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

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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.

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The strategy and alignment work with our leadership team was absolutely transformational.  The decisions we made combined with the transparency, communication, and accountability were exactly what we needed.  Thank you!

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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!

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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.

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LSA helped us to create the strategic clarity and alignment we needed for our team to thrive.

The practical, no-nonsense, and outcome-oriented approach really helped us all get on the same page and set us up to be a high performing leadership team to focus on what matters most.

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LSA Global really shifted our perspective about strategic clarity and organizational culture.

The 3 C’s approach to workplace culture is very practical and really helps executive teams — even skeptical ones — ensure that your culture is healthy, high performing, and aligned.

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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.”

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

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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.

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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

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