Half of US pharma companies indicated they are moving towards outsourcing their sales training this year, compared to only 33 per cent of other international pharma firms, according to research by market intelligence firm, Best Practices.
Cameron Tew, Senior Research Associate at Best Practices, puts the US drive towards sales training outsourcing down to new product launches, sales force expansion and in-house staff and capability gaps.
"US companies are realising that many aspects of sales training, such as regulatory compliance issues, product knowledge, communication skills and sales pitches are better delivered by external experts in the field," said Tew.
"Firms know that if you increase the quality of training their staff receive, this will translate to increased revenue down the line," he said.
In addition, many companies don't have the large internal infrastructure required to conduct proper training in-house and outsourcing can free up precious time and resources and ultimately save firms money, said Tew.
The trend in this segment of the US market is also fuelled by the fact that US pharma companies receive a larger sales outsourcing budget than their international counterparts, with a quarter of the entire sales budget allocated to outsourcing, compared to only 12 per cent in other international pharma firms.
"As outsourcing strategies gradually trickle down from head offices in the US, we will see this budget gap close and sales training outsourcing grow throughout the world to catch up with the US," said Tew.