Useful Advices - Business

As a sales manager for a small business, I was constantly looking at ways to improve our domestic and international sales. One avenue that always proved lucrative to sell product through, was that of the independent agents

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

and distributors. These independent agencies are located throughout the world and serve as your eyes and ears to developing new customers. Working in a small business setting, I had limited funds and only had a sales tea

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

of two other sales engineers. While there was physically no way for the three of us to cover the world selling direct, we were able to do a very efficient and profitable job working with our 18 domestic and 42 internation

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

l independent agents and distributors. Looking at some bigger numbers, between my two sales engineers and 60 agencies working for us, I had approximately 240 people selling product for the company.

Throughout this short s

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

ries of articles, we are going to be talking a lot about these independent agents and distributors. I think it is imperative for any new, small or mid sized company to look at this sales method as a viable option to get pr

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

duct to the market in an efficient manner I want to talk about the roles agents have as a sales channel, finding and interviewing, training and motivating, the internet impact on these channels and how to manage and grow a

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

relationship with the agent.

There are a number of names I have seen used to talk about the agents, some of these include manufacturers representative, distributor, independent agent or the middleman, for simplicity in the

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

e articles I am going to refer to this group of individuals as the Agent. The second group of individuals I will be referencing is that of the manufacturers or service providers who are selling their products through the a

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

ents, these individuals are commonly referred to as the principals.

Before we get into identifying, managing or motivating our agents, I think it is important to understand why a company needs an agent. The bottom line, i

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

that a principal has a product and needs to get it to the market in a very efficient way. Without getting the product into the hands of the customer, the principal is not going to make any money. Another neat thing about

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

the agents, is that you can often find an agent for all different types of products, I have never heard the complaint that there are no distributors for my product. There are agents that sell sporting goods, household item

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

s, adult novelties, construction equipment, capital equipment and just about anything else imaginable. It is important to remember that agents have proven time and time again to be an important component in the sales chann

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

l of many small and mid sized companies, this is due to the relatively inexpensive way to market your products through them.

You are probably sitting there and asking yourself, why would an agent, who is already selling pr

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

ducts and doing good for themselves want to sell my product as well? Like anybody else, agents are in business for the same thing, to make money. They are constantly on the look out to sell other complimentary products th

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

t will make them more money. These agents typically build up a number of complimentary products that they use to cater to a specific niche of industries often in a designated territory. They take care of local promotions,

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

advertising, and the attendance of trade shows on behalf of their principals; income is generated by earning a commission often a percentage of the product on every sale into their territory.

I have read some journal artic

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

es that talk about how the agent is a dying profession and with the rise of the internet, they will soon disappear. Nobody can deny that on the internet is a wealth of information, you can find just about anything on it.

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

nfortunately with technology today, it is just impossible for the internet to be knocking on doors, making cold calls, and visiting face to face with customers. This is where the true value of your agents comes into play.

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

So now that you have a basic understanding of what an agent is, why we need them and how they operate, lets look ahead and see what the next step is. In the next article, we will discuss the different types of agents that

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

xist around the world. I also want to get into some of the territory differentiations used when signing agents up and what to look for when searching for a quality agent.

For questions or comments, please email the author

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Useful Advices - Sales Management - A Beginners Guide To Expanding Sales Through Independent Agents And Distributors

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