WAW: Strategy to increase sales productivity

R K Srivastava

Wave after wave working is one important tool which can be used to improve the productivity of the product as well as territory, says R K Srivastava

A good doctor is usually busy dealing with patients day in and day out. Add to that, he also has at least five medical representatives visiting him daily, telling him about no less than four or five brands of drugs in the market. In such a situation, it becomes difficult for him to remember the brands unless the approach of the pharma company in reaching the doctors is unique or there is a strong positioning statement which demarcates and creates a separate space in the mindset of the doctors.

Therefore, a marketing personnel has to device techniques and different approaches in order to have a better brand recall. Easier the brand recall, the better will be flow of prescriptions. It is not as easy as it looks!

A study conducted by the writer revealed that by the end of a week, a doctor could remember only 4.3 products on an average and there was a reduction by 70 per cent by the end of 15 days.

Therefore, it is a big challenge to pharma companies on how to make doctors remember the products so that it improve the prescriptions flow and augment sales.

Wave after wave working is one important tool which can be used to improve the productivity of the product as well as territory. Manpower utilisation to key customers is the focus under WAW. This model utilises the manpower and refocuses the availability of the resource to key customers. It can be targeted to 30 or more core key customers of a territory and plans at least two visits to these core customers by rep and managers repeatedly for three months.

The visit frequency chart is given in table 1:

These WAW Working can help the territory to improve the sales. It will also help in better brand recall. The advantages of WAW working are:

1 It gives importance to the doctors who matter

2 It helps the doctor to remember the brand easily.

3 It improves the efficiency of MR by targeting those customers who matter.

As shown in the table 2 there is an increase in productivity once WAW was implemented.

WAW if strictly implemented can be a boon in those territories that are weak or where products are not moving to the extent as they should. WAW has not only helped one of the top ten companies but has also helped a company whose rank was around 130 in ORG. The basic principle remains the same and if it is implemented sincerely it should give results. Thus WAW can bring wah-wah in a marketing oriented company.

Summary: WAW is an effective marketing strategy to have a better brand recall. WAW strategy helps to streamline the working of the medical reps and have following steps:

1) It focuses on 30 or more core doctors who are potential ’A’ class customers.

2) It plans the visit of the existing manpower in such a manner that medical representative and manager’s expertise is utilised properly.

3) It presumes that two visits to core doctors should help the company to improve the sales by having a better brand recall and follow-up.

4) It disciplines the working norms of the MR.

The writer is a Mumbai-based marketing consultant