The pharmaceutical industry across the globe continues to grow and evolve at an exponential rate which means that there is an adequate requirement for trained personnel to serve the demands of the growing industry. The traditional way of classroom training doesn’t work anymore as there are various challenges associated with it and hence more and more pharma companies are embracing e-learning.  In fact e-learning in the pharma industry has become a preferred mode of learning due to the various benefits it offers.

Let’s understand the benefits of e-learning in the pharma industry through this post.

1.Train the Mobile Sales Team

The medical representatives, who are the field force of the pharma industry are required to meet the doctors and pharmacists of their designated areas/territories. These doctors could be General Practitioner (GPs), Consultant Physicians or Super Specialists.  Such meetings require the medical representatives to be prepared on technical knowledge, samples, basic rooming etc as the moment of truth or the window of meeting is usually small (sometimes less than five minutes) and they have to create a first lasting impression on the doctors.

E-learning in pharma industry specially microlearning can greatly benefit the mobile sales team as it can equip  them with real-time knowledge especially the technical knowledge about the product/disease. With mobile learning, the learners can access the learning content at ease from anywhere and any device.  This enables the sales representatives to use their mobile device to access the learning content on the go.

2. Organization-wide compliance training

The pharma industry is an extremely regulated industry, where all procedures and processes need to conform to globally accepted standards. The rules and regulations are so strong that even an unintentional violation of the same can bring severe damages and invite penalties. Thus it becomes very important for the organizations to ensure that all the concerned employees are trained on the mandatory compliance training programs.

Some of the mandatory compliance training programs in the pharma industry are:

  • GMP
  • Quality Systems and Controls
  • Ethical business practices
  • UCPMP

For most of the  above mentioned compliance training programs, the entire staff needs to undergo training  and e-learning is the best option due to its ability to  simultaneously train all employees. I recommend implementing engaging and interactive e-learning strategies like e-learning gamification, e-learning  games, scenario-based learning etc to train the workforce on compliance programs.

3.Enhanced product knowledge 

The pharma industry invests extensively on the R&D to bring new products to the market and update its product portfolio. Hence it becomes very important for the organisation to ensure that the sales persons are effectively trained on the new products and they have a thorough knowledge of it.

By implementing e-learning, the organisation can quickly develop e-learning modules and make the learning content available to the learners.

This reminds me about the recent e-learning game developed for a pharma firm titled ‘Pharma hero’.The game allows the learner to play the character of a virtual magic pill. In the course of the game, the learner understands how the health supplement pill helps in developing and maintaining good health. The game includes assessments and even allows the learner to guess the price of the product. The learner also has to submit a sales pitch which is customized for the product.

4.Enable Just in time learning

With a large product portfolio, there are chances that the salesperson might forget about the features, benefits, usage etc of a product. By implementing e-learning strategies like mobile learning etc. the salesperson can refer back to the learning content when required. This can boost the confidence of the salesperson as well as help in better retention and recall of the learning topic.
The new learning strategies like micro learning  cut shorts the learning topic to smaller individual learning units ensuring that the learners are not disengaged

5.Engaging blended learning

E-learning can effectively supplement with other learning strategies. For example, e-learning can blend with a traditional employee induction program of classroom training with engaging and interactive e-learning strategies like gamification, game-based learning etc. Our creative team of developers developed a series of e-learning assessments for that are high on interactivity and engagement.

6.Measure the progress of the learners

The modern learning management system allows the organisation to measure the progress of the learners. With a few simple clicks, the organisation can receive detailed reports of the user progress. This is very beneficial for a pharma organization when they have the workers spread across the locations. It also benefits the organization at the time of audit time. For example, at a time the organization has to ensure that all the employees have undergone the compulsory compliance programs as they require to publish them for the audits.

By implementing e-learning and uploading the course in the Learning Management System enables the tracking of use progress.