Pharmaceutical Competitive Intelligence Budgets Grow 62%

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have increased their competitive intelligence (CI) budgets in the U.S. by an average 62% over the last four budget cycles according to a new study conducted by Cutting Edge Information.
“Competitive intelligence teams are often the first to get cut during a cost-cutting cycle,” said David Richardson, research team leader at Cutting Edge Information. “But during a tough economic period where we would have expected companies to cut funding for market research and competitive intelligence activities, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies actually increased their spending.”

The study, “Strategic Pharmaceutical Competitive Intelligence,” found that competitive intelligence budgets rose from just under $1.07 million in 2008 to an average $1.73 million per team this year. But even at these increased budget levels, the study found that most competitive intelligence teams are still undervalued and underutilized. Sufficient budget and staffing resources are essential for companies’ competitive intelligence efforts to excel.

“An underfunded competitive intelligence team cannot produce world-class results,” said Adam Bianchi, chief operating officer at Cutting Edge Information. “Competitive Intelligence teams struggle to add strategic value to the information they deliver without proper resources. Rather than anticipating internal clients’ needs and enabling them to make the most informed choices, underperforming CI teams can do little aside from providing competitor data. Even that is with an organizational voice too quiet to impact strategic decisions.”

In addition to analyzing the budget increases for competitive intelligence teams, Cutting Edge Information’s study also found that 72 percent of those dollars are now earmarked for outsourced activities. Few drug companies have a large enough CI team to design projects, execute them and analyze the resulting competitor data. Drug companies must work with competitive intelligence vendors on various activities, such as war gaming, opportunity analysis or regulatory intelligence.

“Strategic Pharmaceutical Competitive Intelligence” (http://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/research/market-intelligence/pharmaceutical-competitive-intelligence) is designed to help biopharmaceutical competitive intelligence teams increase their effectiveness and better communicate their value. The study’s benchmarking metrics focus on key goals identified by research partners:

* Link dedicated competitive intelligence budgets to top-level corporate goals

* Create a thriving competitive intelligence culture

* Get competitive intelligence recommendations directly into the hands of key decision-makers

* Budget and staffing data for both the U.S. and Europe

Other News