BioTen video series: Commercial transformation

Interviewer: Jonathan Wildman, Senior Client Partner, Biopharma/Med Device Advisory Lead, Korn Ferry

Speaker: Michael Jensen, Life Sciences, Korn Ferry

Jonathan Wildman: Wrapping up the BioTEN series today, I'm here with Michael who's going to talk about accelerating revenue growth. Michael, for so many of our clients in the Midcap BioPharma Med Device Space, they're moving from research to development with the goal of launching a sales force and there are few things you have to think about when organizing a commercial organization. Would you share your story with us?

Michael Jensen: Yes, absolutely. Thanks, and happy to be here today.

We are working with a client right now on building out their commercial organization and we started with really wanting to align the commercial organization with the marketplace. So that starts with what's the customer segmentation, what's their sales strategy and really then moving into understanding the buyer journey - how the customer wants to engage with the sales force and what kind of coverage model.

Do we need do we have the right number of roles span in the geographies so that was going to be phase one. Phase two then was really looking at how do we align the organization against the market. What kind of work structure do we need to have? What kind of role requirements are there as we start to get ready to build out their sales force? And then what kind of targets and how do we set quotas because the incentive comp design is a huge component of attracting the right talent? So that's where we are at this point.

The next phase after we help them hire their field force is to then start to look at what is enablement looks like. Do we support them through their commercial training and development organization to provide that continuous learning journey so that there's development at the point of work with just in time training so it's been an interesting journey for sure. There's been a tremendous amount of disruption for commercial organizations today. You know whether it's the pandemic, whether it's biosimilars coming in with new competitive products, a patent cliff for those that already have a product in the market.

Anytime this kind of disruption happens, we've got to go back and look at are we aligned with the work? Are we aligned organizationally to deliver against what the market's looking for and have we enabled our sales force?

Jonathan Wildman: Michael, I love what you just said. It's reflecting a lot of what we're hearing from clients in terms of the entire life cycle of taking your science, bringing it to market. You need to attract the right talent. You need to incent the right talent, develop the right talent, and ultimately retain that talent as you move forward. So, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

Michael Jensen: Thank you.

Jonathan Wildman: If you have any questions for Michael, please see his Email address to the side. Thank you to all who've watched the BioTEN series. We've had a great time putting it together and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you.

Watch all of the BioTEN Video Series