Maximizing growth in market access; how to partner for an effective gap analysis

Market access is a crucial function in any pharmaceutical company. It ensures patients have access to products at a fair price and that the organization receives the best possible product reimbursement. 

So if your company is introducing a new product, preparing to enter a new market, or underperforming in current markets, it’s probably worth evaluating whether your market access function needs additional capabilities, refinement, or direction.

A gap analysis helps you identify the right opportunities

Organizations often jump right in to fix the problems that they perceive in the market access function with a solution like a portal or an AI chatbot—and they’re itching to get started building it. But it’s vital not to make assumptions and invest resources into improvement efforts without a solid understanding of the issues. 

The first step is to thoroughly examine market access to ensure that the organization fixes the right problem the first time around. Market access is a complex web of processes, relationships and connections that requires communicating data to the payor audience through account teams, self-service portals, and reactive channels. The most critical problems may not be immediately obvious, and because the pharmaceutical business moves fast, there’s no time to waste “fixing” issues that won’t make a significant difference. 

How to support an effective gap analysis 

A gap analysis is the right place to start. This methodology examines current performance versus the desired, expected performance. Assessing the health of your current market access communication ecosystem will help you identify missing capabilities, prioritize internal initiatives, and get the best ROI for your efforts. 

Start by defining your business goal

It’s a cliche, but that doesn’t make it any less true: if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never arrive at your destination. Make sure the team understands the goal it wants to achieve. Do you want to increase your web presence in a specific market to target new payors? Enter a new market? Increase reimbursements for a specific product?

Whatever the goal, have one in mind before beginning the gap analysis; you’ll need a goal to direct your efforts.

Make sure you understand the marketplace

Understanding the marketplace goes hand-in-hand with clarifying the business goal. Who are you targeting? Where are they located? Understanding the market is foundational to the gap analysis; without it, you’re unlikely to address the right issues.

Bring the right stakeholders into your interviews

A gap analysis starts with interviewing relevant stakeholders on their experience with the process. Take some time to determine everyone who has an important perspective that should be considered. The exact mix of roles will depend on the business goal, but examples include people from:

• Pricing
• Account management
• Medical affairs
• Med device/drug sales
• Patient access
• Contract management & operations

You may miss a function that comes up during the analysis, so be open to conducting additional interviews to gather more information. 

Be prepared to learn things you and others won’t like

As you conduct the analysis, keep an open mind. Gap analyses sometimes reveal big inefficiencies, communications gaps, and cumbersome processes. You may need to be the bearer of bad news. It’s no fun, for instance, to discover that data from an online form isn’t being utilized. And when the analysis identifies bottlenecks and inefficiencies, it can sometimes be politically challenging to tell a boss or another team within the organization that they have big problems they need to fix. If a sponsor has a vision for building an interactive data model, it’s not going to be easy to say that an entirely different solution is more appropriate, if that’s what the gap analysis uncovers.

There may also be resistance to change. As you craft your solution based on the gap analysis’ findings, keep stakeholders’ needs in mind, and make sure to consider how you’ll get everyone’s buy-in. For instance, account executives may believe a portal will replace them. Be ready to implement a change management plan that addresses their concerns.

Conduct a prior content inventory

Clear communication is one of the keys to a successful market access function, and content plays a huge role in those communications. Conduct a content inventory ahead of time so you know what you have on hand before starting the gap analysis. In pharma (and other regulated environments), a solid content strategy can transform the performance of digital tools and ease the burden compliance puts on an organization. Conducting an inventory is an important step in gathering the right paths to take later on. 

Prepare a list of anchor questions 

You don’t want to ask questions on the fly. Certainly, the discussion may go to unexpected places, and you’ll need to think on your feet to dig deeper. But having prepared questions beforehand to anchor the discussion can make the difference between a rambling discussion that goes nowhere and a focused conversation that actually identifies user problems. This article on UX workshops should give you a good idea of how to run the nuts and bolts of a gap analysis discussion. 

Ensure everyone understands the expectation that they participate and engage in a discussion. If people sit silently and don’t contribute, they may as well not be there. Preparation can ensure you don’t waste anyone’s time and you’re getting the right feedback and data needed to make solid decisions.

Keep an open mind during the analysis workshop

If the conversation jumps to solutions too soon, you risk overlooking key issues that need to be addressed. Instead, focus on Identifying the problems users have with the status quo. Eventually, you will want to begin investigating solutions, and as you do, remain aware of existing solutions—they may just need a bit of adjustment—while being receptive to new ideas.

Gap analyses are rarely one-and-done sessions. Follow-up discussions will likely be necessary to dive deeper and clarify questions. 

Do a prioritization exercise to figure out your next steps

Once you have conducted enough interviews, collected sufficient data, and summarized your findings in a readout, it’s time to determine your next steps. A prioritization exercise is the best way to identify what you should tackle next.

Try to keep the business goal you’re working towards in mind—and as we stated earlier, it’s important at this stage to put any preconceived notions aside so you can be open to pivoting based on everything you’ve learned.

Very often, following best practices for effective change management will help you wade through any changes coming in the future.

A gap analysis will help you optimize market access

When considering changes to the market access function, it’s critical to base those changes on the findings of a rigorous gap analysis. Following these best practices can help ensure that you make the right changes the first time and achieve your business goals.

Think Company has conducted many gap analyses for clients who know they need to modify or overhaul tools and processes. If you’d like to discuss how we could help your organization, reach out.