Press Release
Critical Job Skills, Career Progression are Key Issues for Sales Operations Leadership
TGaS® Advisors’ First Organizational Career Guide Provides Direction for Top Positions
East Norriton, Penn., August 11, 2009 – Gaining a voice at the pharmaceutical leadership level, finding and retaining the best people in uncertain times and defining career paths are critical issues for Sales Operations leadership, according to a new White Paper from TGaS Advisors, a leader in benchmarking and advisory services to the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry.
The new publication conveys top line findings of the Organizational Career Guide (OCG) Benchmark, the first industry-wide benchmark for job practices and standards in Sales Operations, profiling Heads of Sales Operations and Direct Reports and providing data on skill sets needed for these jobs. TGaS Advisors traced the path followed by Heads of Sales Operations – who they are, where they came from, the skills they value most and the scope of their responsibilities.
A key message of the OCG Benchmark, according to Jeff Wojcik, TGaS Advisors Principal and Sales Operations Practice Leader, is the importance of defining career paths in Sales Operations, which may not be the usual “up-the-ladder” approach: “These paths may look more like winding roads than a traditional upward trajectory, but strategic career development planning can prepare future leaders with broader, more diverse skills and experiences better suited to the complexities of a changing industry.”
Other major findings:
- The days of rotational jobs – field to headquarters to field – are over. As Sales Operations has grown in complexity, higher level strategic and analytical skills are at a premium.
- For Sales Operations leadership, the top skills are people management, strategic planning and analytics – rates two times higher than operational skills.
- Few companies had formalized training geared to Sales Operations leadership development, but the need is clear.
The White Paper, “Benchmarking Current Practices: An Organizational Career Guide for Pharmaceutical Sales Operations” reports data collected from 35 respondents at Director level and above, representing 12 of the industry’s leading companies. The complete OCG Benchmark is available only to clients.
[Year Two data collection to begin September 2009.]
About TGaS® Advisors LLC
TGaS Advisors, ranked ninth among health-related companies by the Inc. 500, is the leader in benchmarking and advisory services to the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry. The TGaS Advisors roster includes nine of the top 10 and the majority of the top 50 pharmaceutical companies with operations in the U.S. market. The firm’s benchmarking and advisory services suite of solutions, PharmaStance®, provides clients with a way to measure where they stand with respect to their organizations and answers the question, “How do other pharmaceutical companies do ‘it’?”® TGaS Advisors is based in East Norriton, Pennsylvania.
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