Launch Excellence

The growth in people and departments with launch and launch-excellence as a main responsibility and focus is quite remarkable. It’s not that long ago that these positions did not exist in pharma, and as the launch environment has become more complex and challenging, so has the need for pharma to apply more attention and rigour in ensuring they maximise the opportunity they have with their new medicines.

Like many of you, over the years I have invested significant budget in ensuring people and teams have the right tools and processes to plan effectively for launch. Ensuring all the activities are completed by the right function at the right time requires organisation and project management, akin to a military operation. Getting the “what”, “when” and “who” of launch preparedness is critical to launch-success, and a plethora of planning frameworks and online tools exist to support these activities. However, an area that I feel has been a little neglected is the “How” of launch excellence. There is an incredible opportunity to transform your launch potential through your people. By focusing on people, not just process, your organisation can be mobilised around your launches, to drive the best possible launch performance.

After spending the last few years on launch excellence, experience has taught me that getting the synergistic effect of the “what” and the “how” is the key to launch success. There are 4 key areas that warrant further attention:

1. Leaders with a mission: do your leaders inspire confidence across your organisation, do they exude belief in the brands, people and teams and do they lead according to your organisation’s values.
2. Creating a culture of success: be ambitious with your goals, think big and ensure you have the right organisation and people for the challenge ahead.
3. Working cross-functionally: easy to say but not always easy to do! Outstanding cross-functional working necessitates real understanding across the functions, collective responsibility and a shared ownership and belief in a common goal.
4. Telling the Story: having a simple, compelling and consistent story about your brand, internally and externally, will be pivotal to your launch performance

Here at Cormis, our approach to launch excellence focuses on people and process. We enable your people to develop a mindset with the capabilities and focus needed to engage and deliver the results required.

It would be great to discuss launch excellence with you, so give us a call or email.