Eurofarma’s salesforce gains accessibility and innovation
About Eurofarma
Focused on generating shared value, Eurofarma is present in 20 countries and operates with prescription, OTC, generic, hospital, and cancer drugs.
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About Gentrop
Gentrop helps companies innovate and challenge themselves in the cloud with projects supporting digital transformation and people training, aiming at fostering culture change in business.
Using Chromebooks and Google Workspace, the organization hired a new team of people with disabilities (PwD), enhanced inclusion and expanded its salesforce.
Google Cloud Results
- Provides accessibility features for the PwD team.
- Enhanced security using Google Workspace.
- Enabled remote work for over 60 professionals.
- Cut costs by adopting new resources.
6,000+ online visits to healthcare professionals.
Since it was founded in 1972, Eurofarma has been working in the healthcare industry, manufacturing and marketing products and services to improve people’s quality of life. The company works with prescription, OTC, generic, hospital, and cancer drugs.
Eurofarma provides more than 700 products (in over 2,000 unique packagings) and covers 42 medical specialties. In Brazil, it covers 100 therapy classes, accounting for 70% of the market’s prescriptions.
Present in 20 countries, with a factory complex in Brazil, and plants in six other Latin American countries, the company had 7.1 billion reais in net sales in 2021, 23% up from a year before, and employs more than 8,000 people.
Eurofarma’s salesforce schedules regular in-person visits to partner clinics and professionals to introduce products and provide relevant information about the pharmaceutical industry. Focused on integrating more and more employees and leveraging technology, Eurofarma had already begun assessing a new business model for med rep visits in 2021.
The innovation project dubbed #EuroJunto was created to include people with disabilities (PwDs) and help them develop; optimize IT costs; and increase the company’s technological capability and market share. Thanks to this initiative, inclusion, easy employee access to digital tools, and remote, collaborative work have become business cornerstones.
A team of PwDs to innovate the salesforce
Eurofarma has a 3,500-strong salesforce that works in-person. However, due to the increase in the number of healthcare professionals, the traditional visit model could no longer cover every region relevant for the business.
Furthemore, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a transformation in the industry, with emerging tech platforms such as telemedicine and electronic prescriptions driving changes in service delivery and patient-physician relationships. This required a change in format.
Eurofarma also wanted to pioneer a positive impact by promoting equality and inclusion, reducing social differences, and creating new opportunities.
Consequently, #EuroJunto was created to enhance the company’s presence and bring it closer to healthcare professionals through digital channels, providing customized content, scientific papers, and news about the brand’s drugs and products through customized customer service, using PwDs to implement the project.
“Several simultaneous pilots were developed for the project so we could test various scenarios. This allowed us to assess home-office schemes, for example, as well as technologies and formats, evaluating which models were best suited for the business,” says Laís Gurgel, Eurofarma’s Digital Marketing Manager.
“For us, that mission is even more important than obtaining results. We seek to train and develop employees so they seek personal development through their work”, adds Laís.
A new journey
The project’s scope demanded new technologies that met accessibility, security, and collaboration requirements, so the team could work remotely with every tool needed. With this in mind, Eurofarma chose to give the entire team Chromebooks with Chrome OS and Google Workspace.
The company’s choice was reinforced by a series of accessibility features available in the equipment, such as ChromeVox and Select-to-speak screen readers; the dictation, which is a speak-to-type feature; and the full-screen magnifier mode. To deploy the solutions, Eurofarma had support from partner Gentrop, which also provided training sessions throughout the process.
“We have 63 employees working with Chromebooks. All of them adapted well to the new equipment. We have hearing-impaired and physically disabled employees, and the equipment’s mobility, with its shortcut keys and ease of use, helps a lot.”
—Monique Ronqui, Digital Sales Coordinator, EurofarmaThe deployment of Chromebooks and Google Workspace licenses enabled a new environment that supports potential user migrations without major impacts.
Google Workspace’s solutions added advantages to help the team work, such as the ability to create a fully remote group. At the very beginning of the project, employees were handed a kit with all the equipment they needed to work from home. They use Google Workspace’s communication tools on a daily basis to make digital visits and support healthcare professionals.
“Google Drive made it easier to share information. Docs, Gmail, and the other tools also provided benefits, as they made work easier for employees, enabling more integration. We held training sessions on those features with Gentrop’s team, so employees knew how files were prioritized in folders, how to configure Calendar, and how to use other resources,” explains Laís Gurgel.
The transformation in practice
Sixty-seven percent of #EuroJunto’s team are women; 52% are black or mixed-race people; 6% are older than 50; and 1.2% are LGBTQIAP+ people. Every team member is a PwD (72% with physical disabilities, 17% with visual disabilities, 10% with a hearing impairment, and 1% with mental disabilities).
“The organization had never worked fully remotely before, and #EuroJunto was disruptive in several aspects, from having a remote team working in such an integrated way to the impact generated outside the company. People are shocked when they see how well the project is going, and that motivates us to do even more.”
—Laís Gurgel, Digital Marketing Manager, EurofarmaAs for positive technical results, adopting Chromebooks and Google Workspace led to a significant cost reduction for the team compared with other resources the company uses.
Regarding digital visits, in less than six months, #EuroJunto’s team was able to reach and register over 6,000 healthcare professionals from several Brazilian states, who agreed to take part in meetings or monthly visits online.
The impact of changes in daily routine
One of the #EuroJunto team members in the frontline is Liliane, who thinks the home-office model is an interesting alternative for her daily work routine. Despite being scattered through several Brazilian states, the team’s members feel confident thanks to direct contact in meetings and Eurofarma’s administrative support. Google Workspace tools help employees in their daily tasks.
“I think Calendar is essential for me, as is Gmail, which is our everyday tool. Both solutions help us get better organized. As for Chromebooks, because of the team’s profile and the fact that we are all PwDs, I can tell that their easy audio and keyboard features have had a really positive effect.”
—Liliane Costa e Fraga, member of the Digital Sales team, EurofarmaAnother member of the Digital Sales team, Fernanda Fontanetti, highlights the connection perceived between the healthcare professionals she serves and Eurofarma itself. Fontanetti, who joined the project seven months ago, found organizational guidelines relatable and feels her work is fulfilling.
“Being part of a really inclusive group where every member is a PwD is wonderful. Working in #EuroJunto has made me incredibly happy. I now provide training sessions that I run with my colleagues, which I find very satisfying,” says Fernanda.
The program has worked so well that some of the employees who joined the company to work on #EuroJunto have now been allocated to other areas, such as Market Intelligence and divisions of the Digital Marketing team.
And that is not all - the project could be expanded to the other Latin American countries where the company operates. For that deployment to happen, Eurofarma will run early testing and pilots, but the next steps already point towards this international scope.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Eurofarma
Focused on generating shared value, Eurofarma is present in 20 countries and operates with prescription, OTC, generic, hospital, and cancer drugs.
About Gentrop
Gentrop helps companies innovate and challenge themselves in the cloud with projects supporting digital transformation and people training, aiming at fostering culture change in business.