Sorry sales are down we don't need you anymore

Jul/26/2007 06:39 Filed in: In The News
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Well let's see Astra Zenca and BMS both report lower sales and of course in order to make their numbers they are going to lay off people. Rather than think of ways to sell more it's always easier for bean counters to lay people off regardless of the effect on their life and family. Of course the CEO would not think of taking a pay cut and give up some of the millions they earn..oh no that would be a bad example.



Working in pharma is a crap shoot now. New drugs that come to market are only one bad clinical study away from having the carpet pulled from underneath them. A negative report, whether it's true or not, can kill a drug. I'm sure the people at GSK are biting their fingernails to see what the FDA decides on Avandia. A negative "black box" warning or worse could result in millions of dollars in lost sales not to mention that the brand team would probably be out of work.


It's actually kind of ironic because over the last decade pharma has been hiring sales reps like there they were going out of style. In their minds the more sales people on the street the more we can get our message into physicians offices. Never mind the fact that most pharma sales people are nothing more than sample delivery people and don't get to spend time with physicians. Forget the fact that physicians don't have the time to meet with sales people anymore...no we'll put more salespeople on the street "our message will get through".


Even at Eli Lilly, where I used to work, it was a common belief that one could not rise in the ranks until one spent some times in the field. Even now I know of several premiere marketers that are working as sales managers instead of marketing where they belong. Senior managers at Lilly came from Sales so they want everyone to learn how to sell to physicians even though that model is not viable anymore. This is one of the key reasons why pharma is sucking wind right now; because they just don't understand marketing.


At Amgen people are on the edge of their seats to see if there are going to layoffs and I feel that pharma will do whatever they have to so to make the MBA analysts happy that they are doing something. Management screws up with a product, no problem lay off another 10% of our workforce and by the way I need to cash in some stock so I can buy another summer house.


It's funny but pharma seems to have thrown in the towel when it comes to consumer empowerment. Let's not fight back because we believe in our product, let's not talk about the millions of people that are leading better lives because of our product. Lay-offs are easy to do along with cuts in marketing expenses. Maybe some more tissue boxes or mouse pads will spur sales !


Where are the leaders when you need them? There are bunch of people out there who are going to lose their jobs and that's too bad but then big pharma has never been about people has it? It's about the balance sheet.
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