Pharmaceutical District Manager Benchmarks: Planning for Sales Growth and Effectiveness

The role of the District Sales Manager is in the midst of change, as market forces continue to reshape the pharmaceutical sales model and impact reps' strategies and tactics. Workforce reductions and the declining use of sales team mirroring are decreasing the need for monitoring and coordinating reps, while limitations on rep and DM access to physicians’ offices is diminishing the opportunity to accompany sales representatives on office visits.

Best Practices, LLC initiated this research to help executives who oversee or train bio-pharmaceutical field sales staff to understand how industry pressures are accelerating sales force evolution and impacting district manager effectiveness. Executives can use the forward-looking benchmarks in this report to plan and implement changes needed to help DMs sustain high performance levels.

Industries Profiled:
Biotech; Health Care; Pharmaceutical; Diagnostic; Medical Device; Chemical; Research


Companies Profiled:
Actelion; ConvaTec; Abbott; Meda Pharmaceuticals; Amgen; Tiber Laboratories; Amylin; Boehringer Ingelheim; Bristol-Myers Squibb; CSL Behring; Cegedim; Cubist Pharmaceuticals; Eisai; Egis; Lilly; Genentech; GlaxoSmithKline; Linde; Lundbeck; Medtronic; Medrad; Merial; Sanofi-aventis; Novartis; Ortho-McNeil; Pfizer; Roche; Shire; Solvay Pharmaceuticals; Tibotec; Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Schering-Plough

Study Snapshot

First-line field sales management insights were harvested from online surveys involving 94 sales leaders from 46 different pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies across 24 different countries on six continents. Interestingly, most key themes cross countries and continents.

Key topics include:

• Project Overview
• Key Insights
• Detailed Findings
• Appendix

Sample Key Findings

In the next three years, DMs must be able to support reps' efforts to navigate complex reimbursement systems and explain evidenced-based medicines to physicians. Ninety-six percent of companies expect evidence-based medicine will likely play a greater role in sales. Eighty-seven percent of companies indicate the field needs to know more aboutcomplex reimbursement systems.

• Nearly 60 percent of companies are actively revising the training curriculum for DMs. In the next three years, setting strategic direction, conducting local market analysis, managing budget and solving problems will rise in importance for DM tasks. Fifty-five percent of companies are providing greater analytics and decision-training for DMs to differentiate local market priorities and plans.

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