The therapeutic focus at R&D is on Urology, Respiratory, Anti-infectives, Anti-inflammatory and metabolic disorders segments. Breakthrough BPH, Anti-Asthama and Anti-bacterial New Chemical Entities developed by our scientists are at different stages of drug discovery. Creation of intellectual wealth, as we move up the pharma value chain is critical to our business.
The Research networking across the globe is a key growth driver for us. We are also investing in new areas of Biotechnology and Herbal Research
We have well-defined programs in the areas of:
- Chemical Research (Synthetic Chemistry, APIs)
- Pharmaceutical Research (Dosage forms)
- Novel Drug Delivery System (NDDS)
- New Drug Discovery Research (NDDR)
- Fermentation Research (APIs)
World-class infrastructure comprising amenably supports the overall research endeavours, which are:
- International Regulatory Affairs
- Intellectual Property cell
- Corporate Quality Assurance
Committed to customers: "Committed to Customers" has become a familiar phrase with us. It is not only supplying products, which meet customers’ specifications but also high standard of production, delivery and customer service. Our endeavour at Ranbaxy Fine Chemicals Limited is to critically monitor total cycle time from an order entry to on-site delivery for ensuring lasting partnership with our customers. We at Ranbaxy Fine Chemicals Limited take pride in living upto this challenge. In order to meet your diverse needs we offer chemicals in various grades of quality to suite the respective fields of application.
Quality assurance: Quality assurances have long been a tradition with Ranbaxy. Quality is priority in all activities carried out in our company. With the feedback given to our field staff who are in constant touch with you, you have helped us in achieving increased production volumes with continuous decline in Quality Complaints. Our Quality Manual is our most important document.
Laboratory chemical data system: Analytical data is on-line available on electronic media enabling an uninterrupted, re-traceability of Product History. Batch specific analytical data is available with our Marketing offices in the form of Certificate of Analysis (COA). Standard Test Procedures are shared with Customers on request.
Our analytical capabilities: We constantly upgrade our Analytical capabilities; both, enhancing the skills of our chemists through training and adding sophisticated world-class instruments to ensure the reproducibility of our results. We have Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer with graphite furnace and VGA for ppb level analysis of metallic impurities. FTIR for identification of our new range of Products, Double beam UV-visible Spectrophotometer for HPLC grade solvents are some of our sophisticated instruments. Our GC analysis is done on capillary columns for superior resolution.
Statistical quality control: Annual Analytical Trends help us in continuously upgrading our Specifications. On request we supply statistical trends for past supplies for specific product.
Technical services group: A Technical Services Group comprising of Scientists, Engineers and Analytical Chemists supports all our product development and manufacturing services. The team works in close coordination with customers to ensure availability of any kind of information related to product application, specification and
safety. Customized manufacturing and product enhancement, according to the need and requirement of the customers being their other areas of contribution.
Safety, our prime concern: Chemicals should be handled by Qualified individuals familiar with their potential hazards. Safety Data Sheets are available for all products in our range. Our MSDS data bank is just a call away.
Marketing: Marketing is generally defined as selling a product to a customer who gets satisfaction by using the product and thus gives profit to company. Therefore, generating profits through customer satisfaction through product offering and services are the main objective of marketing. It was practiced to a great extend by many progressive companies. Globalization, massive information available through media, world becoming one country has led to massive change in customer behaviour, attitude and life style. It has affected scene in all major class of towns irrespective of types of cities. Customers today are more demanding and look for value for money instead of tolerating and blaming it to fate. He is more aware of his rights and his expectation has gone up too. Today’s customer cannot be taken for granted. It is a good happening. Therefore, classical 4 P’s of marketing has changed to "OCTAGONAL MARKETING". Octagonal Marketing encompasses all finer aspect of customer management, which can result in greater profits through customer satisfaction. Octagonal marketing gives better edge to companies in not only maximizing customer satisfaction but also in retaining them. Elements of Octagonal Marketing are:
1 Providing customer a product that is more acceptable to him: We cannot sell grass to a lion. Product should have some tangible and non-tangible benefits. Customer cannot be asked to change himself for a product. Many products fail because they are not acceptable to them. Nimesulide, Nimesulide with Tizanidine, have overtaken Diclofenac, Ibuprofen because customers find it more acceptable due to product benefits. Nimesulide may not be great seller in Europe, USA but in India it is. It has unnerved many players. Success of A to Z, Taxim, Taxim-O, Nise, Nise-MR and Corex etc. is live examples. By prescribing these products customer feels justified. They are not influenced.
Pfizer with Amlodipire failed due to non-acceptance of product by customer, as perceived benefits were much lower than the price charged by Pfizer. Many Ayurvedic products are not getting adequate patronage because of the perception of unsure results from Ayurvedic products and lack of clinical experience. Research indicates the following reasons for better acceptance of products:
Factors, which influences Acceptance of products, Better Efficacy, Tolerability, Economical, Regular Reminder by Medical Representatives. Thus, we see to it that the customers should not be taken for granted. Customer shift is taking at faster pace than it was yesterday. A concerted effort is taken by us to make the product acceptable. Azithromycin still has not overtaken Roxithromycin as customer does not feel the difference and reason to shift. The second ‘A’ is "Affordability".
2 Affordable products: This is very important factor. Price can be maintained high but if customer believes that he is not paying more.
“Price = Perceived Benefit + Actual Price”
We develop brand equity to make the product affordable at high price. Price difference of Rs.1 or 2 does not make sense today. Minimum difference of Rs.5/- between two brands in price segment of upto Rs.50/- does make sense. Many success stories of brands were built because of price i.e. "Affordable Price in Customer Mind". CZ of Lupin, SN-15 of Serum is the classical example of price pushing of the brand towards success. In view of globalization, uncertainty "affordable product" will be an important role. Luxury soap segment could revive because of more "free offer" to consumer and offering "better value for money". The other ‘A’ of marketing is Availability.
3 Available at nearest to consumer: Distribution is the key factor for success of new or old products. Yesterday places like Dadar, Churchgate use to lure people from far places in Bombay. Today, customer gets everything nearby to his residence. This is becoming very important, as "alternatives" are available. Consumer will like to buy at the nearest retail outlet. Availability of product at nearest chemist counter is an important factor in prescribing. Pharma industry has to cross not only hurdle at distribution but also the hurdle enforced by AIOCD. Luckily, IDMA/OPPI agreement with AIOCD has helped pharma industry to have better approach towards this problem. Reach is very important.
Even today, many companies are not able to make product available.
Company reach at retail level in terms of percentage
Availability plays an important role for any pharmaceutical companies; hence we leave no stone unturned to make our products available easily. Higher growth rate can be registered if it is available at many retail outlets. Hindustan Lever, Godrej could accelerate their growth in 2002 due to massive effort in making their products available. This is too going to play role as research says that many times doctors stops prescribing a product if it is not available at nearby chemist.
Factor for not prescribing is that the drugs are not available at nearby chemists. Thus, we take utmost care that our products are easily available. Distribution, in fact, is the "nerve centre" of our organization. The other ‘A’ of Marketing is awareness.
4 Awareness among consumer: Building awareness among doctors, patients, chemist & medical reps are key activities followed by us. Medical representatives continue to bring awareness among doctors, nurses, chemists & patients. In order to make our brand recall better we conduct the following activities:
- Rank Repeat visit by Medical Representatives
- Gifts, Samples etc.
- Clinical Meets
- Post marketing trials
- Mailing
- Brand recall normally among many "Me-too" products is tough.
We keep the brand alive through various activities. New activities like event management, direct to customer advertising/promoting etc.
The four ‘A’ no doubts are important for us to market our products but equally important are 4 R’s which has really made today’s marketing as Octagonal from Rectangular marketing (‘4Ps’). The first ‘R’ which is added is, Why should customer buy and what is its relevance to customers.
5. Relevance to Consumer: This is becoming very important. Concept of unique selling point is replaced by unique customer perception (UCP). As said earlier, one cannot sell grass to a lion. Unique selling point can be a tool to marketing professional but cannot be ultimate to make the consumer buy it. Therefore, we give relevance to consumer. You cannot expect customer to change their style if it does not suit the customer. No wonder, many FMCG companies are finding ways to make the product more relevant to consumer. HLL, Colgate, Godrej all have gone out to modify the product character to suit the local needs. Success of Cipro-Tini or Ofloxa-Tinidazole in the field of antidiarrhoeal market is typical of relevance to customer and end consumer.
Product gave good success in prompt control and minimizing recurrence. Lupin’s new anti-TB product in line with current medical thinking is yet the live example where many pharma companies bends the existing thinking process to bring up the new reality. Relevance should also bring returns to end-user. Unless he gets better ROI he will not become loyal customer.
6. Returns to Consumers: This is very important too. Indian consumer is more intelligent compared to others. This is what world famous J. Sheth talked about Indian consumer psychic. They always calculate "Value for Money". They do evaluate even after the purchase is over and try to reinforce and justify the decision. Today, doctors too like to evaluate new products before going for it. Hence, concept of clinical trial for new product can help the launch of new product more successful. No doubt 18% of customer will continue to buy on impulse if it is new. But decision making process get delayed if investment is high. Return on Investment (ROI) if communicated properly can easily convince "Rational Consumer". Doctors may times are rational consumer and therefore this is going to be very critical for pharma marketing. Ranbaxy communicates this effectively by proper promotion. Sampling & visual aid detailing is not enough. We consider response generation important in view of resource crunch.
7. Response generation through promotion: Advertisement should generate sales not awards. No wonder, P&G today talk about accountability. Any money spent should generate adequate returns and response. Promotion plays an important role. Hence we spend most of the budget on the following:
Expense Heads Range (Depending upon the productivity & sales)
% To Sales
- Medical Rep detailing: 5-10%
- Visual Aids/LBC: 0.5 to 1%
- Journal Advertisement: 0.01-0.5%
8. Relationship through product & service: Relationship marketing was unknown, was practiced more in consumer durable, engineering sector. The emergence of CRM has taken marketing to a greater height. Customer as a spokesman is becoming the key objective. Relationship marketing is a blend of product, quality and services. To achieve effective relationship marketing, all the three factors will play role. We also take care of the matter of fact that we cannot develop relationship marketing if we do not develop top quality products, which are affordable and effective and also provide service to retailers, customer and end users. We are doing lot of work in developing CRM with customers. However, under the garb of Relationship marketing we see to it that we should not bribe the customers. This is not CRM.
- CRM is not overpampering customers.
- CRM is not corrupting customers.
- CRM is not winning & dinning.
- CRM is not gift business.
CRM is a scientific technique to develop customer as spokesman through various loyalty programs. How many companies are doing it?
Direct Marketing: It includes two divisions viz. Sales and Marketing, The sales department look into the sales generated by the sales personnel whereas the marketing department looks after functions such as Branding of the product, Handling complaints of the customers, look after proper training of sales personnel and new employees. The sales personnel take the products in order to reveal it to the doctors so that they can further direct the information to the medical stores so that they stock in their stores the Ranbaxy products and then finally the doctor prescribe it to the patients. This is how the chain functions with respect to Ranbaxy products. The bottomline is Ranbaxy adopts direct selling approach.
The sales and marketing team works in a following manner i.e. the hierarchy structure of sales and marketing departments is as follows:
Sales department Hierarchy:
Sales Manager (State Wise -1)
Sales Manager (Zone Wise - 4)
Zonal Manager (3-4)
Regional Manager (2-3)
District/Area Manager (3-4)
Medical Representative (5-7)
Doctor
The above hierarchy suggests that there is a state wise one manager under whom work four Sales Managers zone wise i.e. the four zones viz. North, East, West & South, within each zone there are three to four managers called Zonal Managers who work under him. Then there are regional managers around two to three who work under each Zonal Manager, District Managers around three to four work under each Regional Manager, Medical Representatives around five to seven work under each District Manager and finally these MRs make the sale to the doctor who is the penultimate customer.
Marketing Department Hierarchy:
Marketing Manager
Group Product Manager Medical Manager Training Manager
Product Brand Therapy Doctors
Manager Manager Manager
M.Pharmacists
The above hierarchy suggests that there is one single Marketing Manager who looks after three divisions viz. Group Product Department in which the group product manager looks after Product Manager, Brand Manager and Therapy Manager. The second division is of Medical Department in which there is a Medical manager who looks after Doctors and Doctors further look after Masters in Pharmacists. The last and the third division is Training Department in which the managers look after training of newly appointed employees.
Lets study each department’s functions in detail:
Group Product Department: The Brand Manager or Product Manager in it is supposed to look after the activities such as Development of Brand, keep a track of competitive information, Visual aids, Reprints of Products i.e. how much prints to be circulated amongst doctors. The Marketing Manager looks after; formulation of Marketing strategies, free samples of products i.e. how many samples to be given free, gifts, distributing study/literature materials, launching of products and meetings to be held with the members of the organization.
Medical Department: The job of medical manager is to look after the science of products, provide knowledge to MRs during training, tell them about the pros and cons of the product, the features of the products, regular clinical studies and respond to Doctor’s queries.
The Training Department: The job of Training Manager is to see to it that the MRs, District, Regional and Newly appointed Managers receive proper training so as to function effectively and efficiently.
There is a website called “www.Ranbaxyfordoctors.com” especially designed for doctors by Ranbaxy so as to help doctors enhance their knowledge.
Ranbaxyfordoctors.com: When Ranbaxyfordoctors.com was launched, our endeavour was to build a site that would act as a one-stop Internet destination for a doctor: whether he is looking for news, views, entertainment, tips, community building or means of improving his practise. In this way, doctors could get an ‘anchor’ site on the web, a site that they could regularly visit and rely on for the sharing and enhancement of knowledge.
Our philosophy states that Ranbaxyfordoctors.com is an Internet resource that aims to create a virtual platform where doctors of all specialities, age, sex and creed; irrespective of geographies, come together and interact to share and enhance knowledge.
Creation of a ‘resource’ and enhancement of features implies that change is imperative. Keeping with this spirit we recreated our site, with better features and a more colourful and exciting interface.
Business Opportunities with Ranbaxy: Core Competencies: Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a product-driven pharmaceutical company with diversified expertise. While RPI is relatively new to the US market, it is by no means a new player. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited, RPI offers an advantage of being a global presence with experience in more than 40 international markets and over 41 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.
Our product development and manufacturing capability, teamed with our ability to market products in many global markets, makes RPI an attractive business ally. A key part of our business strategy is to collaborate with partners with complementary skills - "A Win-Win" strategy that strengthens the position of our partners as well as RPI.
RPI has already experienced commercial success penetrating the US health care market, and looks forward to enhanced growth and future business opportunities through collaboration and strategic alliances.
- API Development and Production
- Dosage Form Development and Manufacturing
API Development and Production: For those who want to manufacture their own product or brand, without the time and costs associated with developing the API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient), Ranbaxy can provide the API, eliminating this step from your process. The key advantages of using Ranbaxy's backwardly integrated system are:
- Ensuring continuity of supply
- Ensuring consistent quality of product
- Resources to respond in timely fashion to meet demand
Dosage Form Development and Manufacturing: Ranbaxy's experience as a global manufacturer makes liquid dosage form development or us aptly suited to take on the complex process of solid. At Ranbaxy, we continually reverse engineer to improve upon our development process, enhancing the yield, with a focus on cost efficiencies.
Contract Manufacturing: To expand your product line with minimum investment, Ranbaxy provides "turnkey" manufacturing services including API and dosage form development, to allow you to focus on marketing and selling the product. This is an efficient way to increase your product line and profit margins, while taking advantage of Ranbaxy's manufacturing experience and expertise.
Sales and Marketing: Ranbaxy has set itself apart in the marketplace by the rapid growth of its product line, its willingness to emulate complex drug formulations, and its core competencies in anti-infectives, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and analgesics arenas. Ranbaxy has a commercial advantage as many of the high-profit branded drugs with expiring patents over the next few years are in the categories where Ranbaxy has proven its expertise.
RPI has a self-contained marketing group that works to co-market products (the same chemical under different brands), and co-promote products (the same brand name carried by two different companies). RPI has marketed their services out to other companies, as they perform all of the steps in the pharmaceutical process - from development and manufacturing to distribution and sales.
RPI's commitment to quickly expanding the breadth and depth of their product line has been key to their success in the marketplace.
Marketing Strategies: Marketing Strategies as emphasized by the name is the department, which is focused primarily on developing and establishing different strategies for the promotion/distribution of Branded/Generic as well at the OTC products for RPI.
One of the key tasks for the department is to identify/look out for various opportunities in different markets or channels of distribution and to pursue those opportunities developing and establishing new relationships in the market. Managed Care / Internet Marketing are few of the key areas that the department is looking to introduce into their ever expanding products portfolio.
Licensing: RPI prides itself on taking a creative, mutually beneficial approach to licensing arrangements. By being open to both outward and inward licensing opportunities, RPI fulfills unmet needs in the marketplace.
Mission:
- To become an efficient and reliable supply partner of high purity fine chemicals for Manufacturing Processes, Quality Assurance and Research & Development.
- To become a Research Based Multinational Pharmaceutical company.
Values:
- Achieving customer satisfaction is fundamental to our business.
- Provide products and services of the highest quality.
- Practice dignity and equity in relationships and provide opportunities for our people to realize their full potential.
- Foster mutually beneficial relations with all our business partners.
- Manage our operations with high concern for safety and environment.
Conclusion: Actually conclusion would be a wrong word to use because the learning process has just started if I talk in terms of Direct Marketing. However by studying Ranbaxy Pharmaceutical Inclusive I got the knowledge of the Pharmaceutical Industry, which will definitely help me in the long run, at the same time I discovered the changing trends in Marketing.
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