At DKSH we define commercial outsourcing as the contracting of sales, marketing, and other commercial services from an external partner for some or all of an organization’s product portfolios.
Of the healthcare decision-makers (in brand owning companies) who were surveyed, 56 percent of the companies plan to maintain the outsourcing of commercial activities to a third party, 27 percent plan to increase more, and eight percent plan to increase much more outsourcing activities in the upcoming 12 months.
Only 8 percent of companies expect to decrease their activities. Compared to 2017 when DKSH conducted a similar survey, around 20 percent of companies planned to decrease their activities. This implies that, in the recent survey, more companies see value in commercial outsourcing and see it as an important part of their growth strategy.