Strength in unity
FORTUNE 500 CORPORATION | BIOPHARMACEUTICALS | UNITED STATES
A biopharma leader partners with ZS—and makes its
forecasting more consistent, transparent and efficient.
BUSINESS ISSUE
Reshaping forecasts from a global perspective
Pharmaceutical companies depend on forecasting to inform
them on issues ranging from evaluating prospective partnerships
to spotting gaps in the portfolio to determining capital and
resource investments. Without a robust forecasting function,
navigating the pharmaceutical market is difficult at best.
Depending upon their situation and philosophy, many
pharmaceutical companies rely on individual affiliates to
generate local forecasts. While affiliates provide valuable
insights about local markets, their individual approaches are
often inconsistent with one another.
Leveraging affiliates for local forecasts can be successful, but
when a pharmaceutical company needs a single global view
of product potential, it can also lead to challenges. Without
a common approach, planners at the corporate level may
struggle to reconcile a conflicting patchwork of different models,
methodologies and even definitions of basic concepts.
Difficulties in building a complete view of the business can
ultimately lead business planning astray.
Case Study FORECASTING
THE PROBLEM
Many affiliates, and many different forecasts
A global biopharmaceutical company was expanding its footprint
and preparing to launch multiple new indications and products.
But the company was not entirely confident in its ability to roll up
forecasts at a global level, given the size and resources required.
“If you could have looked at my hard drive, you’d see the many
folders and number of files and the lack of continuity that
existed,” according to an associate director. “There was never
a way for the different processes to come together.”
The company needed a global process for nearly 40 local
affiliates. Disparities in methodologies threatened to frustrate
planning and affect the quality of consolidated forecasts.
Creating a consistent approach across geographies would be
an enormous task, but transparency and alignment were
essential to the company’s health. “We needed to know what our
revenue and product mix will look like in 2017 and in 2022,”
says the associate director. “If we didn’t control that, the market
would shape those decisions for us.”
THE SOLUTION
Agreement and alignment on the approach
Using ZS’s decision driven forecasting excellence framework,
the company solicited participation from affiliates and regional
leadership to help shape the solution. Overall, the company’s
forecasting operations were transformed by the changes,
which included:
• An integrated global forecasting platform with universal access
via an online portal
• Transparency about how forecast outputs drive decision making
• Clear transition of forecast ownership and improved channels
of communications between global and local teams
• An annual planning kickoff meeting to align global and
regional marketing and forecasting teams on forecasting
and brand strategy
• Ongoing training to support decision driven forecasting
THE RESULTS
Greater capacity and confidence; less frustration
The company’s partnership with ZS has been transformative:
• Greater confidence in forecasts and resulting resource-
allocation decisions for product launches and existing brands
• Threefold efficiency gains with increased forecast volumes for
multiple products, indications and countries
• Buy-in from nearly 40 local affiliates despite initial skepticism
about creating long-term alignment
• Discussion focused on forecast assumptions, business issues
and best practices, rather than technical model conflicts
“I don’t think there are many firms that know the biopharmaceutical
market the way ZS does,” says a senior director for the company.
“I’ve worked with external partners before, but not to this degree of
interaction and collaboration, and certainly not with a partner who
contributed as much as ZS.”

“I don’t think there are many firms

that know the biopharmaceutical
market the way ZS does.
I’ve worked with external
partners before, but not with
a partner who contributed
as much as ZS.”

ZS Associates is a global leader in sales and marketing consulting, outsourcing, technology and software. For almost 30 years, ZS has
helped companies across a range of industries get the most out of their sales and marketing organizations. From 20 offices around the
world, ZS experts use analytics and deep expertise to help companies make smart decisions quickly and cost effectively. ZS comprises
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