Baird’s CMC recently worked on an international healthcare project spread across 16 countries. This presented a great opportunity for us to leverage our pharma expertise in three key groups: top 15 markets, emerging markets, and underdeveloped markets.
The client, a leading healthcare company based in the U.S., wanted to understand how stakeholders related to one another within and between countries. “The work was in a sensitive therapeutic area with very high levels of patient advocacy – it included high interaction between both patient and professional groups and between these groups and policymakers,” explains James Snodgrass, associate at Baird’s CMC. We collaborated with our partner company, Hyderus, to research the patterns of interaction within and between stakeholders.
Together, we worked with the client and with key regional and national contacts within the company to uncover as much detail as possible on the networks. “These networks were not easily accessible. The patterns of interaction were a combination of formal and informal relationships,” says James. The project team focused on how each group influenced others, how different countries affected others in the same region, and how influencers interacted between regions.
In the first phase, assisted by our vast global health and pharma network, we identified a long list of different types of stakeholders in 16 countries (in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America) and amongst international and regional organisations. Next, we shortlisted a number of these to interview about those national, regional, and international stakeholders who most affected their work, or whom they would most like to be able to work with.
Then, Baird’s CMC and Hyderus combined desk research and further interviews to map the connections between those listed frequently in interviews, and to classify how interested each was in different aspects of the therapeutic area. Finally, we used a variety of techniques – including the expertise of our in-country teams – to estimate the influence that each had within these aspects. Our strong project management capability was a great advantage during this project – our experienced project management team coordinated the numerous respondents and consultants across the world, and helped us deliver timely and in-budget results.
The end result? Substantial savings for the client. “Some vocal activist groups in Europe and North America had requested substantial financial support based on claims of global influence. These claims turned out to be wholly unfounded,” points out James. Along with this, the research identified new opportunities – influential individuals, groups, and networks that the client had not identified before. Since many of these were unknown to other international pharma companies, a number of them were eager to collaborate with the client.