Serving the Healthcare Needs of Employers: Employer Market Strategies and Tactics

Their efforts focus on building long-term business relationships and working as a kind of consultative partner who can help employers improve not only health outcomes for employees, but also business outcomes in general. The challenge consists in targeting the right employers and demonstrating the link between well-informed benefit design decisions and overall employee productivity.

Although employer market efforts are, on the whole, both young and still evolving, employer market practitioners are encouraged by the willingness of employers to engage with them where they see genuine opportunity for cost savings.

This new benchmarking report frames the current employer market landscape and analyzes how leading companies organize their employer groups, conceive of their efforts, and operate in the field.

Industries Profiled:
Health Care; Pharmaceutical; Diagnostic; Consumer Products; Biotech; Chemical; Medical Device; Education


Companies Profiled:
Alcon Labs; Abbott; Bayer Healthcare; Boehringer Ingelheim; Celgene; Centocor Ortho Biotech; Ethicon Endo-Surgery; Genentech; GlaxoSmithKline; Johnson & Johnson; MediMedia; Novartis; Novo Nordisk; Roche; Solvay Pharmaceuticals; Ther-RX Corporation

Study Snapshot

1. Median time among respondents was 5 years
2. Some initiatives are just getting started
3. Some more mature programs have recently revamped and refocused efforts
• Find the right kind of employers and their key decision makers
  “The goal is to find people that get the concept, and usually thebigger employers we were working with did. There's enough large employers out there thatdo understand the value of a healthy workforce and what impact it has on the bottom line.”

Project Methodology and Study Objectives 3
List of Participating Companies 4
Job Titles of Participants 5
KEY INSIGHTS 6
What Does Pharma See in the Employer Market 7
Employer Market Initiatives Are Still in Their Infancy 8
Organizational Structure 9
Goals Are Not Primarily Commercial 12
Approaches Focus on Specific Employer Needs 13
Tactics Support Relationship-Building 14
Value-Based Benefit Website 15
External Challenges Are Typical of any Business 17
Internal Challenges Are Thornier than External Ones 18
ROI Measurement is Difficult at Best 19
DETAILED STUDY FINDINGS 20
Experience in the Employer Market is Relatively Brief 21
Departmental Location of Employer Market Group 22
Employer Market Groups Are Small 23
Oversight of Employer Market Group Varies Widely 24
National Managers Maintain Oversight of Field Staff 25
Various Disease States Are Addressed 26
Employer Programs Aim at Education and Awareness 27
Programs are Funded Largely by Pharma 28
Specific Products are Rarely Mentioned 29
Large Employers and Coalitions Are Main Targets 30
Contact Points Are Chosen for Ability to Influence 31
Positioning Products Draws on Business Basics 32
Variation in Approach According to Employer Size 33
Few Companies Attempt to Measure ROI 34
Non-ROI Measurements Vary Widely 35
Employers Are Important Players in Healthcare Mix 36
Demonstrating Value Is the Primary Key to Success 37
No Single Obstacle to Success Stands Out 38
APPENDIX 39
Additional Quotes 40
About Best Practices, LLC 44

• Employer group size
• Length of involvement in the employer market space
• Departmental location of employer groups
• Field oversight
• Size of employers served
• Disease states addressed
• Programs used
• Program funding
• Product mentioning and positioning
• ROI measurements
• Biggest keys and obstacles to success