These last few years have been complex and in particular, the pharmaceutical sector has faced additional difficulties experiencing its own transformation process. Antecedents such as its strong dependence on the public administration, operating in a highly regulated market or its high level of specialization, warned of the existing threats.
In 2010, the contraction of public pharmaceutical spending, the incentive for generic drugs, price regulation, central purchasing powers, and prescription by active ingredient marked a before and after. The consequences have been operational, strategic and economic, and have constituted a strong threat to the profitability and stability of the sector. The impact that these changes have meant for the pharmaceutical industry and the pharmacy has forced the sector to implement various actions to maintain competitiveness.
From our experience and collaboration with numerous pharmaceutical companies, we have been able to observe the key role that Human Resources has played in the implementation of these strategic and organizational changes, which have ensured the competitiveness of their organizations in the sector. Some of these most relevant actions have been:
Internationalisation: The pharmaceutical sector has doubled exports in the last decade, exceeding 10 billion euros per year in 2014. This has led HR teams to increase the search for professionals abroad to facilitate the opening of commercial delegations and manufacturing centers. Optimal management in internationalization, the ability to identify competitive professionals in different countries, training and development of cross-cultural skills, leadership development or good management and support of expatriate professionals has facilitated and will continue to help the consolidation of new markets.
- Investment in R+D: The pharmaceutical sector leads research and development in Spain with more than 20% of the total annual investment, almost 1,000 million euros of investment per year. The Human Resources team has had to and must continue to recruit profiles with high levels of specialization, being able to quickly and efficiently attract talent, both nationally and internationally. At the same time, they must be able to identify the new needs of the sector, train and retrain their professionals to face both the new challenges and the knowledge that will be demanded by their organization.
- Cost reduction and increased flexibility: The restructuring of the workforce and the retraining of professionals has allowed flexibility and agility to adapt to rapid changes in the market. A good performance evaluation system, innovation training, development of commercial and leadership competencies are some of the most consistent actions implemented for this purpose.
- Outsourcing of services: In order to reduce fixed costs as much as possible and provide the flexibility required, the outsourcing of services such as payroll, recruitment and selection or training is becoming an increasingly common procedure for the vast majority of companies nationwide.
- Redefinition of the sales structure: Regulatory changes have directly affected the marketing strategy and changed the decision-making map in the sales process. The influence of the medical visit has been reduced and the relevance of purchasing centres or pharmacies has increased. Human resources is playing a key role in the development of commercial teams, to effectively adapt to these challenges of the environment. Retraining and developing visiting professionals in pharmacy, medical science, hospital, KAM and other positions capable of maintaining meaningful relationships with new purchasing decision-makers has led HR to redesign and implement new training and development strategies.
The success of these changes and actions is due to the ability of professionals in the sector together with the support and collaboration of human resources teams to overcome these challenges. In this sense, competency-based people management models have facilitated this process and, specifically, training and competency development plans, competency assessments of personnel, or leadership development programs have been catalysts for the actions mentioned above. In fact, this has allowed it to quickly identify resources and needs of its teams, which have led to the successful assumption and overcoming of these new challenges. Although there is still much to be done, at least we can say that what they have achieved so far is a path overcome.
| Felipe Angulo Director Psicotec Catalunya |