Performance Benchmark: Optimizing Marketing Staff Levels to Drive Growth

The benchmarks developed by this assessment are prepared to aid marketing organizations with direction for strategic and tactical marketing activities to support their product portfolios in optimizing growth and profitability rates. The Study engaged more than 60 Marketing leaders in the field research, probing critical marketing productivity factors.

Among the questions that this research addressed are the following:

• What staffing and productivity levels exist across healthcare business models?
• What growth and profit margin levels characterize high performance?
• What strategic marketing activities are most important and consume the greatest resources?

• Number of Products Supported Per Tactical Marketing FTE (Branded and Medical Devices)
• Number of Strategic Marketing FTEs per $100 Million (Branded and Medical Devices)
• Time & Activity Benchmarks for Strategic Marketing Staff (Branded and Medical Devices)
• Strategic Marketing Staff Benchmarks Across Key Activities (Branded and Medical Devices)
• Tactical Marketing Staff Benchmarks Across Key Activities (Branded and Medical Devices)

Study Snapshot

Sixty marketing executives representing either full-company or unique business unit perspectives participated in the field research representing forty-five bio-pharmaceutical, medical device and generic companies.

Key Findings

Marketing Improvement Opportunities Reside Along Four Fronts & Opportunity Type Varies Across Different Business Units:

• Structure: No one structure is ideal across all businesses, each organization must identify their unique situation and properly align structure to optimize resource allocation while allowing for flexibility to meet with opportunities and challenges as they arise.
• Staffing: Businesses should continually review staffing alignment with business objectives to ensure that brands are properly resourced within the scope of the portfolio to optimize revenue growth and profit margins.
• Marketing Activity: Each business unit has opportunities to shift and optimize marketing activities over time to optimize portfolio growth rates throughout the product lifecycle.
• Growth & Margin Rate: Given the vast disparity between high-and low-growth and margin products, each organization must understand its unique situation and focusresources to align with proper business objectives. Marketing staffing and activity optimization can help enhance growth rates –and in the right situations, margin rates as well.