Sales is the revenue stream for any pharma company and comprises of various distribution channels, such as distributor sales, stockist sales, pharmacy sales, hospital and clinic sales, online sales, and field sales.

A typical Sales hierarchy for pharma can be seen in the following diagram:

The international sales or global sales is taken care of by international sales head, who reports to the global CEO. Depending on the size and geographical operations, every country may have its national sales head. The national sales head would report to the country head and global sales head.

For every country, the sales hierarchy can have several zonal sales head. The number of such zonal sales heads would depend on the size of the country. The number is typically in the range of 4 to 10. Zonal heads have regional sales heads reporting to them. Each region is further divided into areas and each area has an area sales head. An area sales head has several sales officers working for him/her. At the end of hierarchy, there are medical representatives (MR).

The senior sales team engages in preparing strategical plans and focuses on executing them. They are the ones who allocate the sales quotas to the people below in hierarchy. They have to work closely with the marketing team and align with them.

MRs are important links in the pharma sales and they are the ones who can bring lot of feedback to the think tank of pharma companies. MR are the ones who are out on the field, visiting stockists, pharmacies, and doctors. They keep visiting doctors and updating them about the latest happenings with respect to the latest drugs or improvements in existing ones. They do their best to influence the doctors to prescribe drugs of their company. They usually carry samples along with them during their visits to the doctors/physicians. They collect valuable feedback from the doctors on effectiveness of their medicines. They also try to find out any new requirements which the doctors may have.

MRs have their task cut out as doctors can either be general physicians or they may be specialized (example Ear and Throat, MD-Cardiac). They have to keep themselves updated with the product portfolios. If the doctor is a KOL, the MR has to be very precise and manage the relation very carefully.

The MRs also visit the distribution channels, like stockists and pharmacy stores. Apart from the objective of getting these channels to place orders, a lot of feedback is also collected from them. The MRs can also get important information as to which doctors are prescribing their medicines and which are not. This allows them to map the doctors/physicians better. The more they map the distribution channel, the better they can forecast future orders. This can help the company to plan the production and decide on the inventory levels to be maintained.

The visits are planned along with their reporting heads, and at the end of the day, the MRs have to update the system with details of their visits.