Internship report

Student: Anoop BANGALORE SRINIVASA

Company: Sanofi S.A

Internship Supervisor: Agnès VICENS and Ludovic OUDET

EMLV Tutor: Prof. Dr Daniel PRUD’HOMME and Prof. Dr. Basma TAIEB

The company authorizes the publications of this report to the

e-library (Yes/No): NO

The report should maintain confidential (Yes/No): YES

If yes, up to (Indicate date): 2024

MBA Digital Marketing Strategy   
2018‐2019 

 
Acknowledgements
It gives me a great pleasure to express my sincere gratitude towards Mr. Ludovic OUDET and
Mrs. Agnès VICENS for giving me an opportunity to carry out my Internship at Sanofi. I would
like to thank them for their supervision, advice, and guidance since the initial day of this
Internship program and has been a great source of valuable feedback, extremely flexible and
easy to work with. I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my work
at Sanofi. In addition, I would also like to thank Mrs. Maylis ROQUES-DE-BORDA for her
constant support and mentoring throughout my Internship program at Sanofi. Further, I would
like to thank all the employees of Sanofi, for providing us good support in carrying out my
Internship work. Without your support, it wouldn’t have been possible to complete this
Internship.

I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Basma TAIEB and Prof. Dr Daniel PRUD’HOMME, EMLV
Business School, for agreeing to be my supervisor and for their constant support in my
Internship work who have guided and provided me with all the support I needed every step of
the way and without whose patience and understanding, would have made it impossible to
submit this report on time.

I would like to thank everyone who supported me, directly or indirectly. In specific, I would
like to thank my other Internship colleagues who were working in other departments at Sanofi
for providing me moral support in completing this Internship. The time which I spent with them
during “lunch and coffee breaks” was not just fun, but also it led to further discussions in
broadening my knowledge as well.

Finally, I would like to give an utmost gratitude to my parents and my spouse who believed in
me and gave me the opportunity to pursue my dreams.

I hope my work in this Internship have justified everyone’s time and effort that they put into
me and for making this possible.

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List of Figures

Figure 1: 2018 Sales by Geographic Area ................................................................................. 7

Figure 2: Sanofi’s Global Presence............................................................................................ 8
Figure 3: Net Sales by GBUs ..................................................................................................... 9
Figure 4: Sanofi’s Customer .................................................................................................... 10
Figure 5: Top 10 Pharmaceutical Companies in 2019 ............................................................. 11
Figure 6: Sanofi’s collaboration with the partner companies .................................................. 12
Figure 7: Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) ................................................................................. 14
Figure 8: CMS Detection tool .................................................................................................. 15
Figure 9: Before and After representation of Live Streaming Window .................................. 16
Figure 10: Result of Online Poll – using Sli.do ....................................................................... 16
Figure 11: Invitation for HCPs ................................................................................................ 17
Figure 12: Road Map of Servier’s Digital Footprints .............................................................. 19
Figure 13: Sanofi’s Presence at VIVA Tech 2019................................................................... 20
Figure 14: Sanofi’s post on Social media Channels ................................................................ 21
Figure 15: Landing page of the Valproate and Me website ..................................................... 23
Figure 16: Webpage with no Favicon Icon .............................................................................. 23
Figure 17: Epilepsy and Me - Error while selecting options in the drop down list ................. 24
Figure 18: Google Analytics page of Google Merchandise store ............................................ 26
Figure 19: Basic Requirements for a Good Email Marketing ................................................. 28
Figure 20: Email Campaigning Process Map .......................................................................... 28

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List of Abbreviations

AI Artificial Intelligence

CMS Content Management System

CTA Call to Action

DCV Diabetes and Cardiovascular

DVT Deep Vein Thrombosis

EP Established Product

ESC European Society of Cardiology

GBU Global Business Unit

GDPR General Data Protection Regulation

GEM General Medicines & Emerging Markets

HCP Healthcare Practitioner

KOL Key Opinion Leader

KPI Key Performance Indicator

MCE Multi-Channel Engagement

PE Pulmonary Embolism

PPC Pay per Click

PR Public Relation

QR Quick Response

SEO Search Engine Optimization

SWOT Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat

TB Targeted Brand

UX User Experience

VTE Venous Thromboembolism

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Table of Contents
 
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................... 2 
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................... 3 
List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................................................... 4 
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 6 
I.  Sanofi and its environment ..................................................................................................... 7 
1.1  International Presence ............................................................................................................. 7 
1.2  Organization: Aligning on Market Needs ............................................................................... 8 
1.3  Customers ............................................................................................................................. 10 
1.4  Competitors ........................................................................................................................... 11 
1.5  Partnerships with Companies to Drive Innovation ............................................................... 11 
II.  Missions at Sanofi ................................................................................................................... 12 
2.1  Online POLL: Live streaming ............................................................................................... 13 
2.2  E-mail Flyers: Invitation for Live streaming event ............................................................... 17 
2.3  Competitor Analysis – Servier (Digital Footprints) .............................................................. 18 
2.4  VIVA Technology (VIVA Tech) .......................................................................................... 20 
2.5  Website Version 2.0 – Concept ............................................................................................. 22 
2.6  Google Analytics training ..................................................................................................... 25 
2.7  Organising meetings for marketing campaigns and project updates ..................................... 26 
2.8  Email Marketing – Importance in Healthcare Sector ............................................................ 27 
III.  Professional and Personal Contributions ..................................................................... 29 
3.1  Professional Contributions .................................................................................................... 29 
3.2  Personal Contributions .......................................................................................................... 31 
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 33 
References ......................................................................................................................................... 34 
APPENDIX .......................................................................................................................................... 37 
 

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Introduction

This Internship report focuses on the work experience that I have carried out as an Intern in the
Marketing Department at Sanofi S.A, a French multinational pharmaceutical company
headquartered in Paris, France from 23 April 2019 until 15 October 2019. In this report, I have
shared my experience at Sanofi especially working on the Digital Marketing projects like
Website optimisation, Email marketing etc.

The structure of this report is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on by providing
brief description about Sanofi S.A, its international presence, organisation, customers and
competitors. The second part gives detailed list of the missions that I have carried out during
my Internship program. The third part states the professional and personal contributions that I
have acquired during this Internship program.

 
 

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 I. Sanofi and its environment

Sanofi S.A, formerly known as Sanofi Aventis is a French multinational pharmaceutical

company headquartered in Paris, France. In 2004, Sanofi Aventis was formed by the merger of
Aventis and Sanofi-Synthélabo and later it was renamed to Sanofi in May 2011 (Refer
Appendix I). As of December 2018, net sales of Sanofi were €34.463 billion and sales by
geographical area is as shown in Figure 1. It’s the world’s fifth largest company by revenue in
the sales of prescription drugs with over 100,000 employees representing 145 nationalities in
total ("Annual Report on Form 20-F 2018", 2019)

Sanofi invested €5.9 billion i.e. 17.1% of its net sales in Research and Development (R&D) for
the year 2018 and is now the leading player in Vaccines, Speciality care, Consumer healthcare,
Primary care and China & Emerging Markets. Further, Sanofi stocks are listed in some of the
major French, European and U.S. indices i.e. CAC 40, NASDAQ, Euro STOXX 50, S&P
Global 100 ("2019 Shareholder Handbook", 2019).

Figure 1: 2018 Sales by Geographic Area

Source: ("Sanofi at a glance", 2019)

1.1 International Presence

Sanofi being one of the biggest pharmaceutical company in Europe, it shows its presence in
more than 100 countries and provides healthcare solutions to more than 170 countries around
the world. In addition, Sanofi carries out its industrial production activities on 75

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manufacturing sites in 33 countries and has 4 world class R&D hubs with 20 research centres
across three continents namely; Europe, North America and Asia as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Sanofi’s Global Presence

Source: ("2018 Integrated Report", n.d.)

1.2 Organization: Aligning on Market Needs

Until the end of 2018, Sanofi was operating with five Global Business Units (GBUs) i.e. Sanofi
Genzyme, Sanofi Pasteur, Diabetes and Cardiovascular (DCV), Consumer Healthcare, and
General Medicines & Emerging Markets (GEM).

On 13th September 2018, Sanofi restructured its organization of two of its GBUs to revisit its
operations of both mature and emerging market to have close proximity with the healthcare
professionals and its stakeholders. The new organization structure will include Primary care
and China & Emerging Market GBUs and is operational since the beginning of 2019.

However with this new organizational restructuring, Sanofi will create two new GBUs namely
Primary Care GBU that combines the existing product portfolio of DCV GBU with Established
Products, which were earlier part of GEM GBU with main focus on mature markets and the
other new GBU will be China & Emerging Market which includes rest of the GEM GBU and
focused mainly on emerging markets, particularly in China as its Sanofi’s second largest
market in sales after United States. Further the net sales by GBU’s is as shown in Figure 3.

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Figure 3: Net Sales by GBUs

Source: ("2018 Integrated Report", n.d.)

The detailed explanation of the new GBU structure is stated below;

Primary Care
This new Primary Care GBU mainly focuses on the mature markets i.e. the United States,
Canada, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. This GBU extracts the
positive aspects of the DCV and Established Products franchises, which brings together the
healthcare professionals and a diversified range of treatments that helps in raising the bar for
the care and better serving the needs of the patients.

Speciality Care – Sanofi Genzyme

The Speciality Care GBU brings together the franchises of Rare Diseases, Multiple Sclerosis,
Oncology, Immunology, and Rare Blood Disorder. With this standard reference: it helps in
developing innovative treatments for people suffering from complex and debilitating diseases.

Vaccines – Sanofi Pasteur

Sanofi Pasteur being the global leader in vaccines, immunize over 500 million people across
the world by producing over a billion doses each year to fight against a number of diseases.

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China & Emerging Market
This new China & Emerging Market GBU was formed to focus mainly on the unique
characteristics and increasing growth potential of China & emerging markets, including
Established Products, DCV and Speciality Care portfolio in these regions. From the beginning,
Sanofi is diligently working on to provide better access to healthcare globally by developing
medical treatments which are flexible to each market. Sanofi is now the leader in the emerging
markets and is now the third largest global pharmaceutical company in China. By this, China
now becomes the second biggest market for Sanofi after the United States.

Consumer Healthcare
In 2017, Sanofi acquired Boehringer Ingelheim’s Consumer Healthcare business and enhanced
its position on four categories namely Allergy, Cough & Cold, Pain, Digestive Health and
Nutritionals. In the consumer healthcare sector, Sanofi is ranked third globally and first in
Europe and Latin America.

1.3 Customers

Sanofi being a global leader in the healthcare sector and to help their customers to get the most
from their products; it does have some of its prime customers like distributors, pharmacies,
hospitals and public organizations across the globe as seen in Figure 4. Moreover, in some
market segments, particularly in Europe; Sanofi is largely dependent on the distributors and
wholesalers for their sales of the products. However under certain case, if one or more
distributors or wholesalers shows inability to repay their debts then it would adversely affect
on the financial statements.

Figure 4: Sanofi’s Customer

Source: ("2018 Integrated Report", n.d.)

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 1.4 Competitors

Figure 5: Top 10 Pharmaceutical Companies in 2019

 
Source: (Ellis, 2019)

Figure 5 shows that Sanofi is standing in 4th Position on the top 10 pharmaceutical companies
in 2019. Sanofi’s major competitors are Pfizer, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co,
Novartis, Abb Vie, Amgen, GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Pfizer being one of
their main competitor ranks number1 in the list followed by Roche and Johnson & Johnson. So
far in 2019, Sanofi saw a substantial growth of 7.1% in revenue within its pharmaceutical sector
which in turn contributes a certain percentage to company’s total revenue.

1.5 Partnerships with Companies to Drive Innovation

One of the main success factors for Sanofi is by collaborating with companies to share the
expertise to drive innovation. Figure 6 gives only a sample representation of Sanofi’s
collaboration with the partner companies and not a comprehensive list, as year on year the list
increases with the aim to drive innovation to better serve the patient needs.

Over the years, Sanofi has developed diverse innovative collaborations and strategic alliances
with research institutions, Key Opinion Leaders (KOL’s) in healthcare, healthcare practitioners
and other companies globally. These partnerships can be in the form of investments,
collaborations, joint ventures or other arrangements depending on the objective of the mission.
Sanofi is committed to share its expertise with the partner companies, who advances in
scientific knowledge, strengthen their network of innovation excellence and by creating a value
for health worldwide in their area of expertise.

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Figure 6: Sanofi’s collaboration with the partner companies

 
Source: ("2017 Integrated Report", n.d.)

II. Missions at Sanofi

The duration of my internship program was for 6 months between the period 23rd April 2019
to 15th October 2019. In this part of my internship report, I will be describing about the team
which I worked with, its activities and my missions at Sanofi.

At Sanofi, Global Established Product (EP) Franchise comprises of 5 professionals each

handling different portfolio i.e. Targeted Brand, Portfolio Enhancement & Maximization,
Commercial EP Mature markets, Multi-Channel Engagement (MCE) and Medical Affairs
along with support teams. I was part of the Global Established Product (EP) Franchise –
Targeted Brand (TB) team comprising of 9 professionals who were in charge to support the
innovative and transforming projects of the EP portfolio namely content factory, digital
projects of targeted brands, Integrated care etc. I was reporting to the Global Transversal
Project lead – TB and Head of the Targeted Brand (Vice President), and was assisting them in
digital marketing activities.

My missions in the Global EP Franchise – TB team at Sanofi;

In this part, I will be briefly describing my main tasks in the Global EP franchise – TB team at
Sanofi and then, I will be explaining in detail about the missions that I carried out; along with

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challenges that I faced during the mission and what I have learned from them. My tasks at
Sanofi can be stated as below;

i. Actively participate in managing the project meetings during product launches

ii. Follow the implementation of MCE campaigns in different countries
iii. Collaborate on the realization of the innovative global campaigns of the EP group
iv. Participate in the follow-up of the realization of the promotional material in agreement
with the different services of the Group
v. Analyse and synthesize the competitive activity on the market of innovative solutions
vi. To propose strategic recommendations on digital projects

2.1 Online POLL: Live streaming

Like every year, there is a continuous improvement in organizing the Venous

Thromboembolism (VTE) Safety Zone event in Latin America & Dubai; this year’s challenge
for the team was to bring changes with the help of digitalization and as I was hired as a trainee
with Digital Marketing expertise, this project was assigned to me. At Sanofi, most of the
projects are allocated to the partner agencies due to resource limitation. For this event i.e. VTE
Safety Zone Latin America & Dubai; this project was awarded to one of the digital marketing
agency, who are experts in organizing live streaming events, medical writing and consulting
with the help of their partner companies. At first when they assigned this project to me, I started
looking back on the improvements they made each year and made some points, so that I can
brainstorm with the team later on.

This event i.e. VTE Safety Zone at Sanofi is organised every year to bring the awareness to the
disease that includes deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) among the
healthcare practitioners (HCPs). In simple terms it’s the blood clot that occurs in veins. It is the
third leading vascular diagnosis after heart attack and stroke, affecting between 300,000 to
600,000 Americans each year ("Venous Thromboembolism (VTE)", 2017). Figure 7 shows the
pictorial representation of DVT process of the leg.

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Figure 7: Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)

Source: ("Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) Treatment in Clearwater", n.d.)

Over the time when I started brainstorming with my internal team, one of the ideas which I
proposed to them was to have an online poll option during the live streaming of the event. By
doing this, people who are connected to the live streaming event can give their opinion as well.
My team was happy with the proposal, as it encourages people to cast their vote not only to the
ones who are present inside the live event but also who are connected online. My next challenge
was to execute it within short duration of time (i.e. less than 2 months) and need to find a
solution on how’s it going to work.

I did some research work based on what I had learnt during my MBA classes and tried to find
out on which Content Management System (CMS) platform or landing page our agency were
trying to do live streaming on for VTE Safety zone event. I asked the agency for the website
link which they had created for live streaming and with the help of CMS detection tool, I found
out that they were using Drupal CMS (Refer Figure 8). Moreover, after doing some research
on the web, I proposed the agency names of the plug-ins i.e. Voting API, Slido, Poll extras,
Advanced Poll, Common Polls, Opigno Poll and Poll enhancements; Which we can use to do
online poll.

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Figure 8: CMS Detection tool

Source: ("Detect CMS site", n.d.)

During this time a lot of congress events were taking place across the globe for Sanofi and most
of these congress events were done by this digital marketing agency. Initially, it was hard for
them to find time to do beta testing on these plug-ins before arriving at a solution. After some
successful trials and beta testing (Refer Figure 9), we decided to use ‘Sli.do’ plug-in on Drupal
CMS to do polls during live streaming, as it fulfils all our requirements. The best part was in
this plug-in we can do polls as well as chat to ask questions during live streaming (Refer Figure
10). My managers were impressed by my work as I had executed this project in short duration
of time. Now we were ready for the event which is going to happen in September 2019 with
some digital improvements.

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Figure 9: Before and After representation of Live Streaming Window

Source: Created by author

Figure 10: Result of Online Poll – using Sli.do

Source: Created by author

This mission helped me in mastering Drupal CMS and understanding the complexities or
technical issues while working with external agency. In addition, it also helped me in
improving my consulting skills by working with the digital marketing agency. Further it also

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boosted my confidence as the project which was assigned to me was executed successfully and
we received positive feedback from top managers at Sanofi.

2.2 E-mail Flyers: Invitation for Live streaming event

One of my internal missions were to create an e-mail flyers for an live streaming event of VTE
Safety zone which will be held at Latin America and Dubai during the period September –
October 2019. For Sanofi, the moto of creating this email flyer was to invite the HCPs and ask
them to register for this live streaming event. Again since this project was awarded to the digital
marketing agency as a complete package and I had to work with them by representing from
Sanofi side for any changes or modifications required.

Figure 11: Invitation for HCPs

Once again I started to do my research by
looking at previous year’s flyers for making
invitation and wanted to propose something
different to my team with what I had learnt
during my MBA classes. When I was going
through previous year’s flyers, I noticed that
there was QR code on the invitation but it
was not working and due to that HCPs
couldn’t register with the help of QR code.
In addition, I also noticed that although there
was ‘Register Now’ mentioned on the flyer
but there was not call to action (CTA) button
where HCPs could have used to register
themselves on the portal instead of using QR
Code. Keeping these facts in mind, I had a
scheduled meeting with the digital
marketing agency to discuss further on this
topic.

Source: Created by author

After few weeks, based on the inputs given by us in terms of aesthetics and agenda for the
event; the external agency proposed around 3 to 4 numbers of flyers in different layouts and
asked us to choose one in them or propose something new if required. I went through all these
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flyers which they proposed and was happy to see that they did the same as recommended by
us with slight modifications. Further, I asked them to make some slight modifications in one
of the flyers proposed by them and they came with the final corrected version within few days.

Finally after I tested this final version of the flyer to check whether the QR code and CTA
button for ‘Register Now’ was working, I took it to show my manager and take their approval
to process further. Once approved by managers, we had to upload this document in the internal
approval cycle to get the final approval from our Public Relation (PR) and Communication
team. Figure 11 shows the final version of the flyer used for inviting the HCPs.

During my MBA classes for creating flyers, I was using Canva tool and from this mission, I
got an opportunity to brush up my skills on the Adobe InDesign tool for creating flyers by
working with the external agency. With what I had learnt on the fundamentals of e-mail
marketing during my classes, it was ease that I could suggest some improvements or changes
to the external agency.

2.3 Competitor Analysis – Servier (Digital Footprints)

One of my earlier missions were to perform a competitive analysis for Sanofi. Performing
competitor analysis is very crucial for any business in order to determine, how the organisation
is performing against the competition. It is also one of the best ways for the organisation to
work on the areas of improvement as well. My task was to perform the competitor analysis for
Servier on digital footprints and to see how Servier is adapting to digital transformation year
on year.

Servier Laboratories is a privately owned French pharmaceutical company with an annual

turnover of €4.2 billion. After Sanofi, it is the number 2 pharmaceutical company in France.
Servier is renowned for its expertise in the field of cardiology and holds number 1 position in
France and number 2 in Europe in the field of cardiology.

Moreover, Sanofi being a much stronger than Servier in terms of revenue, market share, growth
etc., it still keeps a watch on the small players like Servier, as it specializes in the field of
cardiology and holds number 1 position in this field. Servier invests 25% of its turnover in
R&D and is 2nd preferred partner for research centres conducting clinical trials according to
the research done by CenterWatch rankings (Refer Appendix IV).

Although the task assigned to me was to do the competitor analysis of Servier on digital
footprints, it was important for me to first understand the company’s profile, its product
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portfolio, production and R&D sites, performing SWOT analysis etc. (Refer Appendix II &
Appendix III) and then move further in detail on Servier-Going Digital. So, I started doing my
research over internet to understand the company’s portfolio, gather some key figures and their
footprints on digital on the Servier website. Initially it was a bit challenging as very less data
on digital transformation was available on Servier’s website. Later, I started to read blogs and
posts over internet to see on their digital success story. However, during my research I noticed
that Servier never tried to acquire any of the companies who were specialised in healthcare
digital technologies instead it tried to partner with them to mover further in terms of digital
transformation (Refer Appendix V).

Figure 12: Road Map of Servier’s Digital Footprints

Source: ("EHealth Solutions - Servier", 2019)

Further, I made a road map to show the progress of Servier on digital each year (Figure 12).
During one of the internal team meetings, I was given an opportunity to present my work to
the team members and everyone was impressed with my presentation and the research that I
had carried out on our competitor Servier in detail. They were surprised to see the progress of
Servier – Going digital very soon and there active participation in digital transformation. This
boosted my confidence to carry out the tasks at my work during the internship period.

In addition, Healthcare industry being very new to me, from this mission I got to learn more
about our competitor and how they are progressing on digital transformation. Although some

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of the things very new to me in the beginning, I learned a lot on digital technologies and its
applications in the healthcare industry.

2.4 VIVA Technology (VIVA Tech)

For its fourth edition, VIVA Tech is being held in Paris from 16th to 18th May 2019 and
approximately 9000 start-ups were expected along with some renowned speakers to bring the
vision of digital to the companies of tomorrow. It’s a platform for all the start-ups and leaders
to celebrate innovation ("May 16-18 2019 | Viva Technology", 2019).

Figure 13: Sanofi’s Presence at VIVA Tech 2019

Source: ("Sanofi unveils its innovations at VivaTech", 2019)

Sanofi being the gold partner at the VIVA Tech, My manager asked me to go and represent on
their behalf and understand how digital technologies are influencing healthcare sector. For me
this was once in a life time opportunity to visit VIVA Tech and represent Sanofi at the booth
(Refer Figure 13).

Moreover, after the exceptional comeback of Mark Zuckerberg for VIVA Tech in 2018, this
year Alibaba’s CEO ‘Jack Ma’ made a visit to VIVA Tech and gave his vision on the internet
and competence to standardize the rules of the game and create opportunities for entrepreneurs.
On the Spotlight, once again President Macron made a visit during the opening of the VIVA

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Tech 2019 and shared his thoughts on how technological transformation can be used for the
betterment of the economy and society.

There were around 124,000 attendees, 13000 start-up companies along with 450 speakers from
in total and some of the key speakers to mention who attended this event were Jack Ma (Alibaba
Founder), Martin VILLIG (Bolt Founder), Ginni ROMETTY (IBM Chairman, President and
CEO), Ken HU (Huawei, Deputy Rotating Chairman) etc. It was an excellent opportunity to
see these personalities and hear from them on their vision for future in terms of digital
transformation.

Figure 14 shows Sanofi’s posts on VIVA Tech in major social media accounts namely Twitter
& Instagram and we had our hashtag as ‘#Tech4health’ in order to track the campaigns. These
accounts are mainly monitored by the Global PR and communication team of Sanofi.

Figure 14: Sanofi’s post on Social media Channels

Instagram Post Twitter Post

Source: (sanofi_france, 2019) Source: (Sanofi France, 2019)

From this mission, I got an opportunity to meet and interact with our Chief Digital Officer of
Sanofi Global and learn more on Sanofi’s Digital factory with a new dimension called ‘Industry
4.0’. This future factory will be equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robots to interact

21 
 
with each other through sensors to provide real time data and support the operators in their
daily tasks, use and maintenance of equipment’s ("The Fourth Industrial Revolution", 2019)

Further, I took this opportunity to visit other renowned companies and healthcare start-ups to
understand their products & innovations and see how they can partner with companies to add
value in this digital revolution. I also got to learn how healthcare sectors are progressing on
digital trends and opening opportunities for the young entrepreneurs.

With what I had learnt during my MBA classes in ‘Current & Emerging trends’ subject, I was
mesmerized to see them live. At last, I captured all the key takeaways from the VIVA Tech
event and gave a presentation to my team on current & future digital trends in healthcare sector
during our bi-weekly team meeting. The team was fully happy & gave positive feedbacks by
looking at my passion for digital trends.

2.5 Website Version 2.0 – Concept

One of my missions were to take part in website optimization project for launching version 2.0
of existing website and suggest improvements on digital aspects in terms of user experience
(UX) and website optimization. The website on which we will be working on is a separate
website dedicated for HCPs in order to give awareness on its uses and side effects of Valproate
medication, which is used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder & to prevent migraine
headaches and not to promote any of our brands in the website. Promotion of prescription drugs
online is strictly prohibited by the regulatory rules and Sanofi adheres to it.

At first, when I analysed the initial website, I got an impression that a lot of improvements
could be made. I jotted down some of the important points for further discussion. In past, I had
experience working with WordPress in creating the websites and here I noticed that the website
was built on Sitecore CMS. This was completely new to me & was bit challenging to catch the
pace with the developers. In addition, the developers who were handling this website were
external agency and I had to work with them to suggest the changes. Based on what I learnt
during my MBA classes, below were some of the recommendations which were proposed by
me to the external agency in order to improve the website.

 It can be seen from ‘Figure 15’ that” Healthcare Professional” Text was not clearly
visible. I advised to use a transparent layer over the image, so that White text can be
bold & appealing. This was just an example, as there are many images on webpages
over which texts are not readable. Due to this the user might navigate from the webpage.

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Figure 15: Landing page of the Valproate and Me website

Source: ("Valproate and Me", 2019)

 When you scroll down on the webpage, the menu bar should be freezed, so that it will
be easy for the user to navigate on the webpage
 “Home” Icon button was not serving the purpose, instead it’s just acting like a backlink
button. I advised to create a logo & it should act like a home button i.e. it should
navigate you to the home page when people click on it.
 There was no ‘FAVICON’ (i.e. favorite icon) on the top of the webpage, when it’s
opened in tab. Screen shot is shown in Figure 16; this is added to increase the User
experience (UX) & saves time for the user to recognize which website tabs are open.

Figure 16: Webpage with no Favicon Icon

 
Source: ("Valproate and Me", 2019)

 Even after selecting the option like Woman, Teenager, and Partner etc. in the dropdown
list on landing page, it was still showing as select profile. It needs to be fixed else it will
lead confusion to the user (Refer Figure 17).

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Figure 17: Epilepsy and Me - Error while selecting options in the drop down list

 
Source: ("Valproate and Me", 2019)

 I could see a lot of blank spaces on the webpage b/w the text & images, which I
recommended for correction.
 The image size on the landing page was too large & due to this the loading time of the
webpage was more. I recommended to maintain the quality of image and reduce the
image size and by doing this, it loads faster on the mobiles phones as well.
 I also suggested them to link the website to Google Analytics, so when the HCPs get
connected online we can track the number of connections, countries from where they
are connected, average duration of their connection etc. along with the other KPIs which
they wanted to measure.

The external agency took all above mentioned recommendations from us and will be
implementing the same at the earliest, since were planning to launch our new website by the
end of October 2019. All the other contents related to the topic were ready in place except with
few minor corrections, which we will be working with the agency and complete at the earliest.

From this mission, I learnt a new CMS platform called Sitecore while working with the external
agency. Although it was a bit challenging in the beginning for doing changes in terms of
technical aspects on the webpage quickly, I tried to put some fundamental aspects of webpage
creation into practice which I had learnt during my MBA classes. Further, by working on this
mission improved my technical skills on handling complex website projects.

24 
 
 2.6 Google Analytics training

At Sanofi, the buzzword which is being heard for analysing the data on digital marketing is
Google Analytics. One of my missions was to give awareness training on Google Analytics to
all the trainees in our department. So I took this opportunity and blocked their calendar during
first week of August, since during this time most of my managers will be off for their summer
break and all the trainees will be available during this time.

Moreover to give this training I had not prepared any slides for the trainees instead I thought
of giving them live demo on analysing the data by using Google Analytics demo account. Since
most of the trainees were from the pharmaceutical background, I had to go into the basics of
digital marketing first and then tell them about the outcome of this training. Below were the
brief list of learning outcomes which was mentioned by me during the training program;

 Google Analytics can be configured to your specific business needs in order to ensure
accurate results
 During email or banner ad campaigns, with proper tagging you will be able to measure
online activities i.e. SEO, PPC etc. accurately
 KPIs can be used to increase conversion rate and by understanding what needs to be
measured, we can build better landing pages and increase the conversion rates.
 With the help of Google Analytics, we can optimize the performance of our website by
identifying the issues and further increase the overall performance of our website to
grow our business.

25 
 
Figure 18: Google Analytics page of Google Merchandise store

 
Source: ("Google Analytics Demo Account", 2019)

Figure 18 above shows the screen shot of Google Merchandise store website used for analysing
the data using the demo account. With this account, I could successfully teach the trainees to
analyse the data in real time and identify the traffic source, demographics, referrals,
behavioural pattern etc. to measure the requirements of a specific marketing campaign.

From this mission, I got an opportunity to brush-up my Google Analytics skills and review the
foundations of digital marketing, which I had learnt during my classes. However the
challenging part was, these trainees were not having any prior knowledge or experience in
digital marketing and initially it took some time to explain them the basics first and then go
into the actual topic. Further due to their keen interest in learning about the topic on Google
Analytics and it applications, it was easier for me to carry out this mission successfully.

2.7 Organising meetings for marketing campaigns and project updates

Every year there will be several projects on marketing campaigns for medical congresses
happening at Sanofi and our team actively participates in that event. Since, Sanofi Paris is the
global headquarters for the group; it was vital for our team to ensure that the KPIs are defined
correctly and met at the end of the campaign.

Moreover, it was important for our team to assign the tasks internally and ask the respective
stakeholders to take the lead on the project. I was asked to handle 3 main projects namely
European Society of Cardiology (ESC) congress, VTE Safety zone – Latin America & VTE
26 
 
Safety zone – Dubai. My responsibilities were to assist the project lead in organising the
meetings, suggest improvements in digital aspects, schedule follow up meetings with the stake
holders, writing meeting minutes, to give project updates etc. In addition, I was also asked to
assist or give my recommendations in other projects within our team which were going parallel
in digital aspects.

This mission involved communicating with the Digital Marketing managers, Medical leads,
Social Media managers, Multi-Channel engagement team, External Agencies and with the
Facilities & Logistics team. Since the projects which were assigned to me were taking place
during September – October 2019, I had ample time in the beginning and to learn more about
the organisation and understand its structure & marketing activities. I used to give updates to
my manager and team frequently, so that they were aware about the facts, progress and delays
on the project. My manager was happy with my performance and appreciated me for the work
which I had carried out in an organised manner.

From this mission, I gained experience by upgrading my skills in leadership, communication,

teamwork and problem-solving areas. The challenging part during this mission was, since I had
to work with different stakeholders globally; sometimes it was difficult to reach them over call
due to time differences. However with my diligent effort by sometime connecting from home
after the working hours, I could manage to reach them and share the project updates.

2.8 Email Marketing – Importance in Healthcare Sector

One of my internal missions was to create a document using Microsoft power point on
Importance of email marketing in healthcare sector, so that it will be circulated across global
marketing team within the organisation; to know the power of e-mail marketing during
marketing campaigns.

Moreover while working on this mission, I tried to capture all the possibilities i.e. importance
of email campaigning, how pharmaceutical companies are making use of email marketing for
sending articles, newsletters, case studies, product/therapy monograph, invitation to live-
streaming/webinars/conferences etc., list of email spam trigger words used in medicine, KPIs
to measure conversion etc. (Refer Appendix VI, VII, VIII, IX and X).

27 
 
Figure 19: Basic Requirements for a Good Email Marketing

 
Source: Created by author

In addition, with one slider on email marketing roadmap; I explained the basic requirements
required for a good email as shown in Figure 19. Further, I made an email campaigning process
map to explain the KPIs or activities which needs to be monitored once the email is triggered.
Figure 20 shows the email campaigning process map.

Figure 20: Email Campaigning Process Map

Source: Created by author

28 
 
By working on this mission, I learned how email marketing still plays a key role among other
digital marketing campaigns and HCPs still prefer emails compared to other digital channels
in the healthcare sector. Moreover, it allowed me to shape my presentation and managerial
skills which is very essential in marketing field. I carried out this assignment with ease as I had
strong foundation on email marketing campaigns, which I had acquired during my MBA
classes.

III. Professional and Personal Contributions

Sanofi being world renowned French pharmaceutical company with over 100,000 employees
working globally and having its headquarters in Paris, France; it was like a dream come true to
me when I got an opportunity to work for Sanofi as an Intern for a period of six months.

The experience what I gained during my internship definitely added value in both professional
and personal front. Although I have explained in detail on the missions which I had carried out
during my internship at Sanofi in previous chapters, in this section I will be summarizing; how
my internship experience at Sanofi contributed both professionally and personally.

3.1 Professional Contributions

I undertook a six month trainee or internship program at French pharmaceutical company called
Sanofi in Paris starting from April 2019. I was one among the other six interns who were hired
at Sanofi. Except me all the other interns who were hired were from the pharmaceutical
background and I had a background in digital marketing. In addition, I was not in the hope of
getting the job after the program at Sanofi instead I was here to learn and understand the
functioning of the healthcare sector during the internship program.

Sanofi being the global leader in the healthcare sector, wants to progress further in digital
transformation unlike other sectors. During initial few weeks, I was asked to read some internal
articles to know more about the organisation structure, product portfolio, competitors and the
markets in which Sanofi has its presence along with some small tasks, which involved
analysing market revenues across each countries subsidiaries globally.

From this I got to learn how much revenue Sanofi’s subsidiaries were generating and
contributing to the group each year and by this I could analyse, which is the biggest market for
Sanofi in terms of net profit. Although it was a small task which was assigned to me in the
beginning, it really helped me to see the overall picture of the groups’ progress in terms of

29 
 
market share, who are its competitors in the market, understand product portfolio etc. which is
very essential for a marketer to know about.

During the internship program the next task which was assigned to me was to perform a
competitive analysis on, one of its competitors in digital domain. From this mission I learned
how to analyse the competitors by performing SWOT analysis and then by researching on their
footprints in digital transformation. In addition, I also gained some knowledge on how digital
technologies are being used in the healthcare sector. This further gave me an idea on what
digital tools are currently been used in the healthcare sector and what improvements can be
done for the betterment of the organisation in digital aspects. Performing this task was a bit
easier for me, since I had carried out several projects during my MBA classes; which in turn
helped me at Sanofi to carry out this task at ease.

Looking at my interest in digital technologies and fortunately Sanofi being the gold partner for
one of the most renowned technological event called ‘VIVA Tech’ happening in Paris every
year, among other interns my manager nominated my name for this event. I was representing
Sanofi at this event and I got to learn on the latest digital trends which will be hitting the market
in the near future. For instance, one of the start-up had developed a Chatbot using artificial
intelligence platform (AI) for people suffering from depression and with this new therapy they
can interact with the Chatbot through chats and ask any questions thereby replacing the drugs.
From this, I could see how technologies are directly impacting on the people’s behaviour in the
healthcare sector. During my classes, I would hear about these innovations and by watching
videos, However It gives an immense pleasure by seeing them live and believing it. This further
changed my perception on seeing things and made me believe that nothing is impossible.

As I had carried out several diverse missions at Sanofi, One such activity involved online poll
for a live-streaming session. In this activity, although I had previously worked on WordPress
platform during my MBA classes; it was bit difficult in the beginning to work on a new
platform called Drupal CMS. But from this task, I got an opportunity to enhance my skills by
learning the new CMS platform, plugins and its functionality; which can be further used in
accomplishing the tasks. As a result, I got a deeper understanding on CMS platforms and with
this experience, I can definitely work on any platforms used for website creation or
modifications.

By working in a pharmaceutical company, I got deep insights on the activities which are taking
place inside the healthcare sector i.e. market segment, customer, target audience etc. In

30 
 
addition, I also got deep understanding on how important and difficult it is to set the
confidentiality policy, since a lot of customer data will be involved and further the healthcare
sector has to prevent certain sensitive information to get leaked. Moreover, at Sanofi there is a
strict practice to follow the guidelines of GDPR which was put into practice in May 2018 and
I noticed how all the employees adhere to these guidelines. Further, it was easy for me to
understand when people were talking on the GDPR guidelines; since we had learnt during one
of the courses during our MBA classes. So by working at healthcare sector, I got to understand
how important it is to maintain the database with high level of security and to prevent it from
security breach.

Further during my internship program at Sanofi, I developed both Interpersonal and

quantifiable skills which are very essential for a marketer to have within. In addition as this job
required a lot of knowledge in digitally marketing i.e. Knowledge on website platforms,
Measure campaigns through emails or other digital channels, suggest improvements for
alternatives etc., I believe that I made use of my digital marketing skills in order to carry out
the assigned tasks; which I had acquired during my course or through my work experience.

Lastly, when I look back at the start of my Internship, I can notice that I had lacked some
knowledge on how pharma industry was operating and targeting its audiences through digital
channels and some of the skills in technical aspects like Adobe Campaign and Drupal CMS.
Most importantly, my managers and other colleagues at work were happy to refer me for any
open positions within the industry. This experience at Sanofi will surely help during job search
and in case of any references required.

Finally, I close by saying that the learning and ability acquired during this training program
were the things that supplemented and upgraded the knowledge that I got during my classroom
sessions.

3.2 Personal Contributions

My internship experience at Sanofi has taught me more than what I ever imagined, In short I
would like to say it was outstanding experience as right from the beginning I had dreamt of
working for a healthcare sector. As a digital marketing intern, I feel my roles and
responsibilities at Sanofi were diverse and challenging every day. Moreover, sometimes it’s
hard to recall all the tasks what I had carried out in past few months during this internship

31 
 
program, but in this section I would like to mention the qualities and skills that I gained from
this experience; which in turn will surely benefit on my personal front.

This internship being my first position in the healthcare sector, I didn’t know exactly how
things would work in the healthcare sector. The working ambience at Sanofi was excellent and
just by observing the day to day activities; taught me more on teamwork and how people
connect with each other for getting the tasks done. My managers and other colleagues at Sanofi
were helpful and were always at the verge to give advice and support in case of need.

In addition, I got to learn a lot from my managers i.e. although they had a busy schedule each
day, would manage to respond to the emails received and from this I learnt to respond to all
the emails that I get and moreover my manager would insist me to ask questions in case of any
doubt or query. These skills I would definitely use in my personal life as well, while
communicating with other persons. Further, I found that my manager and other colleagues
would appreciate me for asking more and more questions and ensure that I understood what I
am supposed to do and do it right the first time. Now that I am aware asking questions is a good
sign to clarify doubts and I won’t have to face any hurdles in my next job.

Moreover, I would like to express by saying; Professional Communication and Networking

was one of the most important and apparent skills that I acquired during the internship program
and definitely I would like to use these skills in my personal life as well. During the internship
period, I would communicate with managers at senior level positions, marketing agencies or
other colleagues globally to exchange professional talks or discuss on the projects and this
helped me to gain experience on how to communicate with people at all levels.

Unlike other companies, Healthcare being one of the most challenging sector for implementing
digital marketing strategies since it involves a lot of regulatory restrictions like they cannot
promote their prescription drugs online through ads or landing pages etc. This experience gave
me an idea on how we can implement digital marketing strategies in the healthcare sector apart
from promoting ads over the web. However on personal front it opened my mind to explore
opportunities and made me think that there are other ethical ways to handle things in life and
can be used across any sectors.

Overall I would like to say working at Sanofi truly gave a valuable experience not only
professional but on personal front as well and I can count this experience as another stepping
stone in my career path. From this internship, I improved my skills a lot which in turn can be

32 
 
used in my personal life and this experience not only gave me a positive learning instead it acts
like a resume builder as well.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I must admit that my time spent interning with Sanofi will be one of the best
experiences of my life. During the internship program, not only I got an opportunity to increase
my professional and practical skills but also got a chance to meet and network with many
people, which I am sure would be able to help me at any point of time if the opportunity arises.

As I said earlier, the working atmosphere at Sanofi was always welcoming which in turn boosts
confidence in carrying out the tasks with ease. During the internship, I learned to organize my
work by prioritizing the activities based on the urgency of need. With this I would be able to
complete the assigned tasks within the scheduled time. In addition this internship at Sanofi
helped me in identifying my strengths and weaknesses, which surely will help me in improving
my skills and knowledge in the near future.

Moreover through this internship I got to see how digital marketing tools can be applied in the
healthcare sector and how different it is when being used in other sectors like automotive,
manufacturing etc. Further as the healthcare sectors had a high level of confidentiality in
protecting their data especially those data which can reveal the patients identity like name,
gender etc. and I got to learn from this internship that these sensitive information’s should
always be treated separate from that of numbers while uploading the information online.

I always believe that one of the best ways to learn things faster is by doing it and I would like
to thank my team at Sanofi for believing in me and offer this internship position. Lastly I would
like to mention that EMLV business school has done an excellent job by including the
internship program in the Digital Marketing Strategy (DMS) program curriculum as it helps
the students to gain some practical experience and further motivates them to understand and
adapt to the life outside university.

33 
 
References

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/media/project/one-sanofi-web/websites/global/Sanofi-
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2019 Shareholder Handbook. (2019). Retrieved 6 August 2019, from https://www.sanofi.com/-

/media/Project/One-Sanofi-Web/Websites/Global/Sanofi-
COM/Home/en/investors/docs/Sanofi-CarnetActionnaire2019-EN-PDF-e-
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content/uploads/2019/04/Servier_Annual-Report_2018.pdf

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account&utm_campaign=demoaccount#/realtime/rt-
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Rubin, K. (2012, January 11). The Ultimate List of Email SPAM Trigger Words [blog post].
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36 
 
APPENDIX
 

Appendix I: History of Sanofi

 
Source: (“Sanofi at a glance”, 2019)

Appendix II: Servier Production Sites and R&D Centres

 
Source : (“Annual Report 2017/2018”, 2019)

37 
 
Appendix III: SWOT Analysis of Servier

 
Source: Created by author

Appendix IV: Key Figures of Servier

 
Source: (“Key figures – Servier”, n.d.)

38 
 
 

Appendix V: Servier – International Partnership with companies

 
Source: (“Annual Report 2017/2018”, 2019)
 

Appendix VI: How Pharmaceutical Companies make use of Email marketing?

 

 
Source: Created by author

39 
 
 

Appendix VII: List of Email SPAM Trigger Words in Medicine

 

 
Source: (Rubin, 2012)

Appendix VIII: Examples of KPIs to Measure Email Conversion – DeliveryRate

Source: ("What is Delivery Rate", 2019)

40 
 
Appendix IX: Examples of KPIs to Measure Email Conversion – Open Rate

 
Source: (Rana, 2018)

Appendix X: Examples of KPIs to Measure Email Conversion – Click Through Rate

 
Source: (Brebion, 2018)
 

41