The Additive Problem: Pharma is Brilliant at Adding and Terrible at Stopping

Author(s): James Harper

Pharma is brilliant at adding stuff. A new channel arrives and it joins the plan. A new tool gets approved and it sits alongside the old one. A new initiative lands from global and it goes on top of everything that already exists. Nobody takes anything away.

I have been working with pharma brands for over 30 years and cannot remember a single conversation that started with: “This is great, but what should we stop doing?”

This is not a resource problem, though it often gets framed as one. It is not a technology problem either, it’s a cultural one, and it shows up most visibly in the day-to-day reality of brand managers, who are expected to handle an ever-growing list of responsibilities while somehow also delivering customer engagement excellence.

PI changes, label updates, content approvals, campaign deadlines, the list goes on; and now someone is demanding an omnichannel plan by Q3. On top of everything else, with no additional resources. Without being told how or what this new request replaces in their workload and daily workflow.

Earlier this year we got some senior pharma professionals together and asked them to be honest with us about what the industry was getting wrong. One person put the additive problem better than I could: “We are so bad at saying here’s something we should stop doing. Instead we just add. It’s always additive, never replaced.”