Case Study

Digital transformation at Novartis to improve customer engagement

22 pages
December 2014
Reference: IMD-3-2437

The pharmaceutical industry was under siege, with regular price rollbacks and the powerful advance of generics frequently making news headlines. Many of the industry’s leading companies, including Novartis, were cutting their sales forces, while sales representatives who still had jobs felt increasingly disengaged. David Epstein, the head of Novartis’s Pharmaceuticals division, bucked the trend. He introduced a strategic initiative that aimed to fundamentally transform Novartis’ selling model. Epstein committed to an aspirational goal of equipping 80% of the company’s field forces worldwide with the latest iPad technology by the end of 2012, in just 15 months. A few months later, he set his teams an even more ambitious challenge: to equip 100% of the sales force by the end of 2013, which meant rolling out 25,000 new devices across the globe within a two-year period. Novartis was about to embark on a digital transformation journey, with the ultimate goal of providing the right drug to the right patient at the right time.

Learning Objective
  • Leading organizational transformation programmes
  • New models of customer engagement in the pharmaceutical industry
  • Harnessing the power of digital for strategic and operational change
Keywords
Digital Transformation, Customer Engagement, Customer Relationship Management, Pharmaceuticals, Sales Force
Settings
Global, Switzerland
Novartis, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals
2011-2013
Type
Field Research
Copyright
© 2014
Available Languages
English, Chinese
Related material
Teaching note, Video
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