The Seven Deadly Sins of Product Launches (IV): Sin #4 Focusing on traditional customers.

By Stan Bernard

Focusing on traditional customers. 

• Election strategists know that they cannot win by simply focusing on voters; they have to impact voter influencers or campaign constituents such as the media, political pundits, and major campaign contributors. Similarly, product launch teams need to focus beyond their traditional customer triad of 


• physicians, 
• patients, and 
• payers 

to engage many other stakeholders. 
Stakeholders can be defined as those constituents who can influence the perception, access, and utilization of pharmaceutical products. 

Stakeholder Management 2.0 consists of several key principles. 

• First, there are numerous types of stakeholders, including but not limited to government agencies, patient advocacy groups, media, analysts, regulatory authorities, politicians, policymakers, professional and lay associations, and many others. 


• Second, their influence can be very different in diverse competitive landscapes and lifecycle stages. For example, Pre-Launch stakeholders are often very different from Post-Launch stakeholders.

Most importantly, today’s pharma stakeholders do not exist in silos but rather in a

“Stakeholder Ecosystem.” 

They routinely influence and are influenced by other types of stakeholders. Sharing of extensive product information and perceptions has been cultivated by the Internet, which breaks down traditional stakeholder silos and offers timely, comprehensive data to all audiences. 

The most successful launch teams identify, prioritize, and address the stakeholder segments and networks most vital to the launch of their and their competitors’ products.

Ver anterior:
 The Seven Deadly Sins of Product Launches (III): Sin #3 Electric numbers