IJCRR

IJCRR - 2(11), November, 2010

Pages: 09-13

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PERFORMANCE ACCELERATING PARAMETER FOR MEDICAL REPRESENTATIVE

Author: P. K. Sahoo, Mahendra

Category: Healthcare

Abstract:The study emphasize on finding various parameters which enhance the working efficiency of sales executive as these executive are the basic unit of the company to achieve the sales – backbone of the Business. Various motivational factors were identified by the literature survey and study conducted on the employees of various organizations and then these factors were correlated by the various hypotheses proposed e.g. Maslow's Hierarchy of Need Theory, Top Down Theory etc. Questionnaires used as a tool to study the various factors. Responses collected were analyzed and correlated by demographics. The motivational factors were found to be
significantly affected by age and gender.

Keywords: Target, Territory, Pharmaceutical Product Executive

Full Text:

INTRODUCTION

Pharmaceutical product executives are the employee of pharmaceutical companies, responsible for the sales and building the image of the organization. Marketing executives are the key contacts between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical professionals. They have the responsibility of promoting their companies major products directly to GP's and hospital doctors. They do this via face to face meetings or medical presentations at various types of meetings. All representatives tend to work in a 'territory'. In terms of the marketing theory a territory is defined as a geographical area consisting of a sizable number of customers catered by a single marketing executive. Sometimes companies have double manned territories rather than single manned territories. The territory size, geography etc varies according to companies. The day to day work of the representative tends to be target based around, sales, call rates and other objectives set around individual personal development plans. The marketing executive takes care of the growth of sales of his territory, attends to the complaints of the distributors, retailers and customers. The marketing executive is responsible for collection of data and provides the same to the organization for further market research.

Various functions of these employees are:

1. Giving presentations to doctors and various other medical staff. 2. Working with a sales team to develop strategies to approach potential customers and garner sales.

3. Working to meet and talk to new contacts within the healthcare field.

4. Keeping detailed records of all contacts, both potential and existing.

5. Organizing presentations and conferences for doctors and various other medical staff.

6. Staying up to date with the latest clinical data and passing this information on to healthcare professionals at presentations.

7. Cold-calling doctors, pharmacists, and other medical staff to setup appointments.

8. Keeping informed about the latest competitors' products.

9. Increase your company's brand and product awareness amongst healthcare professionals, and ultimately persuade them to adopt their usage.

The Bottom Up Theory and Top Down Theory:

Bottom up theory state that individuals have needs and they will be happy if their needs are satisfied. The sum of positive and negative effect is used to determine happiness. If positive effect is greater than negative effect, individual will judge their life as happy. In contrast, Top down theory states that there is a global propensity to experience things in a positive way. In other words, all individuals have a desire to be happy and this attitude will be the major influence on their lives. Thus, feeling about job satisfaction are generated in one of two ways: bottom up theory by adding positive effects and subtracting negative one's, or from the top down theory by the diffusion of one's desire to happy.3

Method: Questionnaire was prepared, aspects selected by literature review and consulting medical representatives of various organizations. Factors included are listed below:

a) Increase in salary

b) Recognition at work place

c) Liberty to work

d) Incentive

e) Opportunity to personal growth

f) Promotion

g) Promotional scheme

h) On the job training

i) Meeting with superiors Job security

j) Relationship with superior, peers and subordinates

k) Self esteem

Factors given in various question to rank them according to the priority of individual in different questions. In addition to above factor ranked some qualitative questions were also included i.e. Demotivational practice, Reason for leaving last organization.

Data Collection: Data were collected personally at various hospital in delhi e.g. All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Safderjung Hospital, Batra hospital etc. Few were send by e mail for collecting responses.

Sample: Sample size selected was 200, concerning the partially filled questionnaire total 220 questionnaire were distributed.

Demographics: To study the impact of demographic factors on motivational factors some demographic factors were included in questionnaire i.e Age, Gender, Educational Qualification of respondents. The study included:

RESULTS

On the Basis of Age

• What are the motivational factor to you, which helps you to enhance your performance

The number of respondents were 49 for increase in salary, 34 for Recognition at work place, 13 for Liberty to work, 14 for Incentive, 37 for Opportunity to personal growth, 18 for Promotion for the age group of 20 - 30 yrs and for the age group of 30 and above the number of respondents are, 12 for increase in salary, 6 for Recognition at work place, 4 for Liberty to work, 2 for Incentive, 7 for Opportunity to personal growth, 4 for Promotion.

• How the under mentioned activity motivates your target achievement

The number of respondents were 75 for promotional scheme, 57 for On the job training, 33 for meeting with superiors for the age group of 20 - 30 yrs, the number of respondents for the age group 30 and above, 13 for promotional scheme, 18 for on the job training and 4 for meeting with superiors.

• The important factor for you for working in organization

The number of respondents are 72 for job security, 38 for relationship with superior, peer and subordinate and 55 for self esteem for the age group of 20- 30yrs, and for the age group 30yrs and above 13 respondents were for job security, 12 for relationship with superior , peer and subordinate and 10 for self esteem.

On basis of company profile

• What are the motivational factor to you, which helps you to enhance your performance

The number of respondents from the Indian employee were 32 for increase in salary, 28 for recognition at work place, 12 for liberty to work, 9 for incentive, 26 for opportunity to personal growth and 18 were for promotion while employees from M.N.C the responses were, 27 increase in salary, 13 recognition at work place, 4 liberty to work , 6 incentive, 18 opportunity to personal growth and 7 for promotion.

• How the under mentioned activity motivates your target achievement

The number of respondents were 55 for promotional scheme, 44 for on the job training and 26 for meeting with superiors for the employees of Indian organization, while for M.N.C. for, respondents were 32 for promotional scheme, 31 for on the job training and 12 for meeting with superiors

• The important factor for you for working in organization

The number of respondents were 53 for job security, 33 for relationship with superior, peer and subordinate for Indian organization while for M.N.C. the respondents were 31 for job security, 22 for relationship with superior, peer and subordinate and 22 for self esteem

DISCUSSION

For the age group of 20 -30 yrs:

In response to motivational factor necessary for them to increase the performance 29.69% respondents give their priority to increase in salary, For achieving the targeted sale 45.45% respondents find promotional schemes given to the chemist, Necessary factor for working in any organization priority given to job security 37.14%,

For the age group 30 yrs and above respondent:

They gave priority to increase in salary 34. 38%, In response to achievement of targeted sale 51.42% respond to on the job training, Respondent finds 37.14% self esteem as the important factor for you for working in organization.

For executive from Indian company:

The executives working for Indian company give their preferences to increase in salary 25.6%, they finds that promotional scheme given to chemist are more beneficial 42.4%, %, the factor necessary for them to work in organization jobs security 24.8%.

For executive from M.N.C:

The executive from Multinational Organization give their preference to increase in salary 36%, for achievement of targeted salary they find promotional scheme 42.67, %, the necessary factor for them to work in any organization are job security 42.34%.

References:

1. http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/types _of_job/medical_sales_representati ve_job_description.jsp/ accessed on 10 Jan 2010

2. Prasad L M. Principle and practice of management.7th New Delhi. Sultan chand. P 661

3. Sharon A. Devaney, Zhan(Sandy) Chan. Job satisfaction of Recent Graduate in Financial Services. 2003 May 28.