Know-How Exchange : Strategy

In terms of the quantity of people, if you've never had staff dedicated to market research before, I think a budget that size would likely require at least two people (see major caveat below, however), a lead person and a support person. It would also probably be best to limit to 2 people (and absolutely no more than 3 at the very most) in order to demonstrate results before making a larger department.

The bigger question, though, is not how many people, but what kind of people for which you want to plan. Depending on how heavily you plan on statistical analysis, experience with certain types of data/methodologies, etc., your lead person may range from anyone with a B.A. and a certain type of experience to a PhD. This information will also at least partially drive the answer to the main question, since staff with certain types/amount of experience may require more support than others.

Hope this helps!

Dear dcquy2525

I’ve got a feeling that Randall (WMMA) asked you to contact him off site so that he could spare you the embarrassment which comes from asking silly questions in a public forum.

Let’s just imagine this question, re-phrased from the perspective of a phase III clinical trials director, carrying out independent tests on your products to verify their efficacy for some therapy or other. How does this sound?

“I understand that the some of the new molecules your R and D guys have developed have indicated in pre-clinical studies to be effective against galloping whoopsie and a range of other conditions right across the spectrum. Could you give me a benchmark as to how many tablets I should give the patients on our forthcoming trial and how many researchers we will need to run the trial without killing anyone? I also understand that all these new drugs are toxic, so could you also indicate how many tablets are considered a safe dose. The only other thing you need to know is that we can spend up to $4.5 Million on this trial and that I’ve got one project manger at the moment.”

“PS I am a manager, so please don’t send me baffling scientific stuff, just tell me how many pills and how many doctors”

Bit crass, eh? Of course you would never get such a cack-handed approach being applied in the R&D side of Pharma, so why do it in marketing?

Benchmarks tell you nothing because the only marketing figures which apply to you, your company, your markets and your products are the ones which you work out for yourself based on an analysis of needs and the evolution of a marketing plan which meets those needs and their associated commercial goals.

I’ve worked with most large bio tech and pharmaceutical companies and there is a staggering amount of cross departmental ignorance of techniques, methodology and internal knowledge which really should be shared. Setting up a new MR programme is not novel and it’s been done before in your own company – possibly several hundred times. I would venture that the only times that any benchmarks will have been deployed was in the early stages your company's history when some gifted scientist said, “Well that seems to work quite well, now how do we go about selling it?”

Best wishes



Steve Alker
Xspirt