Making Organizational Changes

When you’ve been in the life sciences industry for as long as I have, you’ve seen dozens of major organizational changes. Downsizing due to patent losses; re-configurations due to M&A; reactions to new market conditions – you name it.

Ch-ch-ch-changes. They often have a direct impact on the field force.

Training is impacted by these shifts, and often needs to participate through training/re-training personnel. Sometimes, a company needs to call on change management consultants to help with the planning and execution.

Here is a case study provided by one of my partners outlining how they worked with a client to successfully execute a major organizational change requiring a re-structured field force: Case Study Organizational Change

Impactiviti helps you find the optimal vendors for all your outsourced training and consulting needs. Contact us today (asksteve@impactiviti.com) to discuss your needs and we’ll help you with targeted recommendations from our suite of valued partners!

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Are You Heading to LTEN in Phoenix?

I hope to see many of you at the annual LTEN conference in Phoenix next month!

Here’s one thing I hear over and over again each year – the Exhibit Hall is overwhelming!! So many vendors, and so many messages sound the same….where do I begin?

I can help.

One of the things I love to do during the conference is meet up with training colleagues, chat with you about your upcoming challenges, and then guide you to the optimal vendors in the exhibit hall. That makes your networking efforts much more productive.

That’s what Impactiviti is all about. Personalized “matchmaking”of clients and vendors. This is my 19th LTEN/SPBT/NSPST conference, so by now I should have a pretty good idea how to advise you in your vendor selection process!

If you’re interested, just shoot me an e-mail (asksteve@impactiviti.com) and we’ll set up a time during the conference to meet and make targeted introductions. Don’t wait – LTEN is just around the corner!

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Information is Begging for Great Design

We talk a lot about design when outsourcing work to vendors.

Graphical Design. Instructional Design. Interface Design.

But one oft-neglected area is Information Design. This is the art and science of taking a mass of information, and creatively turning into a beautiful, intuitive package that is easy to navigate and consume.

Where would a boutique vendor specializing in information design come in handy? A few ideas:

1. On-boarding packets
2. Career trees
3. Training modules and handouts
4. Slide design
5. Internal and field communications
6. Launches

When people intersect with information, an intuitive and attractive “map” to navigate through from beginning to end is hugely important – but often lacking.

If you’d like to look at some talented resources for this kind of work, let us know here at Impactiviti (stevew at impactiviti dot com). We’ll make the connection.

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Get Your Workshops Here

This year, I’ve had a growing number of requests for workshop recommendations. As 2014 approaches, I expect that to grow – we’re all making plans, right?

So, here’s a short list of workshops Impactiviti can help connect you up with. And, yes, this is just a sample – whatever kind of workshop providers you’re looking for, give Steve Woodruff a call at 973-947-7429.

(the first two listed are ones that I facilitate; the others are by various hand-selected Impactiviti partners):

• Vendor and Project Management
• Building Your Professional Network
• The Digital Future in Pharma (including mobile and smart technologies)
• Managed Markets Landscape (and ACA update)
• Critical Thinking/Business Acumen
• Own Your Room (Effective Facilitation)
• Communicating and Training via On-line Video
• Effective Presentations (Executive and Management levels)
• Effective Business Writing
• Growing Employee Engagement
• Questioning Skills
• Negotiation Skills
• Hospital Selling
• Sharpening Specialty Selling Skills
• Total Office Call/How to Think like a Physician
• Coaching the Millennial Employee
• Deploying Your Strengths to Prevent Conflict
• Delivering the NEW Elevator Pitch

…and many more!

ALSO – if you’re looking for great keynote speakers, I’m connected to some top-notch folks – let’s talk over your needs! Impactiviti is here to brainstorm with you, and connect you with the optimal providers.

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How Not To Go All Squiggly

Don’t go all squiggly. Things can get ugly fast when you don’t apply best practices for vendor and project management (you’ve seen this happen, right?)

So – sign up for the one-day Successful Vendor Management workshop, co-sponsored by SPBT and Impactiviti. The next public session is December 12th in Florham Park, NJ – you (and your colleagues) can sign up right here!

It’ll help you understand how get from A to B without the squiggles.

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Capacity: What Makes a Good Client-Vendor “Fit”?

People sometimes ask me how I determine whether a particular vendor is a good fit for a specific client/project.

One of the factors I consider is capacity – does the vendor have the bandwidth and talent and structure to do this particular project well?

Vendors have a hard time saying “No” to clients even when they know they’re about to overload their capacity – it stems from a fear of both losing face, and losing business. But this is where high-risk-of-failure starts to enter into the equation.

I encourage vendor/partners, particularly those with whom I do a Clarity Therapy session, to target their business development efforts at their capacity sweet spot. For instance, one of my partners is a great choice for niche product launches – but would be overwhelmed by a large launch. So, it doesn’t make sense for them to target those opportunities. Some of my solo consultant partners stand a much better chance at succeeding with emerging biotechs than trying to compete on a very un-level playing field with bigger providers for the business of Top 5 Pharma companies.

Here are some capacity questions to consider:

1. How much of this work will need to be outsourced to others? Outsourcing isn’t always bad – in many cases where specific domains of expertise are needed, it’s unavoidable – but a complex and multi-faceted project may demand a supplier with a higher internal staffing level just to manage the many moving parts. On the other hand, for more limited projects, that may be unnecessary overhead.

2. Does this project require dedicated staff from the vendor (especially dedicated project management)? Some work can be juggled successfully without a more focused team, but some projects require a fixed amount of ongoing bandwidth. Find out in advance if that is the case.

3. Does this vendor have the capacity NOW for this project? Last year’s success with a similar project does not guarantee this year’s success if the vendor is already loaded up with other work.

4. Am I giving this vendor too much work? One client can overload a vendor such that their performance degrades – and, can put that vendor in a dangerous position of being too dependent on a single client for their financial health. I have seen this latter scenario play out time and again – no vendor should have a single client providing more than a third of their revenue.

5. Is this the right KIND of vendor for this project? A marketing agency may not be a great choice for a given training project, because their staffing and processes doesn’t match up to the requirements. A training agency doesn’t always have the bandwidth and expertise to develop software well. A consultant may do a fine job on a curriculum map, but may be the wrong choice for a courseware build-out. Both sides have to be realistic about where the sweet spot is – and isn’t.

What has been your experience (both good and bad) with vendor capacity?

photo credit: 96dpi via photopincc

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When Vendors Start Avoiding You

You remember how, in the schoolyard, certain people were so difficult to be around that you just began to avoid them?

That still happens. In client-vendor relationships. And sometimes, it’s the client company that is poisoning the relationship.

Why do certain vendors begin to have an allergic reaction to specific clients, and start to back away?

Here are the main issues I’ve seen:

1. Hostile Attitude – “We’re the client, we have the money, and you’re our servant.” This disrespectful and arrogant posture is a formula for future failure. It ensures that only the most desperate yes-vendors do work for a client-with-attitude.
2. Non-Communication – Vendors that don’t get clear instructions and updates during a proposal process – or, that don’t even get a notice or explanation once a bid has been awarded to someone else – often decline the next “opportunity” to be frustrated by the prospective client.
3. Convoluted Process – This usually occurs when Procurement drives the outsourcing bus. Process moves from being a help to being an entangling and confusing hindrance.
4. Feeling Used – When a vendor feels like they’ve gone through a time-consuming and expensive process of bidding on a project that basically goes to an incumbent (maybe with a few “borrowed” ideas from other proposals), that vendor concludes that they don’t have a fair shot at gaining the work. Hence – a hesitancy to invest time in future work where they might actually be the best choice.

Not all of these things can be changed by training professionals seeking outsource suppliers, and there isn’t always a bad motive at the core of each difficult client-vendor relationship. But these are some warning signs.

Just as clients choose vendors, vendors also choose clients.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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When Outsourcing Goes Bad

Some outsourcing mistakes can be very costly:

(click to biggify)

If you’ve been in the pharmaceutical training/communications/marketing/sales industry for any length of time, you’ve witnessed some expensive mistakes working with outside agencies and vendors.

But it doesn’t have to happen to your department. A one-day training course on Vendor and Project Management is just what’s needed to make sure your staff is vendor-ready.

Most client-vendor failures occur because of: 1) lack of process; 2) bad communications; 3) poorly-managed expectations. These are all fix-able issues (with the right approach). We teach that right approach.

Coming up in December is the next edition of the acclaimed 1-day Successful Vendor Management workshop, co-sponsored by SPBT and Impactiviti. Just sign your trainers up via the SPBT site, and make sure they’re equipped for a vital part of their job (and future career).

Most people learn about vendor and project management the hard way – through costly mistakes. Far better to equip your department with the tools and procedures that will ensure success!

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Why Every Training Department Needs a Vendor Map

A few months ago, I introduced the first-ever comprehensive Vendor Map for biopharma training departments (see this blog post – if you don’t have a copy yet, let me know and I’ll forward the file to you).

I’ve talked to many of my pharmaceutical clients about their vendor landscape, and here are the major reasons why we’ve concluded that it’s really, really important to create a company-specific Vendor Map:

1. Regular turnover in the training dept. – which means that a lot of knowledge about particular vendors (and their performance) is never captured for future reference.
2. Lack of communication across the dept. – leading to a lack of understanding of which vendors are good (or not so good) for which projects.
3. Unclear understanding of vendor sweet spots – good vendors (for one type of project) are often given work for something that isn’t in their strike zone, because vendors have not been properly categorized by their strengths.
4. Rushed decisions on projects – so often an ad-hoc list of potential vendors is drawn up in light of an impending project, instead of having a well-thought-out grid prepared in advance.
5. Confusing vendor claims about being able to do it all – ummm, no. A pro-active approach to drawing up a vendor map helps bring discernment to the process of vendor selection.

In light of this need, Impactiviti now offers a low-cost annual subscription service that includes creating (and maintaining) your Vendor Map; intelligently categorizing your suppliers; recommending new potential partners; and customizing a standardized process (including templates) for your vendor needs. Contact us (stevew at impactiviti dot com) to discuss how we can work together to improve and streamline your outsource vendor selection process.

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Why Selecting the Right Vendor can be a Royal Pain in the You-Know-What

I get involved in a growing number of vendor selection processes with my biopharma/med device clients. For many, it can be a potentially painful experience to choose an outsource vendor. Here’s why:

1. There’s an whole lotta vendors out there. More than you can look at (and it seems like they’re all calling, every week)!
2. Many vendors say they do (almost) everything. That really helps narrow things down!
3. Sometimes it’s quite difficult to tell if you’re looking at reality, or getting a dose of smoke-and-mirrors.
4. The players keep changing. Wasn’t that account manager just selling for ______ last week? And, wait; _____ just got bought out by whom??
5. There’s no current, updated, internal list of which vendors are good for what (based on past experience).
6. Go through an extensive evaluation process? – nobody’s got time for that!

Sound familiar?

At Impactiviti, we get it. We built our network of best-in-class vendors AND great clients in order to make the whole process of vetting and selecting vendors much less painful.

Trusted recommendations beat guesswork any day of the week. Call on us (973-947-7429, or stevew [at] impactiviti dot com) when you’re looking for the ideal outsource vendor.

Save yourself some pain you-know-where!

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What are the Top 10 things clients wish vendors understood (or would do better) – and vice-versa?

Here are the answers, in one brief and engaging white paper – download and enjoy! Client-Vendor Success

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