Pharmaceutical Sales Team and its Parts!!

Sales Team:  

If Business/Company is a Human Body then Sale is Blood for It. Without Blood, Human Body can’t work. Same in case of any company, without sale, a company can’t run. Sale is lifeline of for any Company.  

In Pharmaceutical Sector, Sale is an important aspect like other businesses but methods and customer type is different as compare to other sectors. In pharmaceutical Sector, Doctors are primary customer and prescription is main source of sale. Read in detail about how to sell in Pharmaceutical sector and types of marketing and sale by clicking here  

Most of time a business in pharmaceutical sector is divided in to following level:

• Country
• Zone
• Region
• Area
• Territory

Pharmaceutical sector is competitive one & require huge effort and marketing support to generate sale along with sales team. There may be number of persons and position presents in a sales team but here we are discussing about simple sales team parts. Below are the main parts of a sales Team:

• Medical Representative
• Area Sales Manager
• Regional Sales Manager
• Zonal Sales Manager
• General Sales Manager
• VP (Sales)
• Country Manager

We are going to discuss in brief here. You can click at link given for read in detail about particular position. We will move discussion from Field Staff to upper Staff.

Medical Sales Representative (MR): 
MR is well known name in Pharmaceutical Sector. A medical representative is primary sales producer and is in direct contact with Doctors. Area assigned to MR’s is small based upon company need. Area covered by medical representative could be single district, number of districts or a small part of any district. Area of Medical Representatives are based upon many factors like company turnover, doctors in particular area, population of that area, drug consumption in that area etc. Area provided to medical representative is known as Territory. read about medical representative

Area Sales Manager (ASM):
A Medical Representative after promotion become a Area Sales Manager. Almost all Area Sales Manager once were a medical Representative. Area Sales Managers have almost similar roles and responsibility as of medical representative with few more additional responsibilities like handling a team of a number of medical representatives, motivating his team, making important doctor’s meeting and commitments etc. Area assigned to ASM is larger and broader as compare to MR. A Area Manager’s team may have number of medical representative like 3,4,5 or more depend at company policy.   

Regional Sales Manager (RSM):
Number of Area managers are instructed and handled by a Regional Sales Manager. Sales department is divided into territory, area, region, zone and country bases. A region contains number of areas depend at companies policies. A Regional Sales Manager control and look after all activity in his assigned distance. At RSM level, person has to handle some corporate work along with sales work. A RSM reports to his ZSM (Zonal Sales Manager). Similar in case of RSM, in most of cases a ASM is promoted as RSM after a specific period of experience and achievements.  

Zonal Sales Manager (ZSM):
At Country level, only generally 4 to 5 Zonal Sales Manager handles the sale of his assigned Zone. Zone may divided as per company’s policy. A country may be divided into 4,5,6 or as number of zones as per business opportunities, population, number of doctors, consumption of medicines etc. If we talk about Indian Business Territory, we can divide Indian business into 4, 5 or more zones like North Zone, West Zone, South Zone, East Zone, North East Zone, Central Zone etc. A ZSM work is to monitor his zonal sale and company progress. Finding new ways to boost sales and dominating competitors by monitoring and overcoming their strategy and policies.  

General Sales Manager (GM-Sales): 
Now we come to GM-sales. We can say head of department of sales. A GM can be appointed as country level or number of zonal level depend at companies policies. He looks after over all things in his assigned team and area. He rarely go into field but in special cases, he also has to go into field to boost sale and growth. . There may also some above level sales officer present like Vice-president Sales, President Sales etc. Team Structure is variable and changeable as per requirements and sales opportunities in particular area. Its not fix to appoint or fix territory all over India in same manner, it may vary according to need. Suppose a company has 15 lakh sale per territory in north zone and 5 lakh sale per territory in west zone, then you can’t appoint sales team same for both zones. Even you may find difference in different territories in single area.