.

The publication is prepared by IPLAND – developer and provider of the effie> IT solution (effie> pharm is the IT service for complete cycle of managing the pharmaceutical manufacturer's trade marketing strategies and internal pharmacy chain standards).

Akim Kovalenko: We are working in a very interesting time, because of changing in consumer behavior, in business models in the pharmaceutical industry and in government regulations approach. To remain competitive in the market, companies applying new technologies and seek out-of-the-box solutions. Today, there is a trend towards a paradigm shift among manufacturers, distributors and pharmacy retailers in automating of internal processes, assortment management and merchandising projects execution monitoring.

There are two challenges in implementation of innovations in this area.

The first one is that any innovation requires qualification, financial and time investments, and not every company has such resources. It must be pointed out that in the process of changes introducing in pharmacy retail, the manufacturer is faced with a lack of staff time in the field. Therefore, manufacturers are investing in technological solutions that help implement the overall strategy with pharmacies.

The second challenge is processes automation and projects effectiveness assessment. Every year, the development of relationships with pharmacy chains requires more time and effort from the manufacturer, especially regarding to control, to ensure transparent and clear terms of cooperation.

Irina Zhuravleva: It is important for us in Teva to receive confirmation of services provision, and the solution proposed by IPLAND helps us to get this.

The project is getting even more relevant in circumstances of a pandemic, and we are considering the possibility of expanding it as to automated document recognition.

We also wanted to get expertise from the company regarding trade marketing. IPLAND is one of the IT leaders and works with the largest FMCG companies.

We intended to evaluate and compare the working format in the pharmaceutical and FMCG industries. We would like to find out how similar are the working frameworks in these industries and develop the required solution for automating all processes in trade marketing activities: from project planning up to the final report preparation on provided marketing services.

Moreover, we set goals to reduce the time spent by Teva employees.

As a result, we have managed to minimize the time spent by personnel and gained access to high-quality analytics and online monitoring.

We are happy that were the first in the pharmaceutical industry who starts working in this direction with IPLAND. It is a truly innovative company that suit capabilities of effie> to the needs and specificity of our industry.

In conclusion, by IPLAND company:

The information received with the help of the service is converted into multi-level visualized analytics based on the results of photo recognition by artificial intelligence (AI). Together with our business analysts the management of pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacy chains analyzes reports, working on the development of internal processes related to cooperation in trade marketing activities.

We provide a tool for managing the medication promotion and sale, as well as processes that ensure standards compliance of the pharmacy chain at each point of sale.

Permanent development is vital to stay competitive in the pharmaceutical market. Not only in terms of production technologies, but also technologies on communicating consumers about the product. Technologies which will also consider the interests of partners, players in pharmacy retail. Of course, development requires investment, but business goals achievements pay back all investments. The key is to find an IT partner with deep expertise who can provide a high-quality solution that meets the company's goals.

Source: LIGA.net