EXECUTIVE LEADERS
GSK Takes an Important—and Successful—Risk Changing your sales and marketing approach can pay off By Deborah Waterhouse, SVP and Business Unit Head Primary Care, US, GSK
Change, although a constant, is still a difficult and anxious process for a company to go through, all the moreso if you’re a major pharmaceutical enterprise. It takes effort, detail orientation, wisdom and more than a little luck to turn around a ship the size of GSK. Yet we did that, and the results bore out our strategy. GSK decided to change how we approach trust within the industry. The removal of sales force incentives based on sales in an individual’s territory and HCP payments, along with data transparency, are all part of a new operational model focused on putting the patient of the heart of everything we do. In general, this is a concept nearly everyone can sign onto. But what does that look like on a daily basis, and how do you ensure that your culture backs up your promise? I am in charge of the respiratory and diabetes business units for
GSK US. I also run strategy planning and operations for the whole GSK US pharma operation. On my way to this position, I made sure to gain experience in all the major areas of the business, so I knew what the hurdles and goals looked like. I worked in HR, R&D, sales and marketing. It gave me an ideal background for bringing together all these elements for my current position. To put the act behind the words about patient dedication, we had to be willing to take some radical steps to demonstrate that this is absolutely what we meant and is reflected in what we did. Part of
9 | HS&M OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016
this is a determination to listen and correct. Alter how we operate commercially and clinically. Be transparent about what clinical studies tell us. The question hanging in the air, of course, is can you do good and do well at the same time? Serve aspirational goals and the bottom line? We wanted to be sure we were building a strong, trust-based relationship with patients and physicians, and we didn’t want the physician/patient relationship to be inappropriately influenced by anything we do. Creating real change in any organization requires two key elements:
