iPad for Success

Dear Bill and Tom,

As per your request, I have studied the implications on the decision about if/when to deploy iPads to the sales force. In the subsequent paragraphs, I will provide you with my recommendation for the usage of iPads with the sales force.

I interviewed several members of the sales force and other IT support that could be help to formulate my recommendation. The biggest takeaway from the interviews was that there is a need and want for a smaller portable device that can help the sales reps when they are out in the field. Detailers currently have 4 steps to their field visit with doctors:

1. Review history, biographies, and past conversations with nurses and doctors a specific location
2. At the meeting with the doctor, provide any video clips and samples available. Reps will refresh the data they have on a doctor with any relevant information for the future.
3. Scan labels of samples that were given to the doctors or nurses
4. Collect and synthesize the day’s activities into a memo for the sales director

The iPad provides a cool factor to the sales force. The iPad for many carries an innovation halo around it with it sleek design and ease of use. Instead of reps lugging around heavy and cumbersome laptops they can carry a very lightweight device which also gives the perception of being current and in the forefront of the future of detailing. It provides easy access to video files about pharmaceutical products or any other marketing and sales materials. The sales reps also believe that by using an iPad in their meetings with doctors, they will have more efficient calls with doctors. The result would be more scripts written by doctors and therefore, an increase in sales. 

Sales reps have such a short window with talking to medical doctors and nurses. Here is a brief comparison between the traditional laptop and an iPad during a 2 minute meeting and what can be accomplished between the sales reps and doctors. 

	Laptop	iPad
1-15 seconds	Intros with the doctors and casual chat.	Intros with the doctors and setting up the marketing materials simultaneously
15-30 seconds	Present any marketing slides or charts	Present any marketing slides or charts
30-60 seconds	Play sales video and have to keep the doctor stationary in one spot	Play sales video, can also capture notes while doctors is holding device to watch as they are walking
60-75 seconds	Q&A, should have all potential follow up documents on hard drive	Q&A and prep for any additional marketing the doctor may want to see
75-85 seconds	Scan and provide Samples	Scan and give out samples, have doctors sign up for any list serves, or watch another quick snippet
85-90 seconds	Future follow up and goodbyes. Pack lap back bag and roll out of the medical office.	Follow up and goodbyes, slide iPad back in bag

In this quick example you see that the iPad and laptop do essentially the same functions, but reps are able to do a bit more set up as the meeting is happening and it’s not as distracting as if you had a large laptop. With iPads portability, they can bring the iPad more places and doctors would not mind holding the device in comparison to taking a heavy and bulky laptop everywhere. 

Despite the look and feel of the iPad there are  few things to note that could be negative. The key negative is that several of the software’s and applications that are used on the windows based laptops are not supported and compatible on the iPad. Many files will have to be converted or reps will have use similar applications that are not currently supported by our IT department. While the iPad might be easier to show reports on to doctors, it’s not always reliable that files may open.  Also, the reps would have to rely on Wi-Fi access in all locations and if they choose to pull their documents from the cloud, they run the risk of going to an office that does not have Wi-Fi for them to access their documents making it a useless call. 

When asked, some reps were a little unsure of how to use some of the basic functionality on an iPad since it works differently than the windows based systems they are accustomed to. This also means that we will need to provide training to our reps in a 2 day meeting to introduce and train how to use the iPads. We would also to need to provide 6 month refresher courses and helpdesk support especially as we increase the number of reps.  While the reps like the use of the iPad there are a bit of uneasy about using it for all their tasks especially if they have been successful in using the laptop. 

Another area to take into consideration would be the cost. Right now the current laptops the reps are using are 2 years old and costs $1500 with a $300 maintenance fee per machine per year. If we were to sell back the laptops, we would only get back $500. For a sales team of 100, the first year cost was $180,000 and $3,000 for year 2. Now in year 3, we will still have the cost of $3,000 on maintenance. The cost of the iPad will be around $600 per iPad, but this is not taking into account maintenance, additional applicable software, and potential a wireless plan. This could increase the cost to $1000 per iPad. While the cost is still cheaper than the laptop, there are more unknown factors and fees that could potentially arise. 

Here are some charts that show some of the difference with laptops and iPads and how different they are from each other. The second picture shows the difference between an iPad and a Netbook. A netbook is a smaller portable laptop, but as you can see there is less versatility with the iPad. 

 

http://www.calibreforhome.com/2012/10/should-you-buy-an-ipad-or-laptop/

There is clearly a value add to using a tablet based device within our organization, however I highly suggest using a windows based tablet for our solution and not an IPad. There are other tablets like the Samsung Galaxy or Windows Surface that would support the same applications that our reps are currently using since its running off of Windows. Reps can continue to use their tablet as an extension or replacement to their laptop and the learning curve would not be as steep. The price of using a Windows based tablet would be similar to the iPad, but the resistance and potential for more errors arise with the IPad. 

This chart from 2011 shows the market share of iPad dropping with more introductions into android tablets. This clearly shows that more people are adopting android based devices as it’s more compatible with windows and provides more flexibility. It brings up the question, if we move to iPads are we making ourselves late adopters rather than being early adopters are something else?

http://www.tech-thoughts.net/2012/05/ipad-vs-android-tablet-market.html#.U6rUEbFBk9M

Based on the given facts and expert testimonials, I recommend moving forward with purchasing of a tablet device as a supplemental device to the laptop with the understanding that over the next few years migrating all sales reps to only have a tablet device. In the chart below gives a glance at the solution which includes moving about ½ of the reps over between year 1 and year 2 and by year 3 everyone using a tablet. The hope is in year 3, based off of sales from the first 2 years we are seeing an increase of prescriptions due to the use tablets that we are able to hire additional staff of 10 reps. 

	Year 1	Year 2	Year 3
Laptop maintenance fee	$3,000	$1,000	0
iPad maintenance fee	$2,000	$2,000	$3,000
Cost of iPads	$50,000	$ 50,000	$10,000
Additional iPad hardware/software	$1,000	$1,000	$2,000
Cost	$56,000	$54,000	$15,000

I hope this sheds light on the use and importance of a tablet into our organization, but I do recommend moving forward with a windows based tablet vs. an iPad.