C3i provides technology support services such as business consulting, systems implementation, training, help desk and performance optimisation to help US and Canadian pharma companies improve customer management at a reduced cost.
The company currently provides sales force automation and technical support services to one third of the US's 100,000 sales reps, specialising in the Siebel software system, and competent in over 200 other systems.
As nearshoring begins to take off in the European pharma market as it has in the US, C3i, is now gearing up to offer its services in this lucrative market, after positioning itself in a new facility in Sofia, Bulgaria, in order to keep overheads down.
In the past, consolidating the CRM process has proved a real challenge for companies in the European market, due to the fact that different arms of the same company operating in different countries throughout Europe often use different software systems and have different regulations that must be adhered to.
"Companies are now realising that this is not an efficient way to operate and are now looking to consolidate their sales processes. Some are well on their way to consolidation, others are just beginning. Either way, everyone is on that track," Carl Vanhaesendonck, C3i's director of sales for Europe told Outsourcing-Pharma.com.
"By moving to using a single software vendor, companies can then further save money by using a single support company, such as us."
"We can reduce our customers' CRM costs by 40-50 per cent by streamlining the support process and using one centralised support centre in Eastern Europe," said Vanhaesendonck.
In addition, language - a large barrier to streamlining CRM processes in the past - has been eliminated by C3i, as the company now has a team of multilingual staff in its new Bulgarian location, covering 12 languages.
"There is no other company in Europe offering such a specialised CRM support service on a global basis, so we have a captive audience," he said
The company is currently in dealings with several European pharma companies and expects to have its first three clients by the second quarter of this year and twelve of the top 20 pharma companies by end of 2007.
Meanwhile, the Bulgarian office has been fully operational since last year, servicing US customers in an off-shoring capacity, providing them the option of having CRM services conducted from this location instead of the US at a fraction of the cost.
This model is proving successful already for C3i who two years ago opened its first off-shored CRM operation in India, allowing for a 35-40 per cent reduction in the cost of services.
"We are the only CRM company to provide such an off-shoring service," Michael Murray, Director of Marketing, C3i, told Outsourcing-Pharma.com.
"In the 18 months since we have launched the Indian operation, 25 per cent of our business in now based there, with half of our top 20 pharma clients now opting for some form of off-shored service," said Murray.
"We expect this rapid uptake to continue and in the next 1-2 years we think half of our remaining US business will move there as cost pressures in the industry begin to close in," he said.
In addition, in the next few years Murray believes that every single one of C3i's clients will choose to have at least some of its CRM services conducted in its Indian or Bulgarian locations, as new avenues begin to open up. For example, a company may wish to have its support carried out by US staff during business hours but its evening and weekend support carried out more cheaply from an offshore location, he said.
To offset the movement of jobs away from the US, C3i plans to focus on higher-value added services, building up the business process outsourcing (BPO) end of its business. One new function, for example, would be dealing with complex queries that sales reps may have such as questions over incentive compensation.
"We expect to be providing these services for five of our top 20 pharma clients in the next two years," said Murray.
Always looking for ways to expand its offerings, the company has also recently launched a new service to prevent, detect and repair computer problems remotely from either of its locations in US, India and Bulgaria.
C3i's new service will diagnose and fix these software issues and significantly reduce unnecessary laptop shipments, leading to less sales force downtime and IT support costs.
"An IT problem can often be fixed in 20 minutes instead of 24 hours," said Murray.
In a pilot program of the new service, one major global pharmaceutical firm managed to reduce its shipping and break-fix costs by over 30 per cent, said the company.
"Since the majority of all hardware repair shipments are actually caused by software-related problems, we saw an opportunity to dramatically decrease the number of times a sales force ships in their computer for service - thereby eliminating any loss in productivity," said Bob Piwko, C3i's COO.
Looking to the future, the company will soon apply its existing CRM business model to the medical device industry, an untapped resource with just as much potential as the pharma industry.
"We expect to grab 30 per cent of the $30m US market in the first three years," said Murray.