Strategy Execution and Executive Team Alignment with IT: Pharma

Strategy Execution and Executive Team Alignment

Improving Strategy Execution and Senior Team Alignment at a Global Pharma Company

Client Case Study

Situation: Strategy Execution and Executive Team Alignment

Three years before the engagement began, this global pharmaceutical company with $25B+ in annual revenues acquired another large, global pharmaceutical provider, which resulted in a 70% increase in global operations – much of it in Europe. The VP of European Operations was charged with merging the operations of the combined company’s IT systems – and realizing major savings in the process.

Complications: Strategy Execution and Executive Team Alignment

  • Lack of Collaboration
    The VP recognized that the critical first step in this transformation was to build a strong leadership team. Europe had been organized regionally, with little communication among the various countries. They needed to pull the countries together to explore synergies, while also beginning to link them to the corporate headquarters in the United States.
  • Skepticism
    They faced healthy doses of fear and change skepticism among the country leaders – and a tight time-frame dictated by corporate headquarters.
  • Workplace Politics
    To make matters worse, they were experiencing repeated communication failures with her boss, the CTO.

Approach: Strategy Execution and Executive Team Alignment

The VP of European Operations moved to Europe for one year while she led this transformation.

Her first step: ask her boss if she could have a professional coach, explaining that her Number One goal was to change the state of their relationship by improving their communication. He said yes, and she began working with us on an individual coaching plan that centered on 360-degree feedback from members of her European team.

After reviewing and processing the feedback, she stood in front of the team, shared what she had learned, and described her action plan. After addressing her shortcomings, she outlined the expectations and goals she had for the team and the organization.

This meeting was followed immediately by the launch of a Senior Team Alignment Process — a series of impactful working offsite strategy retreats designed to:

Early in the process, we worked with her and her team to clearly define roles and responsibilities, re-think the organizational structure, and build a culture of openness that would facilitate continuous communication and interaction across the region during the transformation.

To ensure alignment, we walked her and her team through the process of developing a Strategy Communication Map that was linked to corporate IT’s Strategic plan. The European version of the document was designed to help everyone in the organization understand the objectives of the transformation, how the specific changes would contribute to these objectives, and how the changes tied into the company’s overall IT strategy.

Knowing that effective communication was a weak spot, she hired a communications expert to work with each leader on status reports, which are sent to her so that she can keep the CTO apprised of progress in Europe. We also encouraged her to initiate one-on-one meetings with the CTO every two weeks and to form a European advisory council composed of the business and IT leaders from across Europe

Results: Strategy Execution and Executive Team Alignment
In twelve months:

  • $2M in savings from reorganizing Germany and Italy offices
  • $1M in savings from transforming the company’s manufacturing operations in Ireland, France, Italy, Sweden, and the UK
  • $1M in savings from reevaluating and renegotiating a major vendor contract for the Manufacturing group, while greatly improving service
  • $2.7M in savings from reorganizing a key R&D site

Related Information

LSA has a tremendous ability to distil complex, multilayered challenges into meaningful, impactful, and clear strategies and action plans.

The time we invested as a leadership team to get aligned was well spent in gaining laser focus and identifying ways to prioritize what was meaningful individually and as a team. The facilitation and leadership style was direct, firm, and compassionate.

LSA provided the high level thinking and support for our team to co-create in a rapidly scaling business.

Bindu Garapaty, PsyD
VP, Talent and Inclusion, Diversity, & Equity

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The LSA customized Organizational Alignment Survey gave us a comprehensive view of how our employees experience our culture, talent, and strategy.

The systemic approach provided us with a great forum to discuss the strengths and opportunities in our organization, and then to quickly get focused on the key actions critical to executing our business and people strategies.

Mark Forrest
General Manager, FSM Division

Trimble

We selected LSA Global over 5 other companies to help our key executives improve their overall communication and executive presentation capabilities. LSA exceeded our expectations.

I highly recommend LSA to any executive team looking to better organize and more effectively deliver key executive-level messages — especially when the stakes are high.

Todd Power
Office of the CEO

Thank you for a great leadership development session today. The facilitator was brilliant.  The team got a lot out of it (as did I).

I believe it will help us create an even higher performance culture by ensuring we have a common understanding of how to create higher performance and work toward clear and common strategic goals.

Simon Jefferson
Managing Director

AKQA

We got great value from the executive strategy session.  We would not hesitate to use LSA again with our Executive Leadership Team.

Natalie McCullough
Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer

Service Source

Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team to increase our level of strategic alignment, to solidify our new direction, and to push our agency forward.

As we look to rapidly scale, the clear, actionable, and critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves to our top accounts and target clients has really set us on a great path to success.

This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level. Thank you LSA!

Matt Britton
CEO

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LSA’s executive coach based his approach on understanding our business circumstances and strategy, as well as our leadership aspirations. The customized coaching covered all aspects of leadership; it was not simply a touchy-feely endeavor.

In fact, the focus on clear business outcomes and real life circumstances challenged me as a senior leader to develop my thinking and actions related to leading the business.”

Janet Pagano
Managing Director

Ovid

LSA was very thorough during all phases of our customer service strategy process.  Their time spent with management and our employees went very well.

LSA’s insights were very powerful, and their suggestions for the future were very valuable.

I can’t think of any phase of the process that wasn’t first class.

John Lynch
CEO & President

ESCI

Working on our HR Strategy was so eye opening.  I feel so much better prepared to be successful as a leader individually and collectively.

Now the entire HR leadership team can drive our growth strategy forward in a way that makes sense.

Kristin Talastas
Director, HR Shared Services

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I can’t emphasize enough what a huge shift you helped to create for us as an organization. Thanks again for your change management consulting help and guidance.

The clarity, practicality, focus, and accountability are exactly what we needed to make this strategy and major transformation a success from a hearts and minds perspective.

Cris Alvarez
VP Corporate Strategy

LSA Global Cambridge Investment Research Financial Services Client

As a high growth agency with cutting edge talent, we hired LSA Global to help clarify our strategy and work with our executive leadership team to help implement strategic changes in a way that made sense for our unique culture.

The work was so successful that we also hired them to coach our key leaders. LSA has been instrumental in helping us transition to a new leadership team and triple revenue.  In this age of useless consultants, I highly recommend their practical and business-oriented approach to strategy, culture, and talent.

David Bentley
General Manager

AKQA

LSA has a very unique and powerful methodology regarding learning. Their ability to overcome skepticism, obtain executive support, and create an aligned learning strategy that provides measurable business impact is second to none.

They understand your goals, flex to your needs, and solve problems. They certainly help make my job easier and are a pleasure to work with.

I highly recommend LSA to anyone trying to connect the dots between strategy, skills, knowledge, and results.

Noelle Van Vlierbergen
Human Resources Director

AKQA

You have become our premier change leadership strategic partner. Your expertise in the human side of change is unparalleled and enabled our company to successfully implement our ERP Solution under challenging and ever-changing circumstances.

Thank you for your practical and outcome-oriented approach.

Ted Ramlet
CIO & SVP

McKesson

At a time of change in our marketplace, LSA Global did an exceptional job helping our executive team create strategic clarity by helping us to define, clarify, and prioritize our corporate vision, mission, values, differentiation, target clients, strategic priorities, success metrics and key roles.

They beautifully navigated a very difficult and fuzzy situation, respectfully cleared out all of the cultural elephants, and shared impactful insights and leadership development theories along the way. They have transformed our business.

Laurie Sewell
President & CEO

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Having taken on a new executive leadership role, one of my first calls was to LSA Global to help my leadership team to design, implement, and cascade clear strategic plans.  First, LSA helped our leadership team identify the strategy, culture, and talent areas that mattered most to create organizational alignment.

Then they helped facilitate the design of a strategic growth plan that is clear, compelling, believable, and implementable. We now have 100% commitment from an aligned leadership team and key stakeholders going forward.

I would recommend LSA to anyone who wants to create high levels of strategic alignment, growth, and performance.

Erik Arvesen
Vice President, General Manager

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