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Adoption of Pharmaceutical Sales Force Automation Systems: An Exploratory Study
Abstract
The pharmaceutical industry in the United States spends about $15 billion per year advertising its products to the medical profession [1]. Pharmaceutical detailing, which is using sales representatives to call on physicians to promote products, accounts for about 45 percent of this spending [2]. In order to help sales representatives track sales leads, sales, service requests, and other sales-related information, many pharmaceutical companies have adopted sales force automation (SFA) systems. While pharmaceutical SFA systems adoption is increasing, little systematic research has been done to understand the factors associated with the adoption of pharmaceutical SFA systems. This paper explores the factors contributing to the adoption of pharmaceutical SFA systems with a focus on the system characteristics specifically related to pharmaceutical sales tasks and the effects of those system characteristics on the perceptions of usefulness and ease of use within the technology acceptance model (TAM). The study uses data from a survey of sales representatives at a large pharmaceutical company that has adopted SFA systems. On a theoretical level, the study tests TAM in a context of pharmaceutical SFA systems and extends the line of research on TAM by examining system characteristics as antecedents of the constructs of TAM. On a practical level, the findings on the systems characteristics associated with the TAM constructs can prove helpful to those who use or plan to use pharmaceutical SFA systems.
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