Clari, the leader in Revenue Operations has announced the publication of a study by Fierce Pharma it commissioned. The State of Sales in Healthcare and Life Sciences (email registration required) looks at how Sales teams are adapting and performing in a sector that has seen huge changes through digital transformations in recent months. The report is based on a survey of 106 executives working in sales, sales operations and marketing in the sector.
Despite the wider industry digital transformation, the study found that 60% of sales teams are still spending too much time on administrative tasks, mainly entering data into CRM systems. About 3 in 4 sellers are spending up to five hours a week on these tasks with 26% spending more time. It is a challenge that the Clari Revenue Platform can overcome with a recent Forrester study noting that Revenue operations teams can spend 90% less time on forecasting and related activities, sales managers spend 80% less time, and sales reps spend 67% less time through automation provided by Clari.
Jonathan Slasinski, Head of Commercial Training and Education, Singular Genomics, noted in the report, “Clari has really simplified all of our processes. We can easily see all deals, what we are going to call, what we are not going to call, and what’s at risk. I can also deep dive into those deals during one-on-ones.”
The report also notes that improving this productivity issue is a key priority, and around half of the respondents expect their organisations to increase automation and implement artificial intelligence to support RevOps within the next 1-3 years.
What is in the report?
The report is relatively short — ten pages — and contains a mix of analysis, data points, and visualisations. Customers also provide several supportive quotes of Clari. These do not appear to have been drawn from any qualitative interviews. Surprisingly, there is little comment from Clari leaders either in the report or in the press release.
The report is divided into three sections. The first is an introduction that includes the top findings from the report. The bulk of the report presents the key themes. It closes with a summary of the methodology and demographics of the survey. It is not clear whether the respondents were US-based or global.
Key Themes from the State of Sales in Healthcare and Life Sciences
There are some interesting findings in the key themes section. These include the top priorities of sales leaders. Top three were:
- Retain and expand existing accounts – 20%
- Sell into new accounts and territories – 19%
- Increase sales productivity – 18%
As these relate to primary metrics for sales leaders, it is little surprise. However, secondary priorities that are more administrative (and 4th and 5th) were to improve data accuracy and quality (13%) and improve forecasting accuracy (12%). What would be interesting research would be to tie improving data accuracy and quality to improvement in sales metrics.
However to improve metrics, Sales leaders do believe that collaboration across teams (67%), more accurate sales forecasts (42%), and improved data quality (38%) and sales coaching (38%) would help.
The report spends only a few words on AI and its importance, noting that one in four executives are already using it, but within 3 years, 67% expect AI and/or automation sales. The report also looks at how sales executives interact with healthcare. 83% are using a hybrid approach, with only 6% selling exclusively remotely and 11% exclusively in person. The report highlights that whilst the approach is often omnichannel, Email is used by 98% of teams.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
There are some interesting findings from this report, but the text fails to dive much deeper than the results. Certainly, a qualitative survey or trend data would have revealed more. For example, are teams shifting away from remote selling now? Is there a return to selling in person (which seems unlikely) or is this still diminishing when compared to pre-Covid or last year?
Surprisingly, there are no quotes from Clari leaders, or objective thought leaders within the white paper. While the report highlights that sales teams do not operate in silos. They work with other functions within their organisations, including marketing, finance and others, that is barely noteworthy as it has always happened to some degree. A qualitative survey might have identified how that has changed in recent times and what tools are being used or are lacking from that collaboration.
The authors have also not highlighted whether there were differences between different company categories, such as Medical devices, Biotechnology, and Pharmaceuticals. The sample was probably too small though.
The report has some interesting findings but does not pose any questions for the reader. Nor does it provide actions for what they might do next. For those selling in the healthcare sector, it is worth the few minutes it takes to read to understand what peers do and to see how Clari’s revenue platform has helped them.
