U.S. Sales Communications Excellence: Resources, Structure and Processes to Optimize Pharmaceutical Sales Communications
STUDY OVERVIEW
Sales force performance significantly impacts growth and bottom line results. The ability of senior management to effectively disseminate vital information to their sales forces while maximizing selling time is integral to the overall success of all pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
The objective of this benchmarking study was to better understand U.S. pharmaceutical sales communications groups impact and effectiveness. To accomplish this, an online survey was conducted, supplemented with several interviews to gather more detailed accounts of how executives have shaped their communication functions to support their sales force.
Executives in the pharmaceutical industry can use this report to inform their thinking about the resources, skill-sets and tools needed for their communications group, and what practices and procedures can be used to maximize the impact (and minimize the time taken) on salespeople.
KEY TOPICS
- Communication Volumes
- Communication Headcounts and Investment
- Communication Skill-Sets
- Communication Systems and Training
KEY METRICS
- Number of Recipients per Communications FTE
- Number of Field Recipients per Communications FTE
- Communication Volumes
- Type and Volume of Communication Vehicles
- Communications Size in FTE's
- Cost per Salesperson Served
- FTE Data for VP's, Directors, Managers, Analysts, and Coordinators
- Salary Data for VP's, Directors, Managers, Analysts, and Coordinators
- Importance of Experiences
- Importance of Skill Sets
- Importance of Various Educational Backgrounds
- Intranet Responsibility Levels
- Training Methodologies
SAMPLE KEY FINDINGS
- The typical pharmaceutical organization spends $80-150 per salesperson in salaries for communication employees. The potential time savings (and resulting increased sales time) that an effective communications group can have will ultimately far outweigh this cost.
- Most companies are still not where they want to be in terms of tracking and measuring communications. While roughly 53 percent of the Total Benchmark Class indicated that they do not track communications, and 74 percent stated that they do not measure communications, nearly all participants indicated a desire to do both.
- Experience, whether it be pharma or communications oriented, is also very important for communications employees. The best experience comes from working in a communications group and seeing what works and what doesn’t. There seems to be a general consensus that while a specific experience is not necessary for any particular communications employee, there must be someone on the team or outside of it who can be consulted.
METHODOLOGY
| This research was conducted on behalf of one of Best Practices, LLC's clients in the pharmaceutical industry and was based on survey results from 19 participants from 17 companies. |
Sales and Marketing > Sales Management
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Industries Profiled:
Pharmaceutical; Medical Device; Health Care; Manufacturing
Companies Profiled:
Centocor; Sanofi-aventis; Adams Respiratory Therapeutics; Inc.; Ascend Therapeutics; Cubist Pharmaceuticals; Covidien; Eli Lilly and Company; Endo Pharmaceuticals; GlaxoSmithKline ; LifeScan; Merck; Novartis; Ortho-McNeil; Shire; Solvay Pharmaceuticals; Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Vistakon
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