Strategic Pharmaceutical Competitive Intelligence (PH142)

Pharmaceutical Competitive Intelligence Report Sample

The following excerpt is taken from Chapter 1, "Positioning Competitive Intelligence for Maximum Strategic Impact." The full report explores trends in structuring competitive intelligence to influence strategic planning.

Create a Dedicated Competitive Intelligence Team that Communicates with Strategic Decision Makers

The executive leadership team's needs may be few and far between compared to those of the individual brands or business units. So it is important to develop a competitive intelligence team that can support product managers and directors, but also the C-level executives who generate corporate strategy. Cutting Edge Information's survey found that, on average, only 1% of responding companies' competitive intelligence time is spent serving C-level executives. Figure 1.2 (which appears in the full report) shows that 37% of the time, competitive intelligence teams serve the marketing function. The next-highest percentage of time spent is 20% for market research.

Company 2's competitive intelligence structure is more closely aligned with its product teams and strategic business units. However, the competitive intelligence organization is structured in such a way that it can oversee CI requests that originate within the executive leadership team. However, those projects that senior leaders requested rarely required the same level of in-depth CI research as individual product directors' requests. Therefore, it was actually more valuable to the company's director of competitive intelligence to have his team aligned closely with the brands. In this way, the CI team could better understand the needs of a product director or brand manager who is responsible for a $3 billion product, including how he or she protects the drug's position in the marketplace and thinks strategically about the competition and environment. However, Company 2 avoided shielding its competitive intelligence function from senior leadership. Instead, the group is encouraged to seek out requests from high-level executives in charge of corporate strategic planning. According to one interviewed executive from Company 2, "It's a matter of being close to the parts of the company that have critical responsibilities and are critical to generating revenue."

The following is excerpted from Chapter 2, "Competitive Intelligence Resources, Responsibilities and Tools." For detailed information on the expanding roles for competitive intelligence teams, please see the full report.

Providing Intelligence on Managed Care

Virtually every interviewed and surveyed competitive intelligence team is starting to — or is at least considering — monitoring competitor activities within the managed care arena. For most companies surveyed, CI coverage of managed care teams is either limited at best or non-existent. Teams trying to enter this space will face uncertainty about ethical and legal approaches to gathering intelligence. While admitting it is difficult to gather information on specific competitor contracts, one executive affirmed that "We'd love to know what our competitors are doing on that front."

"It is such an important area to know about," this executive added. "The world is moving to a much more payer-centric space where the contracts you sign with payers are crucial. But we would need to figure out how to even ask those questions ethically or legally." Some companies are working at the forefront of this new frontier. At Company 1, for example, the competitive intelligence team already uses half of 1 FTE to monitor top managed care issues. This person tends to rely on information that is publicly available, along with information gleaned from the company's own market access group. To probe deeper into specific issues, the team employs a managed care consultant. This consultant attends various trade group and managed care meetings to uncover pieces of actionable intelligence.

To this point, Company 1's team uses this approach to focus on the national accounts levels of managed care. The group is in the process of determining how to access more local-level information in a fashion that is both thorough and efficient with team resources. At Company 7, the managed care group monitors the primary competitive intelligence. However, the CI team works closely with the group to help them understand what to look for, such as shifts and trends that can signal long-term changes and competitor maneuvering. This approach combines CI's tactical expertise with managed care's subject area knowledge. As one executive puts it, internal market access groups are often the best resource for gathering managed care intelligence. As he put it, "They have their tentacles out there in all sorts of ways." The challenge lies in helping them make sense of information they may already be gathering.

The following is excerpted from Chapter 3, "Budgets, Staffing and Performance Measurement." The full study provides detailed information on US, European and some European country-level budgets, as well as other resource allocation data.

European Competitive Intelligence Budgets

Figure 3.8 shows the collection of budgets gathered from companies' competitive intelligence groups serving the European market (Figure 3.8 appears in the full report). As shown, two of the data points are budgets covering all European spending while the other two represent competitive intelligence spending in the specific countries listed.

Much like the budgets of teams covering the US market, the sampling of teams covering the European market range from extensive to less extensive (Company O's $3 million in 2010 to Company N's $350,000). Budgets at the country level range from $50,000 to $120,000 for companies surveyed. One interviewed executive revealed that competitive intelligence people on the ground in many countries are the best, most reliable method for gathering information. They have the deepest, most nuanced knowledge of key competitors and trends at work in their specific markets.