Benchmarking to improve a strategy and marketing in pharmaceuticals

Purpose - The paper is devoted to benchmark strategic ideas, organizational culture, marketing business processes and key marketing performance measures of the pharmaceutical companies that operate on Ukrainian pharma market in order to determine the best practices and possibilities of their use for the purpose of improving performance outcomes of companies participating in the research. Design/methodology/approach - The AllFusion Process Modeler 7 software was used for processes modeling. The Balanced Scorecard Designer software was used to create balanced scorecard. The classifier of processes at pharmaceutical companies designed by American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) was used when determining marketing processes and building process maps. A marketing analysis (value market share, share of voice, secondary sales dynamics and companies' market share growth dynamics) was carried out in order to estimate the efficiency of marketing process. Findings - The study showed that three pharmaceutical companies have different strategic aims, mission and vision. For the global companies, a strategic aim is "Market takeover", while the local company tries just to retain its position on the market due to some historically prevailing conditions. The study showed that local company's management does not consider marketing as a driving force of the development and sales growth; that is why company lacks marketing culture and marketing department as such is substituted with sales and distribution department. The authors find the needs of structural changes in order to develop, yield profit and avoid acquisition by local pharmaceutical company using the better practice of the global companies. Research limitations/implications - The research is limited by a little number of companies (three) and one country market (Ukraine). Practical implications - The study includes practical recommendations focused on the improvement of financial indicators and profitability of the local pharmaceutical company with a use of benchmarking tools. They can be useful for the other local companies that try to compete with global pharmaceutical companies on the local markets. Originality/value - This paper adopts the various benchmarking tools to improve a strategy and marketing processes for pharmaceutical companies.