Poderm talks about managing sales operations with Faks

Founded in 2015 by Maud Falconnet, Swiss laboratory PODERM© specializes in the development of products and care methods to treat foot and nail pathologies. Faks wanted to know how their sales operations are organized. Charlotte Bruneteaux, the laboratory's Head of Sales, agreed to answer our questions on this subject.

What was the problem you encountered with your sales operations?

Today, we have neither the internal resources to manage all reimbursements for our pharmacy customers, nor the sales force to target all the pharmacies we would like to target.

So we needed a partner who could deliver targeted operations to our pharmacist customers.

How does Faks respond?

The solution proposed by Faks, to bring everything together in one application and manage it from A to Z (from distribution to payment, including the transmission and validation of proofs), was exactly what we needed. It allows us to delegate all the administrative tasks that we're not able to manage today.

The added value of payment management?

We had to generate between 1000 and 1500 payments, which was too much for us. We're a small organization of around 50 people, and we don't have the resources to make so many transfers to so many different customers.

What about the validation of proofs?

We didn't do it before at Poderm. In the organizations where I'd worked before, validation was done manually in-house, which was very time-consuming. I didn't want to reproduce that at Poderm.

Any feedback from pharmacies?

Yes, we've had feedback from pharmacies on how intuitive it is to use. As Faks is already involved in commercial operations with other laboratories, pharmacies already knew how to use the application, which simplified implementation.

The general feedback is that the process remains fluid: pharmacies send in their proof of participation, then receive their payment.

Impact on the laboratory?

From a sell-out point of view, we've seen an evolution. Although some pharmacies have yet to produce their proofs, sales reps have given us some initial feedback:

• This helped to make certain products stand out.
• This prompted the pharmacist to restock.

Future challenges for the laboratory?

• Continue to open new pharmacy customers.
• Increase training for pharmacy teams and product knowledge in the pharmacy.

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