Interlink Healthcare Consultancy managing director Dr RB Smarta said that the Indian pharmaceutical industry lacks a standardised and structured evaluation system when it comes to monitoring marketing performance and implementation strategy. This tool fills ths gap, Dr Smarta said. "The implementation index has been conceptually developed through researched data, insight of processes and sub-processes, in addition to interactions with key decision makers of the pharmaceutical industry," he said.

Interlink's effort is significant given the continuous debate revolving around good/bad strategies vis-a-vis effective implementation. "The Profit Impact of Marketing Strategy (PIMS) model is available internationally and it is based on standardised industry parameters. Standardisa- tion of the Indian pharmaceutical industry parameters is beyond our reach as of date. So this attempt is the first step made by Interlink towards achieving the same," he said.

Experts add that given the size of the country, the limited knowledge of prescribing habits of physicians, complexity in strategy implementation and the large number of field personnel (medical representatives ranging from 200 to 1500), it is extremely difficult and tedious to monitor and ensure the effective implementation of marketing strategies.

Adds Dr Smarta, "Every marketing manager understands the significance of monitoring effective implementation. However, due to the non-existence of systems and standardised monitoring techniques, this responsibility is often delegated to field personnel when it should be ideally shouldered by senior management. But as managements do not have effective tools to evaluate the impact of excellent strategies, they in turn find it difficult to assure shareholders about the impact about the profit impact of marketing strategies".

Critical components of Interlink's Implementation Index include: the availability chain of products and samples from demand forecasting to stockists/retailers/medical representatives etc; customer profiling and product matching; doctors coverage, reporting and monitoring; the effectiveness of promotional materials; knowledge inputs related to products and competitors; market share expectations, field targets and profitability and; the organisational process and values which can support implementation. Every critical component has further details of sub-processes and weightage distribution.

Interlink's composite implementation index is arrived at by four different indices: an availability index, a strategic inputs index, a skills-to- implement index and an organisational index. Weightage varies depending on new products or existing products, as it skews the availability index rather significantly. "Majority of new products fail in the repurchase pattern," Dr Smarta said.

He added that in the initial periods, pharmaceutical companies will calculate and plot actual performance on their monitoring charts. Over the years, Interlink will develop benchmarked indices and offer it to its clients who will then interpret the company's performance with the industry benchmark.