Exploria SPS has announced the introduction of what company officials say is an "integrated, SaaS (
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Alert)-architected closed loop marketing application" designed to let pharma sales reps customize messaging to physicians via a live or remote detail setting.
Exploria SPS President Richie Bavasso says the advantages of the product are generally those of SaaS itself: "No server hardware to purchase, optional software install on a mobile device, implementation measured in weeks or months, no upgrade costs, incredible speed and flexibility, and empowered and excited end-users... a multi-channel continuous loop marketing program within a flexible SFA or CRM system gives sales teams the power to create individual customer details that they can deliver to individual doctors using various media that can be optimized every day to incorporate new information."
Many companies desiring investment in CLM are "put off" by the hardware and software investment in arming and supporting a field force with the traditional client server model, Bavasso contends.
SaaS, which we used to call Application Service Provider software, does have a lot to like: You get your software from the vendor, who takes care of the hosting and operation (either independently or through a third party), all you have to do is use it over the Internet. Upgrades? No problemo. SaaS apps are usually more flexible as well.
In this particular case, customizing applications to accommodate the needs of all of the pharmaceutical sales teams – primary care, specialty care, managed markets, and KOL managers, to name a few – is relatively easy and inexpensive, Exploria officials say: “Technically speaking, this is made possible because the metadata layer allows for customization yet the program is shared over the Web with the whole group so any changes can be shared with all the appropriate users in a matter of minutes.” Try that with an in-house IT staff you can afford.
With this latest Exploria offering, Bavasso says, “customers can create new workflow policies and permissions, change validation rules, design and drop in their own customer facing viewer which will be automatically tracked in the platform, add users, change territory definitions, change hierarchies, and easily integrate to the latest CRM offerings. Compare this to a traditional client/server or hosted CRM application that requires at least five to ten steps and three or more months to accomplish these same types of changes.”
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David’s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.
Edited by
Stefania Viscusi
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