AI Can Do More Than Cut Costs. Can It Find Your Next ₹100 Crore? Brand Management 155
Lead Author – Shailaja Dwivedi Pathak, with Vivek Hattangadi
I would begin with a simple question:
Can AI increase sales, or can it actually create growth?
The difference matters.
Increasing sales productivity means doing the same work better.
Creating growth means finding opportunities we could not see earlier.
For years, pharma companies have grown through fairly familiar levers:
- More doctors
- More representatives
- More calls
- More brands
- More territories
- More promotional investment
- More distribution
These levers now give lower returns.
AI brings a new growth path: Data → Patterns → Opportunities → Action → Growth
Imagine a brand manager asking AI:
Where are we losing potential prescriptions?
The answer may not be a list of weak territories.
AI may find that a brand has strong awareness but low conversion in one specialty.
It may show that some high‑potential doctors are reducing prescriptions.
It may reveal territories with strong potential but poor stock.
It may show that certain doctors respond better to scientific content than promotional content.
It may detect high competitor activity in small pockets.
It may highlight a District Managers district growing faster than the medical representative’s territory where the company is currently investing.
Suddenly, AI is not only an efficiency tool. It becomes a growth‑discovery tool.
You can make this point clear with a simple slide:
Automation saves money. Analytics explains the business. AI can find the next opportunity.
This is the real promise. Pharma has huge amounts of data, but most of it has been used to explain the past. The opportunity now is to use it to identify the future.
Indian pharma example: Canopus Pharmaceuticals (name changed because of the NDA)
A strong Indian example comes from Canopus Pharmaceuticals.
Its sales, returns, collections, and marketing‑spend data were scattered across spreadsheets and separate systems. An AI‑enabled reporting layer brought these datasets together and allowed teams to ask questions in natural language. More importantly, the system identified region‑wise marketing ROI and expiry risks. This helped the company shift spending to better‑performing regions and act earlier on inventory issues.
According to the company’s published case study, net sales rose by 10.76 percent quarter‑on‑quarter, and sales‑return losses fell by 22.6 percent.
I would use this example to show a principle, not to claim that AI alone created all the growth. When disconnected data becomes usable intelligence, hidden growth opportunities become visible.
The pharma growth model of the future
You could show this sequence:
- More data
- Better intelligence
- Better opportunity identification
- Better resource allocation
- Better execution
- Business growth
Do not ask AI how to make your current business more efficient.
Ask AI where your next one hundred crore rupees of growth is hiding.