Category: data pivots

Interested in Becoming a Brand Manager? Know your IQVIA Data!

by adminin Brand Managers, data pivots, Explorazor, IQVIA, pharmaceutical, prescription, sales data

This blog aims to introduce budding Brand Managers to IQVIA and some of its data columns, to help them understand how IQVIA data helps Brand Managers in the pharmaceutical industry achieve their objectives. 

IQVIA, as its official website introduces, ‘is a leading global provider of advanced analytics, technology solutions and clinical research services to the life sciences industry dedicated to creating intelligent connections that deliver unique innovations and actionable insights’. We have also written similar articles on Kantar and Nielsen data, which you can find in our blog section.

Brand Managers in the pharmaceutical industry use IQVIA data to develop innovative strategies and drive brand sales and adoption. As we mentioned in a similar blog ‘Know Your Nielsen Data’ becoming a Brand Manager requires superior data handling skills and a pragmatic approach to data, where one can arrive at high-quality, real-life conclusions looking at hard numbers.

Just a word: Explorazor is supporting Brand Managers big-time with respect to analyzing their data. More on that later. And yes, Explorazor differs from Power BI.

IQVIA helps Brand Managers in the pharma industry:

  • Take decisions regarding brand expansion and advise ways how they can go about doing it, like analyzing growth potential, evaluating pipelines, understanding risk-opportunity ratio, the investment landscape, and more 
  • Adhere to market requirements, identify regulations, licenses, valuations and any potential market hurdle that may arise
  • Address customer needs better, by sharing information on the market behavior, competition’s performance, customer psychology and behavior, and even mapping a customer’s purchase journey
  • Achieve brand differentiation through timely delivery of evidence-based insights from across the globe. IQVIA’s competitive tracking processes cover and share information from more than 75 markets worldwide
  • Other ways that IQVIA data helps Brand Managers include risk evaluation and mitigation, networking with experts across clinical functions and obtaining intel & tracking of 45,000+ drug profiles and 10,000+ drugs

SOME DATASETS THAT BRAND MANAGERS DEAL WITH – IQVIA DATA

1. Sales Data

As with all other industries, the first thing that a Brand Manager in the pharmaceutical industry will look at is the performance of their Brand in the market, thereby referring to the sales data. There are 3 components to the IQVIA sales data:

  1. Sales Value
  2. Sales Volume
  3. Market Share

This sales data received from IQVIA is already classified geography-wise and product-wise as prescribed by the company.

2. Prescription Data

  1. Prescriptions Count

These are the total number of prescriptions via doctors recorded for a product

  1. Prescriptions per doctor (P/D)

 P/D refers to the avg. numbers of prescriptions for a brand.  It is captured specialty-wise, for example, General Physicians, Diabetologists, Oncologists, etc., and bifurcated on a Zonal level. The P/D ratio lets you know about the key specialties that contribute to the sales of your brand in the market.

3. Supply Chain Manager

From the manufacturer to the wholesaler to the final chemist or the outlet location, this dataset helps Brand Managers track end-to-end product flows. Logistics is a highly lucrative industry in and of itself if done right, and such datasets hold massive monetary implications for the company. It also helps the company be available where customers need them, where the market is thriving, or where there’s a gap to be exploited

4. Longitudinal Patient Data (LPD)

LPD data provides pharmaceutical companies with an understanding of disease treatment and how General Physicians are prescribing cures for them. This helps in new product development, as well as the evolution of current products in the portfolio. Another strong benefit of such a dataset is realized when formulating effective sales strategies for the on-field reps. 

There are many such datasets that Brand Managers work on. But here’s an important point:

DATA IS ONLY AS GOOD AS ITS LEVERAGE

We see from the above points that data literally can potentially impact everything – sales, customer service, supply chain infrastructure, competitive environment, etc.  What’s left is to

  1. Extract the best possible insights from it 
  2. In the minimum time possible 
  3. Another key element is to extract a higher number of high-quality insights from data within the same time frame.

Explorazor by vPhrase helps Brand Managers do all of the above. 

LEVERAGE DATA OPTIMALLY USING EXPLORAZOR 

Instead of multiple files from different data sources, the company’s own data sets, etc. what Brand Managers can do is simply choose to view a single, all-inclusive/integrated dataset on Explorazor, query it via simple keywords, and receive data pivots – at their fingertips.

Let’s just put some of the benefits in pointers, for easy reading:

  • The dataset is standardized, so manual labor is saved there 
  • One can start using Explorazor within the day, so there are no hiccups in adoption
  • Due to the integrated dataset, the extracted insights are high-quality
  • The lightweight design interface is custom-built to deliver speedy responses
  • All of this culminates in a Brand Manager wanting to dive deep and test out more hypotheses than before 
  • Speaking of deep dive, Explorazor also supports drill-down and drill-across into a particular data point. Simple click-and-dig, that’s all. See the image below

Some additional benefits: 

  • Tables can be converted to charts, graphs, and multiple other handsome-looking visuals (did we say handsome instead of beautiful? Oh well!)
  • Any data pivot can be transported to Excel by downloading it as a CSV
  • Any data pivot can be pinned to the ‘Dashboard’ for easy viewing 
  • In-project collaboration with team is possible via tagging/assigning of activities

And most important of all,

Custom made for Brand Managers, and that too primarily in FMCG and pharma. Of all the designations, we chose to dedicate our skills to help Brand Managers ease their daily activities, ironing out many data-related inconveniences they face. Explorazor continues to develop and provide a niche solution for Brand Managers.

Explrazor is a product of vPhrase Analytics. If you want to try out Explorazor for yourself, contact us at support@vphrase.com. It’s free, and it’s fun.

Take an Interactive Product Tour of Explorazor.

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4 Ways Explorazor Differs from Power BI

by adminin Brand Managers, data pivots, Explorazor, Power BI

In this blog, we are going to explore 4 ways Explorazor differs from Power BI. Power BI is a data visualization tool that allows users to build interactive dashboards and BI reports. Explorazor is a data exploration and analysis tool that helps Brand Managers obtain data pivots instantly, through simple querying on an integrated dataset that combines Kantar data, IQVIA, Nielsen, primary sales, secondary sales, and more.

The common base between Power BI and Explorazor is that they both intend to help users make better sense of their data, and subsequently improve the quality of decision-making. 

How they do this is very different, and this is what we are going to explore:

4 Ways Explorazor Differs From Power BI

  • Made for Everyone 

One of the primary ways Explorazor differs from Power BI is that Explorazor is build for everyone from Business Users, Business Analysts to Data Analysts. Where Power BI helps Business Intelligence professionals and Data Analysts across industries, the ease of Explorazor, of searching using keywords makes it easier for every persona to perform analysis and take action real time.

Everything in the Explorazor UX/UI is upfront, neat, and conveniently placed. The left panel contains the Dimensions and Measures, the search box is at the top, and the answer covers most of the screen in the center. 

There are customization options available to convert tables into charts and graphs, but Explorazor is focused more on ease of usage and simplified presentation easier to perform ad-hoc analysis in real time and helps them obtain instant data pivots, rather than the more intricate, perhaps complex, dashboard and report building customization options provided in Power BI.

  • Smartness 

In no way are we suggesting that Power BI isn’t smart. Far from it. Users using Explorazor find that it is smarter ‘in context’. Let’s see an example:

Business User from the Marketing Team need to see the monthly/quarterly trends of a metric, say Market Share Value.

Explorazor supports this search query:

Likewise, as you will see in the next point, Explorazor not only supports time-based queries, but does that in an intuitive fashion. Because we have built the tool specially for everyone who wants to analyze data on fly, we understand the power of efficiently furnishing these basic results.

Explorazor’s has a simple purpose, and it’s a powerful one: whatever basics Users need, furnish them instantly.

  • Intuitive 

Explorazor lets you achieve a single result through multiple, natural ways. Look at this image as an example:

Whether you type q2 22, q2 – 2022 or quarter2 2022, you can expect a response to be produced. Explorazor basically understands the intent of your questioning. 

Another example:

Users are also able to compare custom time periods, like 

  • Sept 2022 vs Sept 2021, or 
  • November vs April

On a related note, search functionality is straightforward too: If you have multiple KPIs and cannot exactly determine your search query, just start typing and the system will prompt suggestions. 

Another method is to scroll through the left panel and double-click on the metric to add it to the search query.

  • Deep Exploration 

If there are certain parameters in Power BI which you want to look at but which are not present on the dashboard, you cannot do so until you edit the entire dashboard. 

With Explorazor, users can drill down into as well as drill across a particular data point. Root cause analysis is performed below on the Market Sales Value. We choose to drill further by ‘location’ and are immediately able to identify that Kansas and Texas seem to be areas of bother.

Moreover, one can go from a brand to a sub-brand to an SKU on Explorazor – through simple clicks. 

To Conclude

Explorazor is not here to compete with Power BI. It simply seeks to engage Business Users and Data Analysts in comparing the utility of both tools in their daily activities. Explorazor is designed specifically for Brand Managers – so why not explore it? 

Take an Interactive Product Tour of Explorazor!

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Why Should an Insights Team Consider Explorazor for Brand Managers?

by adminin ad-hoc query, Brand Managers, dashboarding tool, data pivots, Excel, Explorazor, Insights Team

In this blog, we’ll be making a case for why an Insights team should consider Explorazor for Brand Managers, discussing the problem with current dashboarding tools, and how Explorazor will benefit Insights Teams massively. 

Before we begin, just a quick introduction to Explorazor – it is a data exploration tool designed specifically for Brand Managers to obtain instant data pivots on an all-inclusive, integrated dataset, using a simple search functionality, with the ability to pin insights to dashboard and download any data point as a CSV file.

Let’s begin:

Introduction

Now, a part of the job for an Insights team is to introduce new products/tools in the company to help Brand Managers –

  1. Extract the maximum out of the data – as in, extracting the best insights which lead to the best decisions
  2. Doing so in a manner that eases, not complicates, a Brand Manager’s interactions with the data 

We interviewed 100+ Brand Managers from Unilever, Nestle, Reckitt, Glenmark, Godrej, and more, asking them about the lives of Brand Managers and the various data-related challenges they face. We then developed Explorazor, the data exploration tool in question, in such a way as to 

  1. Help Brand Managers get any data pivots instantly
  2. Ensure that it is so simple, that Brand Managers have no difficulty in adopting it

Regarding the instant data pivots, it is possible on Explorazor because Explorazor hosts all data in an integrated manner. Think of Kantar, Nielsen, IQVIA, primary sales, secondary sales, media, and every other dataset, all combined into one. Regarding the instant adoption, there is no end-user difficulty in usage, nor is there any novel proposal – Explorazor simply seeks to improve their Excel experience, without leaving Excel entirely.

Brand Managers are strikingly similar in their possession of skill sets, job roles, and the right personality traits, so the background they came from didn’t prove to be an adoption hindrance as well. 

The Problem with Dashboarding Tools

The major part of a Brand Manager’s job is to ensure that the brand is operating smoothly, across geographies. To do this on a typical BI dashboard, they would have to make, manage, and maintain tens of dashboards at a time. Workload is increased. 

Additionally, the data is stored individually, with no communication between them whatsoever. Creating a connection between them to answer ad-hoc queries is a painstaking task, and Brand Managers simply ask the Insights Team to revert with an answer to their ad-hoc queries. 

Finally, even if the dashboarding tool is able to do all of this, Brand Managers educating themselves on the ins and outs of the tool and how to use it, is, simply put, not going to happen. As a Growth Analytics Lead of a 35,000+ employee company told us “There are so many tools in a company, but nobody uses them. They just pose questions to us!”

Such is the case of the average company – BI tools that help create dashboards are lying unused because they don’t help people (in our case, Brand Managers) ease their daily lives. 

Benefiting Both Parties

The primary reason for Insights Teams to consider Explorazor for their Brand Managers is that Explorazor empowers the Brand Manager to ‘Do It Himself’. No longer is the Brand Manager dependent on anyone to run ad-hoc analysis. The win-win here is that the Insights Team’s time is freed up to concentrate on what they should actually be doing – strategizing for the long-term, running different types of modeling on different datasets to create better forecasts and targets for the business, and so on.

Consider an example: Suppose your company owns an apparel brand present in retail stores across the nation. Now as an Insights Team, you can focus on things like mapping out the loyalty base in each region, and studying why it is shifting, if that’s the case. You can then start benchmarking competition and finding out if a particular campaign they ran during that time period led to a shift in the loyalty base. If sales showed de-growth in stores in a particular city during the year-end, you can dig deep to find the exact answer for it – it may be something as minute as the discount scheme offered by competition being better than yours. You can design loyalty programs to win back your customer base, in addition to ensuring you have a better discount scheme the next time around. In a utopian and very possible scenario, Brand Managers would be thanking you over emails and town halls. 

All of this is possible, if only you have the freedom to execute what you are capable of.

Insights team should consider Explorazor for Brand Managers. If you are interested in knowing more about Explorazor, kindly schedule a 30-min demo call with us here.

If you want to understand how Explorazor helps Brand Managers explore data on an integrated dataset, we suggest you skim through the ‘3 Types of Analysis Brand Managers can Perform Super-Easily on Explorazor’ blog. 

Take an Interactive Product tour of Explorazor.

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