Thought-leader Management Excellence: Creating and Maintaining a High-performing External Stakeholder Engagement System

Industries Profiled:
Pharmaceutical; Biopharmaceutical; Consulting; Biotech; Medical Device; Manufacturing; Health Care; Consumer Products; Clinical Research; Laboratories


Companies Profiled:
Adamas Pharmaceuticals; Alkermes; Alligent Group; Amgen; Antiva Bioscience; Asofarma; Beckman Coulter; Biogen; Boston Scientific; Cipla; Eisai; EMD Serono; Fidia; Fresenius Medical Care; Galderma; IQVIA; LEO Pharma; Melinta Therapeutics; Inc; Merck; Merck Healthcare KGaA; Mylan; Novartis; Nutricia; Pfizer; Rakuten Medical; Sanofi; Santen; Servier; Shire; Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Terumo Corporation; Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd

Study Snapshot

Best Practices, LLC engaged 35 biopharma leaders at 31 companies through a benchmarking survey instrument, interviews and a roundtable discussion in this research.

Key topics covered in this report include:

• Thought-leader management structure
• High performing administration models
• Communication and cross-functional collaboration
• Key components of thought-leader identification, engagement and services
• Technology enablement for thought-leader management
• Measuring thought-leader performance

• Structure: Decentralized Thought Leader Management structures are the most frequent (49%), but are often rife with poor communication and coordination. Most experts identify Hybrid or Centralized structures as optimal (97% combined).

• Communication: Frequent and standardized direct communication is essential for success, while over-reliance on databases fosters internal misalignment.

• Identification, Engagement, Services: Profiling is more critical to identifying thought leaders than other methods (Mapping, etc.). Clinical involvement (Trials, ad boards, IITs) is most valued by thought leaders industry wide.

Sr. No.	Topic	Slide No.
I.	Objective
	Universe of Learning	p. 3
II.	Executive Summary	p. 5
III.	Impact of Organizational Structure on Thought-leader Management System Effectiveness	p. 8
IV.	Administering Strategic Thought Leader Management & Engagement	p. 16
V.	Effective Coordination & Communication for Strategic Thought-leader Management and Engagement	p. 22
VI.	Optimal Thought Leader Identification, Engagement, & Services	p. 29
VII.	Technology Enablement in Thought Leader Management	p. 35
VIII.	Measuring Thought Leader Management & Engagement	p. 40
IX.	About Best Practices, LLC	p. 43

• Top performance across key dimensions of thought-leader management systems

• Variance in thought-leader management (TLM) systems by structure type
• Advantages and tradeoffs of decentralized, centralized, and hybrid structures
• Current and optimal organizational structure for thought-leader management and engagement system
• Benefits and pitfalls of decentralized, centralized, and hybrid structures
• Best fit TLM structure based on company size, therapeutic area maturity and pipeline diversity
• Interview insights around the reasons for organizations transitioning to a more centralized approach
• Value placed by benchmark organizations on the day-to-day thought-leader management and engagement work done by their staff

• Medical Affairs lead role in different administration models
• Benefits of Medical Affairs leading a cross-functional group for thought leader management
• Executive sponsorship for thought-leader management and engagement system; Job level of the person overseeing thought-leader management and engagement
• Presence of separate roles for strategic thought-leader management and engagement and thought-leader relationship responsibilities within benchmark organizations; Number of non-field based FTEs involved in strategic thought-leader management and engagement system
• Frequency of interaction of non-field based strategic thought-leader management and engagement staff with thought leaders

• Thought-leader interactions and strategic thought-leader engagement by function across the product lifecycle
• Interview narrative around adapting to the change
• Interview narratives around improving coordination and using a single point of contact around launch
• Most effective ways to coordinate strategic thought-leader management and engagement activities across different functions and/or groups
• Communication channels used by those involved with strategic thought-leader management and engagement to share learnings/best practices with each other
• Better coordination among the two types of communication schemes - Diverse and direct channel groups, and Online database-reliant groups

• Importance rating for each of the thought-leader identification/management approaches
• Top three things thought leaders seem to value most in their relationship with benchmark companies
• Importance rating of each of the listed thought-leader services
• Most valued thought-leader activities
• MSL involvement in thought-leader identification

• Software/systems used to manage thought-leader activities; Presence of a tool for a global line of sight on all thought-leader activities
• Effectiveness of system/tools/software used to support thought-leader management and engagement activities
• Technology opportunity front and most prevalent technology system issues
• Interview narrative around database accessibility across functions

• Key thought leader management performance metrics
• Assessing thought-leader management and engagement success; Gathering thought-leader interactions feedback