CRM for Pharmaceutical Managers, VBioPharma, Finds First Customer

TMCnet Contributing Editor

What Verticals onDemand officials are calling "the pharmaceutical industry's first Software as a Service CRM application for managed markets" has been selected by Publicis Managed Markets, part of Publicis Healthcare Communications Group.

This marks Verticals onDemand's first sale of VBioPharma and the first time an industry-specific CRM product has been applied to such a specialized area of pharmaceuticals as managed markets, vendor officials maintain.

PMM, a comprehensive services provider for managed markets, goes live with Verticals onDemand's VBioPharma Managed Markets Edition at the end of July.

New VBioPharma replaces outdated, home-grown systems and generic call reporting software with a complete CRM product integrated with primary and specialty care sales forces and marketing teams. VBioPharma Managed Markets Edition includes detailed contact, account, and activity management modules as well as business planning functionality.

Larry Green, President of Publicis Managed Markets Account Teams, said with VBioPharma's" business planning functionality and automated data transfer, we expect a significant increase in our National and Regional Account Directors' productivity."

SaaS (News - Alert) makes the development of highly specialized products, for equally specialized areas like managed markets, affordable. Because users can access VBioPharma through any Web browser, users benefit from the functionality of advanced software without some common technical challenges since all updates are handled remotely without the intervention of IT.

VBioPharma Managed Markets Edition is priced on a per user/per month basis.

Built on the Salesforce platform to deliver all the advantages of the SaaS model, VBioPharma was launched earlier this month. The product is Verticals onDemand's inaugural product launch.

Verticals onDemand designed VBioPharma to support what company officials call the "habitually underserved" managed care division. "Traditional CRM vendors have ignored this niche because it is viewed as too small and too different," says Matt Wallach, vice president of sales and marketing for Verticals onDemand. "Managed care is a different animal, especially when it comes to CRM, and requires a unique understanding of the daily challenges a managed care account manager faces."

The product includes detailed contact, account, and activity management modules as well as business planning functionality. In addition, VBioPharma comes pre-populated with critical formulary data that can be kept up-to-date using Web services.

According to a report recently published by research firm Cutting Edge Information, new CRM initiatives for the pharmaceutical industry track interactions with different audiences and help companies better understand their key customers.

"When it comes to drugs, mass marketing techniques that serve other industries often fail to create lasting customer connections," the report finds. Instead, companies turn to more direct, personalized communications to build relationships with doctors and patients.

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David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.