MEGHANA (17BSP1511) COLD CALLING FOR SALES EFFECTIVENESS

A REPORT ON

COLD CALLING FOR SALES EFFECTIVENESS: An Investigation of

Source Perception of Call Data at Medlife International Pvt. Ltd

BY:
MEGHANA R S
17BSP1511

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MEGHANA (17BSP1511) COLD CALLING FOR SALES EFFECTIVENESS

A REPORT ON

COLD CALLING FOR SALES EFFECTIVENESS: An Investigation of

Source Perception of Call Data at Medlife International Pvt. Ltd

BY:
MEGHANA R S
17BSP1511

MEDLIFE INTERNATIONAL PRIVATE LIMITED

A report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement of
PGPM Program of IBS Bengaluru

Distribution list:
Mr. Debajyoti Bhattacharyya
Dr. Shafiulla. B

Date of Submission: 19/04/2018

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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENT .......................................................................................................................... 4

ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................................... 5

TASK ASSIGNED ............................................................................................................................................ 6

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 7

ECONOMY OF INDIA.................................................................................................................................. 7

OVERVIEW OF INDUSTRY .......................................................................................................................... 8

COMPANY PROFILE.................................................................................................................................. 12

METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................................................... 16

OBJECTIVE................................................................................................................................................ 16

LIMITATIONS............................................................................................................................................ 17

DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................................................... 17

DMAIC APPROACH ........................................................................................................................... 18

DESIGN PHASE .......................................................................................................................................... 18

MEASURE PHASE ...................................................................................................................................... 19

ANALYSIS PHASE ....................................................................................................................................... 20

CONCLUTION ................................................................................................................................... 21

REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................... 22

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this
project. I want to thank IBS Bengaluru for giving me permission to commence this project in the
and Medlife International Pvt Ltd. to do the necessary research work and to use the available data.
I am bound to senior batch students for their stimulating support. I am deeply indebted to my
supervisors Dr. Shafiulla.B (faculty-in-charge) and Mr. Debajyoti Bhattacharya (company guide)
for their help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement in all the time of internship. Especially,
I would like to give my special thanks to my parents and friends for their patient love and help in
internship.

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ABSTRACT

Medlife International Pvt Ltd., Bengaluru, is a health care startup which provides medicines, lab
test at the customers door step with doctor’s e-consultation and guaranteed discounts. The SIP is
titled “COLD CALLING FOR SALES EFFECTIVENESS: An Investigation of Source
Perception of Call Data at Medlife International Pvt. Ltd”. It aims at doing an in-depth analysis
of cold call data provided by the company. The project is an attempt to increase the customer base
by increasing the conversion rate of the target market to loyal customers and to create awareness
through telemarketing using the leads generated by the doctors who have registered with Medlife.
An attempted has been done to go about the project using DMAIC approach. Thus, during this SIP
my work has been directed towards data analytics, consumer behavior, telemarketing and to help
in better visibility of the brand. The SIP began with detailed analysis of cold call data , After
analyzing the data observations are being noted down are forwarded to the concerned person in
the company to look in to things which required changes, or which need some monitoring, suggest
few practices and also learn about few best practices in field, the suggested recommendations helps
in remedy the weaknesses, emphasize the strengths and resolve identified problems.

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Task assigned

Task Assigned Planning is a key factor for the successful of any project, what my company guide
Mr. Debajyoti Bhattacharya told me at the first day in company.

The importance of planning is:

 To facilitate goals achievement

 To facilitate assessment
 To reduce risks and loss
 To make good decisions
 To carry out job division
 To determine opportunities and threats
 To find and think out of the box
 To understand in-detail how online pharmacy works

So, my company guide has planned my task which I have to execute during my internship.

The tasks assigned are:

 To understand the technique of Cold Calling.

 To analyse the cold call data and to understand the best and worst practices.
 To understand the issues based on statistical data
 To help in correction of the process and add to the betterment of the process in the company.

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INTRODUCTION

The main objective of internship is to get exposure to the real business world during. This is an
ideal way to learn about an industry and to build a relationship with a prospective employer as well
as giving one a chance to simply hone the skills.

In Medlife International Pvt Ltd. my objective is to learn all about the Cold calling technique
(Direct marketing) and to implement my knowledge in live project.

The work in this company as an intern in marketing(OBS) is to analyze the data and report the
findings. In this process we must collect the data from various sources in the company. That is the
secondary data which is raw and is recorded/documented during the live cold calling process.

ECONOMY OF INDIA

Economy of India is a Mixed economy which is still developing. Indian economy is world’s sixth
largest economy by GDP(nominal) and third largest by purchasing power parity(PPP). Per capita
GDP rank of Indian economy is 141. India has achieved 6.7% average GDP growth annually.

Annual growth rate in service sector is above 9% which makes India fastest growing service sector
and also a major contributor to the country’s GDP i.e., 57%

India’s Gross National Income in past 8 years is 13.7% on an average, it had even reached the peak
of 15% India has around 330 million houses according to the recent census. Avg family income in
India was $6671. Current inflation rate is 4.28(March 2108) overall available labor force is 520.2
million and especially for service sector it is 31% of the available work force.

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Overview of the Industry

“The Indian pharmaceutical industry is a success story providing employment for millions and ensuring
that essential drugs at affordable prices are available to the vast population of this sub-continent.”

- Richard Gerster

The Pharmaceutical industry in India is the world's third-largest in terms of volume and stands
14th in terms of value. The government started to encourage the growth of drug manufacturing by
Indian companies in the early 1960s, and with the Patents Act in 1970. However, economic
liberalization in 90s by the former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and the then Finance
Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh enabled the industry to become what it is today. This patent act
removed composition patents from food and drugs, and though it kept process patents, these were
shortened to a period of five to seven years. The lack of patent protection made the Indian market
undesirable to the multinational companies that had dominated the market, and while they
streamed out. Indian companies carved a niche in both the Indian and world markets with their
expertise in reverse-engineering new processes for manufacturing drugs at low costs. Although
some of the larger companies have taken baby steps towards drug innovation, the industry has
been following this business model until the present. The Indian pharmaceutical sector has come
a long way, being almost non-existent before 1970 to a prominent provider of healthcare products,
meeting almost 95 per cent of the country's pharmaceuticals needs. The Industry today is in the
front rank of India’s science-based industries with wide ranging capabilities in the complex field
of drug manufacture and technology. It ranks very high in the third world, in terms of technology,
quality and range of medicines manufactured. From simple headache pills to sophisticated
antibiotics and complex cardiac compounds, almost every type of medicine is now made
indigenously

Playing a key role in promoting and sustaining development in the vital field of medicines, Indian
Pharma Industry boasts of quality producers and many units approved by regulatory authorities in

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USA and UK. International companies associated with this sector have stimulated, assisted and
spearheaded this dynamic development in the past 53 years and helped to put India on the
pharmaceutical map of the world. The Indian Pharmaceutical sector is highly fragmented with
more than 20,000 registered units with severe price com4petition and government price control. It
has expanded drastically in the last two decades. There are about 250 large units that control 70
per cent of the market with market leader holding nearly 7 per cent of the market share and about
8000 Small Scale Units together which form the core of the pharmaceutical industry in India
(including 5 Central Public-Sector Units). These units produce the complete range of
pharmaceutical formulations, i.e., medicines ready for consumption by patients and about 350 bulk
drugs, i.e., chemicals having therapeutic value and used for production of pharmaceutical
formulations. Following the de-licensing of the pharmaceutical industry, industrial licensing for
most of the drugs and pharmaceutical products has been done away with. Manufacturers are free
to produce any drug duly approved by the Drug Control Authority. Technologically strong and
totally self-reliant, the pharmaceutical industry in India has low costs of production, low R&D
costs, innovative scientific manpower, strength of national laboratories and an increasing balance
of trade. The number of purely Indian pharma companies is fairly low. Indian pharma industry is
mainly operated as well as controlled by dominant foreign companies having subsidiaries in India
due to availability of cheap labor in India at lowest cost. Most pharma companies operating in
India, even the multinationals, employ Indians almost exclusively from the lowest ranks to high
level management. Mirroring the social structure, firms are very hierarchical. Homegrown
pharmaceuticals, like many other businesses in India, are often a mix of public and private
enterprise. Although many of these companies are publicly owned, leadership passes from father
to son and the founding family holds a majority share. The total Indian production constitutes
about 13 per cent of the world market in value terms and, 8 per cent in volume terms. The per
capita consumption of drugs in India, stands at US$3, is amongst the lowest in the world, as
compared to Japan- US$412, Germany- US$222 and USA- US$191.

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Online pharmacies in India have significantly increased due to growing E-commerce in

India and little regulation of the industry. At an age where everything is going on the web and
individuals are purchasing nearly everything from staple to contraptions on web stores, web would
now be able to satisfy all medical needs online which is an online pharmacy.

Legal Status of Online Pharmacy in India There is no specific law to deal with online
pharmacies in India, but multiple laws govern online pharmacies in an indirect manner. The Drugs
and Cosmetics Act, 1940, and the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, have guidelines on the sale
of Schedule H and Schedule X drugs. These can be sold only on prescription and there are specific
rules, including for labelling and bar coding.

It appears that electronic prescriptions should be valid especially in the light of the Pharmacy
Practice Regulations of 2015 declared by Pharmacy Council of India in January 2015. In these
regulations, “Prescription” is defined by regulation 2 ‘means a written or electronic direction from
a Registered Medical Practitioner…….’ On basis of existing regulations, it appears that a scanned
copy of prescription will be perfectly considered as a valid prescription. However, whether such
electronic prescriptions can be used to buy medicine from online pharmacies has been questioned.

Formalities to be made when opening an online pharmacy

 As expressed over, specific laws are to be followed while opening an online drug store and
these rules are very stringent.
 The sum of what laws have been settled and any online drug store must agree to every one
of the standards and directions, nonetheless, there are numerous escape clauses that these drug
stores are using for their benefit and illicit medications have been on the ascent.
 Considering its inconceivability, medical laws can’t be extensive henceforth causing the
flow of illicit medications and pharmaceuticals.

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Online Pharmacies at Present

 The number can’t be precisely assessed, in any case, in light of a pursuit, around 3000
online drug stores were found, and half of them were situated in the USA and 19% in the UK and
the adjust in different nations like India, Canada, and so forth. In another discovering, B-2-B
organizations additionally offered online pharmaceuticals of which 19% are from India.
 All the western nations are affectionately utilizing this astounding facility. Likewise, in
India, the development of online Pharmacy is altogether heightening. In spite of the fact that India
should work harder in persuading individuals about the originality of medications, the extent of an
online drug store in India is as still huge.

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Company profile

Medlife International Pvt Ltd is an innovative healthcare technology company which aims
to b e pioneer in healthcare hub that would bring all stakeholders on single platform. It is
a ‘Technology company with a heart and dream that every Indian gets to access the best possible
health care’. It intends to be a one stop healthcare hub that would bring all stakeholders on a single
platform which would enable our customers with a seamless health care experience. In short, we
aim at making Healthcare delivery simple, accessible and affordable. Currently operational in 13
locations across India, Medlife.com will be operational PAN India shortly. We are backed by
promoters with humungous experience in pharmaceutical and healthcare e-commerce businesses
coupled with owning successful global e-commerce business for a decade plus.
Medlife.com in turn will enable our esteemed customers to experience what smooth and seamless
healthcare service really feels like. Medlife has managed to carve a niche for themselves as one of
the leading healthcare service providers on the basis of technological and domain expertise. The
ultimate goal is to ensure that healthcare is delivered in simple, affordable and accessible manner.
When the customers are buying medications from Medlife they will ensure that they get
 Authentic Medicines
 Timely Delivery at doorstep
 Discounts

Availability:

At present, Medlife’s services are available in all major cities of India.

The orders will be delivered as per the scheduled time communicated at the time of acceptance
and conformation of the order. Usually, the delivery time ranges between 24-48hours.

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Medlife Product Portfolio:

Doctor product: OPD Practice Mgmt. suite for doctors to digitize patient records & access them
on-demand from an internet enabled device.

Users – Doctors, Docs Assistant

Consumer product: Consumer mobile application to order medicines, store health records and
book diagnostic labs.

Users – Consumers

Partner product: Manages orders for corporates and third-party healthcare consumer internet
application.

Users – Corporate customers, External partner customers

Fulfilment product: Supply chain backbone to ensure efficient fulfillment of medicines,

diagnostic packages etc.,

Users – Internal Users (Digitizers, CX, Procurement, Pharmacist, Delivery Agents)

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The Work Culture

Everyone in Medlife International Pvt Ltd., is encouraged to bring new and unique ideas to the
forefront and get recognized for thinking differently. Employees get a free hand to test and prove
their point at work. Medlife encourages their employees to be innovative and successful.

Medlife is a part of healthcare revolution which allows the employees in faster learning and also
provides with growth opportunities. Medlife believes in simplifying complexities in accessing the
healthcare & bring smile on millions of people.

A dynamic workplace is a never-ending pool of learning channel. Medlife, give all employees the
opportunity to learn new things and provides a platform which enables to help grow professionally.

They say ‘great teams work together’ but in Medlife they say “we win together:” Medlife
encourage team work not just within a team but across teams and celebrate and share the triumphs
together. With young minds working together, teams constantly come up with innovative ideas to
solve real-time complex problems. Medlife creates milestones & have celebrations for over
achieving it often. So that the customers can have a seamless healthcare experience.

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Company timeline:

November 2014 Incorporation

May 2015 launched doctor’s application
September 2015 started corporate business
November 2015 launched customers application
July 2016 launched labs
November 2016 lab application
December 2016 Pinhealth

Fast Facts Medlife:

Chairman and CEO Tushar Kumar

Corporate Headquarters Medlife International Private Limited
5th Floor, Tower D, IBC Knowledge Park, 4/1,
Bannerghatta main Road, Bangalore,
Karnataka – 560029
FY 2016-2017 Revenue 131 Crores

Employees 700 + doctors

No. of orders delivered 370,000+ orders

Avg no of orders 3,500+ orders received every

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METHODOLOGY

The useful data is recorded during the ongoing live project which is the primary data needed for
the project and few additions/ updates are made to the data by Personal Observation and finally
the data is presented for final analysis. After the analysis, based on the outcome the decisions are
made.

OBJECTIVES

Primary objective:

 Customer acquisition through cold calling and observing its impact on target market.
 To increase the Sales Productivity.

Secondary objective:

 To study and understand the concept and process of Market Research, direct marketing,
Business analytics.
 To understand and get the concept of Marketing of Pharmaceutical products.
 To gain knowledge about the market conditions of Medlife International.
 To understand the obstacles/challenges in the field of Online Pharmacy.

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LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

 The sample area and sample size has been limited due to time constraint.
 The findings of the study are based on the information and opinion given by the agents.
 All the observation and recommendation will be made on the feedback obtained.

DESCRIPTION

In the initial stage of our internship, we were given different projects and we had to select the
project which we want to do.

The projects were:

 Analysis of Cold calls

 Analysis of CTO
 Analysis of Refills
 Quality analysis of all cold calls, CTO & Refills

Out of these I selected “Analysis of Cold Calls”. Then I was told to understand and make
meaningful analysis using the data provided by the company.

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DMAIC Approach

DMAIC is a data-driven strategy used in the improvement of the existing processes in the
company. It is an improvement cycle for structured change management

DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control.

The emphasis on measurement and analysis helps ensure that opportunities for improvement are
executed in a way that ensures the most positive impact.

Define phase: In this phase we define the problem, as in this project the focus is on the
conversion rate of the cold calls (i.e., from an unknown person to a loyal customer). We define
how the conversion rate is measured to predict the success of the project.

Cold calling is defined as the solicitation of business from potential customers who have had no
prior contact with the salesperson conducting the call. It is used as an attempt to convince potential
customers to purchase the service provided by Medlife. Cold calling is the best and most
economical way to develop prospects on an ongoing basis. Here the potential customers are the
people having chronic diseases and the requirement of medicines for such kind of people is for a
very long period.

The major problem in this process is that the customer doesn’t even know, so there may be trust
issues as we are service provides. The conversion Rate of this process is only 6% of the calls
received by the customer. There is another problem where in 30% of the given orders are being
cancelled by the customers.

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Measure Phase:

The data is collected from the doctor business unit and channelized towards cold calling team.
Now that the data is collected from the authenticated sources it is assumed to be a reliable data
where the information is gathered from the baseline. The current performance level of the cold
calling process is 6% - 7% (conversion rate).

The leads of the prospects are from the Doctors who have registered with Medlife.

Different Medlife Doctor- Business Units:

ZipRx: Doctor uses the software interface to prescribe the medicine to patients. On completion of
prescribing Doctor can give a printout of the prescription to the patient. Also, when Doctor submits
the Rx, it reaches Medlife.

SlateRx: This a software used to capture the handwriting of Doctor while he/she writes on the Rx
sheet. The sheet is kept on a digital sheet and then Doctor writes and then whatever written on the
paper is getting captured electronically. On submission, the Rx is sent to Medlife which reaches
the Digi desk.

OneClickRx: This is an Android app available only for Doctors who have registered with Medlife.
Once the Doctor writes any Rx he/she can take a picture through the app. On submission, it is sent
to Medlife which reaches the Digi desk.

ExternalRx: If any Doctor uses any 3rd party Software such as Practo / MS Word etc. to prescribe,
such Rx can be taken to Medlife by means of a Software which is called External Rx.
In all the above cases, we are receiving the Rx in a digitally signed pdf which is authentic like a
hand-written Rx from Doctor.

As the data from the leads are generated it is channelized by the engineering team which triggers
calls to the customers. There are 2 kinds of calls that can be triggered by the Cold Calling Team:
progressive & Manual.

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ANALYSIS PHASE (findings)

cause and effect diagram:

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CONCLUSION

With the above details of my internship till date, I would like to conclude that I have learnt a lot
through my internship in these 55 days. All the tasks assigned helped me gain knowledge and
improve myself in various aspects of the companies focusing on online markets (e-commerce
industries). This project especially focuses on telemarketing and analysis of it. I have chosen one
of the best suited approach for this current project and looking forward for a successful completion
of it. I aim to work consistently and put all my efforts. To do my workings in an effective way to
achieve all my objectives of this internship program. I look forward to gain more knowledge about
the various working in the corporate world.

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Bibliography

authorstream.com
http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/CHANCHALBPHARMA-1349714-1-india-s-pharmaceuticals-
industry/
shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/16095/3/chapter%201b%20%2827-40%29.pdf
en.wikipedia.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalisation_in_India
iosrjournals.org
http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/Conf.17016-2017/Volume%201/7.%2039-45.pdf
shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/98501/6/chapter-5.pdf
medlife.com
https://www.medlife.com/

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