Speakers
· Andrea Purmann-Németh, Head of Promotional Excellence, Egis Pharmaceuticals
· Gábor Nagy, International Sales Force Effectiveness Manager, Egis Pharmaceuticals
· Sergio Romoli, General Manager, Trueblue
Key Takeaways
· Problem-first selection methodology prevents technology-shopping failures and implementation waste
· CRM requires integrated analytics delivering immediate insights to create value exchange with users
· 9 CRM vendors across 18 countries created visibility gaps preventing strategic resource allocation
· User adoption architecture determines CRM success more than technological sophistication or features
· Vendor change management capability is a selection criterion, not an implementation detail
When Egis Pharma began evaluating CRM vendors, they faced a complexity paradox that haunts mid-sized pharma companies: nine different systems across 18 countries, each one defended by local affiliates as perfectly suited to their market. The easiest path would have been choosing one existing vendor and forcing standardization. Instead, after a year-long evaluation at Pharma Customer Engagement Europe 2025, they selected a tenth option—a decision that reveals how the CRM selection process has fundamentally changed from technology procurement to strategic problem solving.
The Visibility Crisis Driving CRM Consolidation
The immediate pain point wasn't feature gaps or user complaints—it was organizational blindness. Gábor Nagy, International Sales Force Effectiveness Manager at Egis, described the core challenge: "We have 18 countries and in these 18 countries we have nine different CRM vendors. And in addition to this we have more than 80 different solutions which are somehow linked to the CRM systems in the countries." This fragmentation created a fundamental problem: "We don't have visibility from a headquarters point of view. So we don't exactly know what is happening in the countries in the field."
For branded generic pharma companies, this visibility gap has direct financial consequences. Andrea Purmann-Németh, Head of Promotional Excellence at Egis, explained the business context: "Egis is a midsized company, a branded generic one. That's very important because when we did the selection we were looking for a vendor for a company who can really serve our business needs, which is completely different than that is for an originator company. " The distinction matters because resource optimization drives generic company economics in ways that don't apply to originator portfolios.
The geographic scope added another layer of complexity. "We are operating in more than 60 countries but we have commercial affiliates in 18 countries, " Andrea noted. "So our focus with Gábor was to find the best solution for these 18 countries from Mid Europe to the Far East, so we had in scope countries like Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, so exotic ones. " Managing CRM requirements across markets with radically different maturity levels —from established European territories to emerging Central Asian markets—meant the solution needed to balance standardization with local flexibility.
Without unified data architecture, headquarters cannot compare affiliate performance, optimize territory coverage, or make evidence-based decisions about resource allocation across therapeutic areas. Each country operates as an information island, generating data in incompatible formats that prevent the cross-market analytics essential for strategic planning. The cost extends beyond operational inefficiency to strategic disadvantage—competitors with integrated visibility can reallocate resources faster and identify market opportunities earlier.
Adoption Architecture Over Technology Sophistication
The session challenged a fundamental assumption in pharma CRM selection: that better technology produces better results. Sergio Romoli, General Manager of Trueblue, reframed the success equation:
"You can have the best technology that you want, the most expensive technology you can buy in the market, but then if nobody uses it, it's useless, as simple as that. "
This adoption-first philosophy drove Trueblue's design decisions, including Instagram-like interfaces and voice-enabled AI interactions built five years before the current AI hype. The goal was removing what Sergio called "every single alibi" from users who resist system engagement. For field representatives managing customer interactions across diverse markets, interface friction isn't a minor inconvenience—it's a barrier that determines whether CRM becomes a planning tool or a compliance burden.
The adoption challenge intensifies when evaluating success criteria across markets with different digital maturity. Gábor outlined the baseline: "If you find a solution that can solve all our functional needs in all the countries, this is the baseline. But on the other hand, if it's easy to adopt, easy to implement in the different countries, and this solution can handle the differences between the countries. " The definition of "easy to adopt" varies dramatically between Poland and Azerbaijan, requiring solutions that allow countries to progressively activate capabilities rather than forcing uniform complexity.
This emphasis on adoption influenced the decision to select a vendor built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 despite having nine existing alternatives. The Microsoft ecosystem alignment provided technology synergy with Egis's other systems while the specialized pharma functionality addressed industry specific workflows that generic enterprise platforms miss. The partnership strategy reflects a broader industry trend toward platform-based solutions that balance enterprise-grade infrastructure with pharma specific customization.
Organizations that prioritize feature richness over user experience consistently struggle with adoption rates below 40 percent. Representatives develop workarounds, maintain shadow systems, or simply ignore CRM requirements when interfaces demand excessive clicks or navigation complexity.
The Instagram analogy isn't superficial—it recognizes that consumer technology has established usability expectations that enterprise software can no longer ignore.
Problem-First Selection Versus the Tech Supermarket
Sergio challenged the prevailing approach to CRM vendor evaluation with a pointed critique: "I'm talking with customers, it looks like they are in a tech supermarket and they come to me asking for pieces of tech. Do you have AI? Do you have omnichannel? Do you have this one? I think, okay, I have everything. But you are asking me the wrong question. So tell me your problem. Start with the problem. "
This technology-first mentality explains why organizations implement sophisticated systems that don't move business metrics— they've optimized for feature possession rather than outcome achievement. For Egis, the problem definition centered on resource optimization imperatives specific to generic pharma economics. Andrea explained:
"For a generic company, one of the most important factors to always dig into and analyze is the resource optimization because medical sales representatives are the most expensive and the biggest asset for such a company."
This clarity about the business problem— optimizing the allocation of the most expensive resource across therapeutic areas, brands, and geographies—drove requirements for advanced analytics, cross-country comparability, and transparent performance dashboards. The CRM selection became less about acquiring technology and more about solving a specific strategic challenge: enabling headquarters to make evidence-based resource allocation decisions across affiliates with an "apples-to-apples comparison. "
The problem-first methodology requires organizations to define success before evaluating vendors. Does the company need to drive digital transformation across affiliates? Establish stronger governance and standardization? Improve field force effectiveness through better targeting? Each problem demands different capabilities and implementation approaches. Companies that begin with technology evaluation inevitably select solutions optimized for the wrong outcomes.
Medical sales representatives remain the highest-cost, highest-value asset in generic pharma commercial models. Unlike originator companies where product differentiation and patent protection create market advantages, generic companies compete primarily on commercial execution efficiency. Every % point improvement in representative productivity or targeting accuracy directly impacts profitability. This economic reality makes resource optimization the central CRM problem rather than a secondary benefit.
The Data-Transaction Duality and Change Management Reality
Sergio articulated a core architectural principle that challenges how most organizations approach CRM implementation: "A transactional system, a CRM, is nothing without a data platform on the other side balancing each other. Because you can record every single transaction, you can ask and you can force your people to do what they don't want to do. But if you don't use those data, it's just wasting your time and their time. "
This data-transaction duality drove Trueblue's integration of 400 pre-built pharma KPIs and 200 dashboards with the CRM platform. For field representatives, the value exchange is simple: provide data, receive decision-making advantage. Without embedded analytics delivering immediate insights, CRM becomes pure compliance burden rather than productivity tool. The 25-year pharma specialization enabled Trueblue to build industry-specific data models that understand promotional cycles, prescription dynamics, and customer segmentation patterns without requiring custom development.
But technology architecture represents only part of the selection challenge. Andrea's closing advice emphasized the organizational dimension: "CRM harmonization is not only changing a system because this can be done professionally, but there is changing of the SOPs, the processes, the marketing approach, the budget planning, the brand planning. So everything behind has to change, otherwise it doesn't work. "
This recognition elevated vendor change management capability to a primary selection criterion rather than an implementation detail. For organizations managing transformation across 18 countries with varying market maturity and entrenched local systems, the vendor's experience navigating organizational resistance and process redesign matters as much as technical architecture. The change extends beyond IT departments to marketing, sales operations, brand management, and finance—every function that touches commercial execution must adapt workflows and governance models.
Organizations that treat CRM implementation as pure technology deployment consistently fail to achieve projected benefits. The system goes live, training occurs, but underlying processes remain unchanged. Representatives enter minimum required data while maintaining parallel systems. Marketing continues campaign planning in spreadsheets. Sales operations generates reports from legacy databases. The new CRM becomes an expensive data graveyard rather than a strategic asset.
Strategic Implications for Pharma CRM Consolidation
The Egis selection journey reveals how CRM evaluation has evolved beyond feature comparison toward strategic problem-solving. Sergio's final guidance captured this shift:
'I need to change the CRM' is not a problem, it's not something to be solved. You need to have in mind what do you want to achieve with this product, with the CRM? Do you want to drive a transformation? Do you want to drive stronger governance for the affiliates? Do you want to standardize the processes?"
This problem-first discipline becomes particularly critical for mid-sized pharma companies where resources for experimentation are limited and margin pressure demands that technology investments deliver measurable operational improvements. The emphasis on adoption architecture, integrated analytics, and change management capability reflects a maturation in how organizations evaluate CRM vendors— moving from technology procurement to strategic partnership selection.
Gábor's closing observation offered a market perspective that challenges incumbent dominance: " So now we know it's not only Veeva and Salesforce for sure."
For pharma companies managing complex multi-country operations with diverse market maturity, the expanding vendor ecosystem provides alternatives that balance platform stability with pharma-specific functionality—if organizations ask the right questions during selection.
The decision to select a tenth vendor after managing nine existing systems demonstrates confidence in the problem definition and selection methodology. Rather than defaulting to the path of least resistance—standardizing on an existing vendor—Egis prioritized solving the actual business problem over minimizing short-term implementation complexity. This willingness to embrace organizational change in pursuit of strategic capability separates transformative CRM initiatives from incremental system upgrades.
For pharma companies evaluating CRM consolidation, the Egis experience offers a replicable framework: define the business problem with precision, prioritize adoption architecture over feature lists, demand integrated analytics that create value exchange with users, and evaluate vendor change management capability as rigorously as technical functionality. Technology selection becomes simpler when organizations know exactly what problem they're solving.
In order to get you the highlights of Pharma Customer Engagement EU 25 faster, we are using generative AI technology to summarise the transcripts of the sessions. The conference organiser is checking the summary for accuracy. If you have any feedback about the summary, please contact lucy.fisher@TR.com
