Hardly a surprise, given all the sales reps who are being thrown overboard these days. In case you were wondering, though, about the actual decline in investment, spending on sales forces fell by nearly 5 percent worldwide last year, to $55.8 billion, with most of the cuts attributed to the US and Japan, according to Cegedim Strategic Data, a consulting and market research firm.
Overall, worldwide investment on sales forces and other marketing channels declined 3.4 percent to slightly more than $92 billion, at constant local currency exchange rates, compared with 2010. Again, no surprise that growth in China, Latin America and other so-called emerging markets was offset by cuts in sales and marketing in the US, Japan and major European markets.
Meanwhile, the reliance on meetings and events also dropped globally by 4 percent, although this activity plunged 11 percent in Japan. Conversely, spending on meetings and events in China rose by more than 40 percent. We have asked Cegedim to provide specific spending figures and, if they comply, we will provide an update (here is the release).
Although specific names were not mentioned, only two of the ten-largest drugmakers increased their worldwide promotional spending last year. And reflecting the cuts in North America, only three multinational drugmakers that are based in the US ranked among the Top 10 in terms of global promotional spending.
4 Comments
Hopefully this resulted in a 5% weight loss by the office cows from fewer rep lunches.
This comment on a rep board says there is more room for cutting:
"Funny you asked. I actually kept up with real face-to-face time, not including a lunch. On 8 calls, it amounted to about 6 minutes for the day. I made about $110,000 last year.If the average month has 20 work days (no vacation or holidays figured in) that's 240 days a year x 6 minutes which is 1,440 minutes. 1,440 /60 min. = 24 hours for the year. That means I make $4,583 per hour of actual selling time!! Throw in vacation/holidays/meeting and I make even more !!!!! Tell me, where in the hell can a 4 year education major make this kind of money???? THIS IS THE SWEETEST GIG IN THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD!!!!!!!
May I observe that the issues of actually getting / setting up the appointment and travel "from point A to b thru h" seems to be conspicuously absent? It was my observation that 'getting there' (and back) was NOT half the fun - which doesn't invalidate the rep's math but to again quote Mark Twain:
"Facts are stubborn things but statistics are more pliable."
Observer, for mommy reps, getting from point A to point B involves stops C, D, E, and F, to places like the Day Care center, the gym, the nail salon, PTA meetings, etc. For the guys, it is usually only one extra stop, but that stops takes four hours to squeeze in a round of golf.