Value & Need of Long-term Strategic Planning
Original post can be found here on LinkedIn (part 1 of 2).
There’s a reason that vision is number one on my list of the top ten attributes of successful leaders. The U.S. is littered with previously successful companies who failed to develop and execute well thought out 5–7-year strategic plans. Vision is not something that is mystical, instead it requires hard work and dedicated commitment to studying and understanding market research trends within and outside of your industry.
This is the first of a two-part series on vision that discusses why strategic planning and creating a vision for the future of your company is so important. In part two of the series, we’ll provide and discuss a common example of where pharma executives are currently demonstrating a lack of strategic planning and the ramifications it will have on their company’s future.
The purpose of establishing a strategic vision is two-fold: to create a long-term strategy for where the company is going, and to align everyone around the company’s direction. A vision should be futuristic, and that may place you, and your company’s, outside of your comfort zone. Strategic planning allows you to:
Better balance long-term and short-term priorities.
Become more proactive and to shape the debate versus simply reacting to key events and trends.
Identify future organizational capabilities and needs.
Better prioritize and justify future budgetary expenditures and needs.
Inspire staff by communicating future directions and priorities.
To keep your strategic plan alive, it should be aligned with your annual Corporate Objectives, and be used to develop and assign key strategic imperatives for your executive Leadership Team that are then incorporated into annual performance planning. In addition, status reviews on the key trends you have identified and progress against key strategic imperatives should occur twice a year.
There has never been a time in the history of the pharmaceutical industry when long term strategic planning has been more critical. All major U.S. healthcare reforms from the establishment of Medicare to the Part D Prescription Drug Program, to ACA, to IRA were all done when one political party owned the Presidency, Senate and the House. With the Republicans sweep of all three legislative branches, coupled with President Trump’s recent nominations HHS Secretary, FDA Commissioner, and CMS Administrator we are ensured that the U.S. healthcare system, for good or bad, will be significantly disrupted moving forward. Those Pharma Executives who do the deep market research, planning, profiling and analytical work required to do quality 5 to 10-year strategic planning will be far better prepared for the inevitable sea change that the pharmaceutical industry is about to undergo.
One such in-depth analysis was recently conducted by Rita Numerof, PhD and is attached. I can’t recommend highly enough that you take the time to read this article and begin to prepare for the future.