Global Sales Effectiveness Initiatives: What Works and What Does Not?

Most large pharmaceutical companies have initiated global or regional programmes to enhance sales performance. In the authors' experience with such productivity enhancement initiatives in hundreds of situtions, there have been clear differentiating factors separating the efforts that work and those that do not. Hugh gobal salesforce budgets, typically 10-20 percent of sales, are the norm for pharmaceutical companies because the drive to grow product sales - new and existing - is intense. But even as the investment has been escalating for many companies, so has the dissatisfaction with the difficulties of organising, motivating, coordinating and running these megaforces.