The Role of CRM in the Indian Pharmaceutical

Industry: Strategies, Challenges and Implications

1. RESEARCH PROBLEM
State your research problem - Why are you interested in investigating this?

One of the main reasons for selecting this topic is that I have previously worked
in the pharma industry and our family business is related to the pharmaceutical
sector. Pharma industry is a very wide topic which consists of many things such
as manufacturing of drugs, R&D, quality control, API and many more. As
everyone knows, in this global pandemic pharmaceutical sector was the only
sector which was 24/7 working hard for the globe and this was the sector which
has boomed to the next level in this pandemic. I want to gain deep knowledge in
this sector because I want to learn how these businesses work in the real world,
only learning through the lecture halls is not sufficient. There are many pharma
businesses which we know have gained a huge loss and were not able to do good
in Covid times and then there were some businesses which did very great and
have served the society in a very excellent way. Along with focusing on the
customer relations I will also talk about how these companies design their
strategies and how they market their products. In short, I would like to discuss
how pharmaceutical firms understand consumer behaviour, build, maintain and
proactively manage relationships. When we talk about the pharmaceutical
Industry it is a very distinctive industry compared to the other business sector, so
when we talk about this it becomes more interesting to do research about how this
industry functions in terms of its customers. And one very important point which
I would like to put into this is that the pharma industry is never connected to the
end consumer directly; it always has a physician or a retailer in between. So, it
becomes extremely fascinating to do research on how difficult it is for the pharma
industry to follow proper procedures and guidelines in even minute things.
2. RESEARCH GAP, RESEARCH QUESTION, AIMS & OBJECTIVES
State your research question, aim, and objectives - what are you trying to
achieve?

The pharmaceutical industry is unique in the sense that its customer is the
physician, and not the end consumer - who happens to be the patient. There is no
real direct contact between the patient and the pharmaceutical company; and at
the same time the physician must completely rely on the information or data given
by the drug company. Hence there is a unique and delicate relationship that these
companies try to maintain with physicians across the globe. I am particularly
interested in the role of CRMs in maintaining these relationships. I am going to
seek answers on how CRM systems contribute in enhancing and prolonging these
relationships. It is no secret that CRM has been a critical part of every industry,
and the same holds true for the pharma industry as well. But more importantly, it
seems to play a decisive role in making or breaking long term physician
relationships. What sort of strategies do pharma companies devise? What are the
short term and long-term goals of these strategies; how do they impact the
consumers?

Research Aim: The aim is to investigate and establish the impact of customer
relationship marketing on customer loyalty, satisfaction and retention in the
Indian pharmaceutical market. When talking about the pharmaceutical industry
the focus will be on the Indian pharma industries. I will be covering industries
from different parts of the world, but the main aim would be on Indian Pharma
Sector. I would like to collate and compare strategies used by different
pharmaceutical companies in the Indian market, I would also list the challenges
faced by them and derive implications on whether these CRM strategies have had
a meaningful impact.
Research Objectives:

• To investigate the impact that CRM strategies have on customer loyalty,

retention and satisfaction.

• To identify key facets of relationship marketing that

impact/build/contribute to customer loyalty.

• To investigate the challenges faced in the use of CRM by the Indian

pharmaceutical industry.

Research Questions:

What role does Customer Relationship Management play in the Indian

Pharmaceutical Industry, what strategies are being used by the Indian Companies
to tackle Customer Satisfaction?

3. RESEARCH METHOD, DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

How will you investigate it? Quantitative or Qualitative?

I would be choosing a list (around 3-5 of them in number) of pharmaceutical

companies that are based in India to carry out my research.

• Questionnaire and interview guides will be used to collate sample data.

• Both quantitative and qualitative data will be collected.
• Give examples of both quantitative and qualitative questions.
• Hypothesis
The following hypothesis were collated and constructed after studying existing
literature:

H0: CRM strategies have a positive effect in retaining Customers

H1: CRM strategies don't have a positive effect on retaining customers

H2: CRM has a significant positive relationship between customer Loyalty and
customer Satisfaction

4. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS
What are you hoping to find? - What is your contribution?

My objective would be to find out the challenges and implications of the pharma
industry on how they manage the relationship with their customers and how this
sector implements new strategies for customer retention. Even when these
companies are not directly related to the customers there are chances when people
usually prefer medicines from a particular brand or a company, so this makes it
much simpler for us to understand which company is having more of the market
hold and customers are willing to buy the products of that company. For eg. If a
patient wants to take Paracetamol, he can tell the pharmacist that he wants
Paracetamol 500mg by Crescent Pharma so, this brings us to a point where we
know that there are customers who notice who manufactures the medicines and
where it has been manufactured. My main contribution to this report would be
analysing customer relationships with my set of skills and then providing a
detailed report on how this sector can be more dynamic and how I will be
providing a growing mindset to it.