Excellence in Capability Development

Summary of work

With the impending launch of Fasenra (a biologic therapy for severe asthma) in ex-US markets, AstraZeneca had an urgent and important need to empower local sales teams with product knowledge and sales skills.

It was recognised that, because AstraZeneca local markets had diverse needs, challenges, opportunities, launch timings and competitive environments, a single global training event would not be optimal. Instead, two separate training programmes were required: one for G12 countries (ex-US) that had greater commonalities, and another for the more diverse international markets.

The overarching strategy for the workshops was to use a small team of AstraZeneca global experts to deliver product knowledge and sales techniques to AstraZeneca local leaders who could then cascade their learnings to their local sales teams. What set these programmes apart from previous train-the-trainer activities was the way that existing materials and processes were combined – marrying product story-flow and messaging with the established AstraZeneca Leadership Selling Model – via creative, innovative, motivational and engaging activities to foster learning, discussion and commitment to future actions. The results are already palpable; the excellence of our workshops in building capability is having a direct impact on the uptake of Fasenra in the market.

Judges' comments

AstraZeneca and CMC put together an innovative approach to engaging markets. The judges liked the iterative learning and future involvement of behavioural psychologists, along with a well put-together strategy for rolling out product knowledge, with an engaging, interactive and appealing meetings plan.