P&C Global Practices: Corporate Performance, Digital Transformation, Strategy & Innovation
Reinventing Commercial Strategy with Digital Agility and Discipline
A global pharmaceutical company, recognized worldwide for its innovations in healthcare, was experiencing a critical inflection point in its commercial operations. Despite a strong portfolio and broad market presence, flagship products in its immunology division were underperforming due to a fragmented commercial model and declining physician engagement. Legacy go-to-market strategies needed to adapt to changing physician preferences, increased digital consumption, and evolving payer expectations. Meanwhile, competitors were actively investing in omnichannel engagement, creating pressure to modernize or risk competitive erosion.
Internally, sales performance varied widely by region. The company lacked consistent targeting, had overlapping or inefficient field deployments, and suffered from limited analytics to drive precision engagement. Marketing and sales teams operated in silos, often duplicating efforts, and digital initiatives were fragmented across business units. The C-suite recognized that without a unified, digitally enabled commercial strategy, the company risked losing leadership in one of its most important therapeutic areas.
P&C Global was engaged to design and implement a complete commercial strategy overhaul – beginning with the immunology portfolio, with the intent to create a repeatable model for broader deployment across other therapeutic areas.
Challenges: Fragmented Execution in a Complex Commercial Landscape
Implementing a commercial strategy redesign on a global scale involved significant complexity. Since their footprint spanned multiple regions including North America, Europe, and Asia, the client faced a variety of local market dynamics and regulatory constraints. The organization struggled to maintain a consistent global strategy with the flexibility required for local market execution.
- Regulatory Constraints: Regulatory constraints posed a key challenge. Pharmaceutical promotion is heavily regulated. Every digital tool or new channel (such as live chat for doctors or patient apps) requires compliance with regulations on data privacy and promotional practices. In Europe, physician portals must meet GDPR requirements. In the US, all digital content must undergo medical-legal review, consistent with the requirements for traditional promotional materials. Navigating these compliance hurdles required close collaboration with the client’s legal and regulatory teams.
- Regional Market Dynamics: In addition to local regulations, each geography involved a unique payer and healthcare provider environment. This meant that the client could not achieve optimal outcomes by simply adopting a once-size-fits all approach for key program components such as pricing strategy.
- Scale of Digital Transformation: Another complexity was the sheer scale of digital transformation involved. The client was transitioning from a sales-rep-centric approach to a much more digital-centric model – a significant cultural shift. Initially, there was some internal skepticism about moving away from methods that had worked in the past. Many veteran sales leaders had long measured success by the volume of face-to-face visits and felt unsure about the Return-on-Investment (ROI) of digital channels. Indeed, the pharmaceutical sector has traditionally lagged other industries in digital adoption, and many stakeholders questioned the feasibility and impact of digital and analytics in the commercial model. Scaling new technologies, including CRM platforms and analytics dashboards, demanded infrastructure enhancements and comprehensive user training, creating a complex operational challenge.
- Need for Cross-Functional Alignment: The new commercial strategy required seamless collaboration across Sales, Marketing, Medical Affairs, Market Access, and even R&D—functions that had traditionally operated in silos. Marketing initiatives often ran independently of field teams and medical liaisons engaged separately from commercial groups. Shifting to a unified, customer-centric approach meant instilling a one-team mindset across the organization.
- Maintaining Business Performance Without Disruption: The client also faced the challenge of maintaining business performance during the transition. A transformation of this scale could distract the organization and risk short-term performance dips. To remain competitive during the transition, the client needed to ensure that sales operations continued with minimal interruption even as internal changes were underway.
In summary, the complexity of the engagement lay in its global scope, regulatory rigor, significant digital overhaul, and the need for cultural change and coordination across a large organization. By anticipating these challenges and addressing them head-on with strong governance, stakeholder engagement, and phased implementation, the initiative stayed on track. The experience and change management skills of P&C Global’s team were instrumental in navigating this complexity.
Execution Strategy
With clear goals in place, the joint P&C Global–client team moved into execution. We implemented a comprehensive commercial strategy redesign, with several key work streams running in parallel:
- Market & Competitor Analysis: We began by conducting a deep market analysis for the immunology therapeutic area. This included mapping the client’s market share versus competitors across regions, profiling competitor go-to-market tactics and identifying growth opportunities such as untapped prescriber segments and emerging markets. We analyzed trends in treatment adoption, referral patterns, and payer dynamics. These insights revealed performance gaps and directly informed our strategy. Notably, we found that the client’s messaging had become too broad and was not resonating in sub-segments of specialists. Our solution was to define micro-segments of physicians and tailor strategies for each. We also quantified the impact of looming biosimilar entrants on key products to proactively address revenue at risk.
- Pricing Strategy Redesign: A dedicated team revisited the pricing and market access approach for the client’s immunology drugs. We performed a pricing elasticity analysis and conjoint studies in key markets to gauge where price adjustments could recapture volume without eroding value. The team developed a value-based pricing framework that considered real-world outcomes (for instance, pricing support for bundles of therapy and services rather than just the drug). We also streamlined discount structures and rebates to ensure they rewarded true volume and strategic accounts. The new pricing model was optimized for each region’s regulatory and payer environment, striking the right balance between competitive pricing and profitability. Early in this process, we engaged payers and healthcare providers for feedback, which helped refine pricing tiers and support evidence-based value communication for the therapies.
- Channel & Sales Model Realignment: We realigned the client’s go-to-market channels to reflect how physicians and patients prefer to engage in a digital age. The traditional field salesforce, centered on high-frequency in-person visits, was overhauled into a hybrid sales model. Inside this model, sales representatives were re-focused on high-value activities: in-person engagement for the most critical prescribers and academic leaders and virtual engagement for others. We introduced an omnichannel approach, coordinating personal visits with non-personal touchpoints (email, webinars, online portals, and virtual meetings). For example, representatives would follow up an in-person meeting by enrolling the physician into a personalized email newsletter or inviting them to a targeted webinar. This ensured that each Healthcare Provider (HCP) had a tailored mix of touchpoints based on their preferences and behavior. We leveraged data to decide the right frequency and channel mix – if a doctor was more responsive on digital channels, the model allocated more outreach via those channels. Conversely, for those who valued face-to-face discussion, reps scheduled regular visits (within compliance limits). We also optimized territory alignment, using advanced analytics to redraw sales territories—balancing workload and opportunity to ensure each representative managed a territory with a high concentration of high-value prescribers. This data-driven territory design ensured that the salesforce was calling on the most influential physicians and under-served areas, improving coverage of high-potential accounts. To support this, we rolled out training for district managers and representatives on the new engagement model, emphasizing quality rather than quantity of engagement.
- Digital-First Physician Engagement: A cornerstone of the execution was building a digital engagement model for HCPs. P&C Global helped the client deploy a suite of digital tools, including a modern CRM with embedded analytics, marketing automation for personalized email content, and a secure online portal for doctors. We enabled features like compliant live chat and virtual detailing, allowing medical representatives and medical science liaisons to interact with doctors via chat and video calls. We also localized content for digital channels. This included short video summaries of new clinical data, interactive case studies, and specialist webinars to keep physicians engaged online. Advanced segmentation ensured that each physician received relevant, specialty-specific content. This strategy was underpinned by insights from successful models in other markets. For instance, in some countries doctors overwhelmingly prefer WhatsApp or messaging apps for updates, engaging with click-through rates via these channels 3.5 times more frequently than with email. We therefore tailored channel use to each region.
- Patient Engagement and Digital Health Integration: In parallel with physician-focused changes, the transformation program included a revamp of patient engagement strategies. We helped the client enhance its patient support programs by introducing digital health tools – for example, mobile apps for patients to track their symptoms and medication usage, with data (shared under consent) looping back to the company for aggregate insights. The new patient engagement model involved more frequent direct communication with patients through digital campaigns that educated patients about disease management and the client’s therapy options. By improving the patient experience and providing value-added services such as nurse helplines, adherence reminders, and financial assistance information, we bolstered patient loyalty and persistence with the client’s therapies, recognizing that strong adherence plays a pivotal role in improved outcomes and sustained product use.
- Advanced Analytics & Targeting: A critical enabler for all the above initiatives was the use of advanced analytics. P&C Global stood up a cross-functional analytics “war room” that integrated data from the client’s CRM, prescription databases, claims data, and even third-party digital engagement metrics. We built predictive models to identify which physicians were most likely to switch prescriptions if approached with the right message and which medical centers had untapped potential. These analytics guided resource allocation – for instance, identifying the top 15% of prescribers that drive a majority of overall volume to ensure they receive concentrated attention. We also employed machine learning to optimize call plans and digital content: algorithms analyzed which messages resonated best and recommended next-best actions for each account. This data-driven approach transformed targeting and messaging from intuition-based to evidence-based.
- Change Management: Throughout the execution phase, change management was front and center. We established a transformation office with client executives to monitor progress, address roadblocks, and coordinate between global strategy and local field execution. Regular check-ins and dashboards tracked leading indicators such as engagement rates and sales productivity to ensure that the strategy was yielding expected results and allowing course corrections in real time. By redesigning processes and introducing new tools, we also had to manage internal resistance and therefore engaged in extensive communication and training so that sales representatives, marketing teams, and medical liaisons understood the benefits of the new model and felt equipped to execute it.
This comprehensive execution strategy – from market analysis to pricing optimization, channel redesign, digital engagement, analytics, and change management – laid the foundation for the client’s commercial transformation.
Outcomes: Breakthrough Growth, Market Share Gains, and Organizational Maturity
The commercial strategy redesign delivered transformative results for the client’s immunology business and beyond. Within 12 months of implementation in the immunology therapeutic area, the company saw a dramatic improvement in performance:
- Revenue Growth: The immunology division achieved a 20% increase in annual sales, far exceeding initial expectations. This result was particularly striking given that the overall pharmaceutical market in this segment was growing in the mid-single-digits on average. Our client achieved this growth through commercial excellence alone, demonstrating the power of strategic execution without relying on a major new product launch to expand revenue. Immunology sales reached record levels. Encouraged by this success, the company has since rolled out the new commercial model to two other therapeutic divisions which are already showing accelerated growth as well.
- Market Share Gains: With the boost in sales, the client regained and expanded market share in key immunology indications. In several major markets, the company’s market share in its targeted drug category increased by 3-5 percentage points year-over-year. Importantly, these gains came not from pricing discounts which can buy temporary share but instead from genuine volume increases and better HCP uptake, indicating a sustainable improvement in competitiveness. High-prescribing physicians who had partially switched to rivals came back to our client’s portfolio, citing improved engagement and support. The salesforce realignment meant that high-value prescribers were receiving more attention and relevant information, leading to increased prescriptions. This outcome validated the strategy of focusing on the right targets: by ensuring optimal access to the most impactful providers, the company drove superior results.
- Enhanced Physician Engagement: The new omnichannel model led to significant improvements in engagement metrics with HCPs. For example, open rates on the tailored email campaigns to physicians climbed above 30% more than doubling industry benchmarks. The live webinar series we introduced for specialists started attracting hundreds of attendees where previous programs drew only dozens. Doctors appreciated the “right-sized” interactions – busy clinicians could get key updates via a quick email or portal login, and schedule in-depth discussions at their convenience. The combination of in-person and digital touches increased total interaction frequency without overwhelming the customer. As a quantitative indicator, the average number of contacts or content views per physician per quarter increased by 50%. Surveys of HCPs post-engagement showed higher satisfaction with the company’s support and information: the client moved to #1 in an internal survey of “preferred partner” among immunology specialists, up from #4 the year prior. Such engagement improvements are translating into stronger physician loyalty and willingness to try the client’s new products.
- Salesforce Efficiency and Effectiveness: The sales team became far more productive under the new model. By focusing representative efforts on top-tier accounts and supplementing with digital outreach, the company saw a 15% increase in sales productivity. The intelligent territory design reduced overlaps and ensured no high-potential physician was overlooked. Representatives reported that they were able to spend more time with the most valuable customers and had better insights via the analytics dashboards to make those conversations count. Internally, the company also optimized the size of the salesforce, redeploying about 10% of representatives from lower-value territories to other growing portfolios without losing coverage and thereby improving ROI on field resources. Salesforce morale also improved as they saw better results and received positive feedback from customers. The alignment between sales and marketing meant that representatives were finally armed with coordinated campaigns and content. One salesperson remarked that it felt like “marketing and sales are in sync in a way we’ve never experienced before.” The organization as a whole became more agile in its commercial operations.
- Digital Adoption: The investment in digital tools and analytics yielded tangible benefits. The client’s new physician portal attracted thousands of registered HCP users within the first year, creating a valuable new communication channel. Digital marketing metrics all saw an uptick: click-through rates, content download counts, and time spent on educational pages all improved markedly. On the patient side, enrollment in support programs increased by 40% and preliminary data suggested improved adherence rates for patients using the new app versus those who did not.
- Analytics ROI: The advanced analytics also proved their worth – for instance, one analytics insight identified a set of community hospitals that had high patient volumes but low sales, leading the company to deploy a special initiative there which in turn boosted regional sales by a notable margin. These kinds of data-driven efforts, enabled by the new analytical capability, demonstrate a new competency for the client. The company is now continuing to build on this foundation, scaling its analytics team and tools to support other franchises.
- Scalability and Replication: One of the most important outcomes was that the new commercial model was codified and proven, enabling the client to replicate it across the organization. After the success in immunology, the company quickly extended the approach to a second division. P&C Global supported both knowledge transfer and playbook development so that each business unit could adapt the core model along with appropriate tweaks for each market and therapeutic nuance. Early signs in those other areas are promising – the next division, for example, saw double-digit growth in a recent quarter after adopting similar go-to-market enhancements. The client now views this model as a standard for how it will launch and commercialize all new products going forward. Moreover, the cultural shift to a more agile, customer-centric mindset is taking root, suggesting that the benefits in performance will be sustainable. The CEO noted that the transformation has made the company’s commercial engine “future-proof” – better able to navigate a world of digital engagement and outcome-driven healthcare.
Financially, the impact of the engagement has been substantial. Not only did the 20% sales increase in immunology add significant top-line revenue, but the pricing optimizations and efficiency gains improved profitability. The client realized roughly $50M in cost savings and avoidance through more efficient resource allocation and reduced waste in low-value marketing spend, which helped fund the digital investments. The improved revenue trajectory and market position have also been well-received by shareholders and analysts, with the company’s stock outperforming peers over the last year.
Outperforming Peers
During and following this engagement, we benchmarked the client’s performance against industry peers to ensure it was achieving best-in-class results. In the realm of go-to-market execution and digital engagement, the transformed metrics for our client now outpace many competitors:
- Sales Growth: The 20% annual sales growth in the target therapeutic category compares very favorably to peers. Large pharmaceutical companies typically aspire to mid-single-digit annual growth in established portfolios (often around 5–7% in mature markets). Our client’s growth rate was 3–4x the industry average, showcasing superior performance.
- Physician Engagement: The client’s physician email open rate (~30%) and click-through rate significantly exceeded typical pharma benchmarks where 15% open rates are common. Additionally, the proportion of physicians actively interacting via online platforms with our client is now higher than what surveys report for many companies. Whereas surveys have shown that only about 25% of physicians were active digital communicators with pharma by the mid-2010s, over 60% of our client’s targeted HCPs now engage via at least one digital channel, a rate that likely puts it ahead of most rivals in digital adoption. This superior engagement is a competitive advantage: in an age where access is limited, having more physicians open to virtual or face-to-face dialogue gives our client an edge in influencing prescribing behavior relative to companies still catching up on omnichannel.
- Salesforce Effectiveness: In terms of salesforce efficiency and alignment to high-value prescribers, the client also leaped ahead. Many pharma companies struggle with ensuring representatives focus on the right accounts – it’s not uncommon to find a significant portion of representative time being spent on lower-potential doctors. After our engagement, the client had 90%+ of representative interactions with top-tier priority HCPs, a much tighter focus than industry norms. This contributed to their higher productivity. In comparison, peers who haven’t realigned territories or embraced digital support likely still have representatives chasing too many targets. Our client’s model, which strategically deploys representatives, has clearly yielded better results than the one-size-fits-all approach some competitors maintain.
- Customer Experience and Preference: The client’s brand as a partner to healthcare providers improved markedly, with doctors in various markets rating our client above competitors in terms of quality of interactions and support. One telling data point: in an independent survey of physicians, the client was the only company among top peers to improve its Net Promoter Score (NPS) with doctors. This suggests that while many companies are attempting digital engagement, our client’s execution was simply more effective and appreciated. While competitors work on their own digital transformation of sales, our client currently enjoys a lead in experience – a lead we have advised them to press.
Ultimately, peer benchmarking confirmed that the engagement didn’t just improve the client in isolation – it propelled them ahead of the competition on several fronts. The client is now recognized as a commercial innovator in the pharmaceutical sector. Internally, the transformation became a case study that the client’s parent company is sharing globally. Externally, other pharma companies have inquired about the approach, indicating that the results have attracted attention. By measuring against peers, we ensured that our client not only met its goals but set a new high bar for commercial excellence in the sector.
P&C Global’s Role
P&C Global’s involvement spanned from the earliest strategy formulation to on-the-ground execution support, exemplifying our ability to deliver end-to-end consulting impact. Several facets of our expertise were key to the success:
- Strategy & Innovation Leadership: P&C Global led the development of the strategic vision for the new commercial model. We brought deep industry insight and innovation frameworks to challenge the status quo. Our team helped the client’s executives envision a customer-centric, digital-enabled future and translated that into a clear strategy roadmap. We employed scenario planning and market forecasting to ensure the strategy was not just reactive but forward-looking – anticipating where the market is heading via key trends such as increasing payer emphasis on outcomes and the continued rise of digital-native HCPs. By doing so, we future-proofed the client’s commercial approach. P&C Global’s Strategy & Innovation practice also ensured that the plan had full executive alignment and sponsorship, presenting a compelling business case for change that secured necessary investments.
- Corporate Performance & Change Management: The transformation was as much about organizational change as it was about strategy. P&C Global’s Corporate Performance experts embedded in the project to redesign the organization, processes, and incentives around the new strategy. We helped rewrite playbooks, redefine roles such as new digital engagement manager positions, and establish performance metrics to monitor success. Crucially, we managed the change journey – communicating the vision to hundreds of employees, training teams on new tools, and guiding the cultural shift to a more agile, data-driven way of working. When challenges arose, such as pockets of resistance or execution bottlenecks, our consultants were on hand to troubleshoot and keep the transformation on track. The end result was not just a one-time win, but a sustainable new operating model with the governance and metrics in place to continuously improve performance.
- Digital Transformation Enablement: P&C Global’s Digital Transformation practice was the catalyst for turning ideas into action through technology and analytics. We advised on selecting the right technology platforms—for CRM, analytics, and automation— and ensured they were implemented effectively. Our team included data scientists who developed the pilot analytics models and demonstrated the power of data-driven decision-making to the client’s teams. We also coordinated with the client’s IT department to integrate new tools smoothly, paying close attention to user adoption. For instance, our experts created a user-friendly dashboard for representatives that became extremely popular because we incorporated feedback and made it intuitive, thus significantly driving adoption of the analytics insights on the ground. By blending strategy with hands-on tech enablement, P&C Global ensured that the digital initiatives delivered real value quickly, thereby building trust in the transformation.
- End-to-End Program Management: As the engagement spanned strategy through execution, P&C Global acted as the orchestrator of the overall program. We established a Program Management Office (PMO) to coordinate all workstreams, track milestones, and manage interdependencies. This central governance, led by our consultants, allowed the client to focus on content and decisions while we handled the complex integration of activities. We maintained a relentless focus on outcomes – every recommendation came with clear metrics, and we continuously measured impact, adapting our approach as needed to achieve targets. This focus on measurable ROI kept the project justified and funded. For example, when we implemented changes, we immediately tracked leading indicators like engagement and adjusted tactics to ensure that final outcomes such as sales and market share would be realized. P&C Global’s commitment to delivering tangible results gave the client confidence; as one executive put it, “P&C Global promised a commercial ROI and they delivered it.” The transformation drove a strong return, and we made sure those successes were transparent and attributable.
Throughout the partnership, P&C Global functioned not just as consultants but as trusted advisors and partners to the client’s leadership. By engagement’s end, the client’s team had fully adopted the new methods and we had transferred the tools and knowledge for them to continue excelling. The CEO summarized P&C Global’s role by stating that we helped “rebuild our commercial engine from the ground up,” integrating strategy, performance, and technology in a way that the company could not have achieved alone. The success of this case is a testament to P&C Global’s cross-practice expertise and our unwavering focus on client outcomes. We enabled a market-leading transformation that delivered measurable commercial gains and positioned the client for sustained success in the years ahead.
In conclusion, P&C Global’s commercial strategy redesign for this global pharmaceutical company achieved its core objective: a revitalized go-to-market approach that reignited growth, enhanced competitive positioning, and equipped the organization for the future. The engagement showcases how a confident, well-executed strategy – backed by innovation, data, and teamwork – can create breakthrough results, turning around an entire business segment and setting a new standard in an industry. The client continues to build on this foundation and P&C Global is proud to have been the partner that helped make it happen.
Partner with P&C Global to Drive Commercial Innovation
Discover how P&C Global can spark renewed growth, elevate competitive edge, and achieve breakthrough results. Contact us today to explore how we can support your commercial reinvention.
