Global public relations programming poses special challenges for executives in the healthcare industry.
Differing cultures, healthcare systems, regulatory authorities and reimbursement schemes can complicate the task of devising strategic programs that apply to all markets. Without the right kind of preparation and relationship-building with your company's international affiliates, months of hard work can end up gathering dust on a shelf.
Getting Buy-InBuy-in requires three important steps: 1. Building relationships beforehand. |
While public affairs and marketing teams at corporate headquarters develop global strategies for product support, programs usually are implemented by the company's local offices in each country. As individual profit centers, these offices often are responsible for deciding which strategies are implemented locally.
So to succeed with a global program, you must lay the groundwork locally with country managers and top marketing and communications people outside your headquarters.
This can be tricky. Country managers tend to be hired based on qualities such as independence and initiative. They need to be able to run their own ship, and this fosters an attitude of independence from headquarters _ even a prejudice against ideas and strategies that have not been developed locally. This can result in discord between the company's operating units and headquarters.
The key is ensuring that the operating units see strategies developed at headquarters as their own. Although you may spend a lot of time and money at headquarters on development, keep in mind that country managers will be allocating their own budgets to implement the programs. It is important to understand the commitments involved at each end.
Build a team
The first step to creating a successful global program is fostering ongoing, symbiotic relationships that will encourage cooperation. You should begin cultivating these relationships with the operating units long before you have an actual program to "sell." Useful team-building tactics include:
Provide face time. The best public affairs executives I know say that the predominant factor in their success is the time they have spent meeting with individual country managers, marketing executives, and pivotal decision-makers in each market. Spending time on the road to get to know your internal "clients" face-to-face may make them more receptive to your ideas in the long run.
Be a resource. Make it a practice to send information to your international colleagues. Set up e-mail lists, so that you can transmit important information to the whole team with the click of a button. Get them used to the idea of using you as an information resource, so that they look forward to receiving your input.
Share information. Communication has to work both ways. Set up systems whereby country managers, marketing, and PR people at headquarters and the local units can instantly share important information with each other and make recommendations to you. If a story comes across the wire in the United States, send it to your local offices via e-mail. If a crisis crops up in Kuala Lumpur, make sure you know about it right away. Effective issues management means keeping everyone in the loop and informed as quickly as possible.
Touch base with U.S. counterparts. The United States often is the first market for a product, and because of its size it tends to drive a lot of corporate decisions. If your company has separate U.S. and international operations, it is important to keep in contact with your U.S. counterparts.
Do your homework
"Think global, act local" is a fashionable catchphrase that captures two important aspects of successful global programming: you must develop an overarching strategy for all of your company's operating units, and it must be customizable for successful local implementation.
But before you create a global strategy, you must do your homework. You need to gain a full understanding of your operating units and their markets if you want real credibility with country managers. That includes knowing how your program will fit with their capabilities, resources and budgets, and understanding the cultural, regulatory and economic factors that drive their markets.
To sell a program locally, you must take into account particular cultural sensitivities in each market. One common pitfall, for instance, is to treat "Europe" as if it were one country. Ideas that work in the United Kingdom may not work in Italy, or may need to be presented differently. It is important that you display a true understanding of the local variations that make a difference.
In Asia, where healthcare PR is in its infancy, local managers face a high degree of cultural and religious diversity, and a very conservative healthcare community. They often need strong support from their colleagues at headquarters before they will undertake media activities, which they see as potentially risky. Program ideas must be particularly adaptable for this market, because the government-run media tend to prefer stories with local _ and therefore less controversial _ content.
Global programs should offer a range of options, from the grand and expensive big ideas to modest turnkey items, to fit the resources and sales objectives of each operating unit. Make sure that your program offers something for everyone.
To do that, you must evaluate consistencies and variations across the global market. Questions to consider for each market include:
What are the overriding regulatory considerations?
What labeling can you expect to receive?
How do you ensure adequate reimbursement?
How is the healthcare system organized, who are the key decision-makers, and who are the key influencers?
Successful global strategy addresses the commonalities that apply to every market, while leaving enough leeway for country managers to adapt the program to fit local variations.
Knowing the local environment will equip you to offer important ideas and raise critical issues that others may not have considered, and this can have an impact beyond the marketing team. For instance, if your involvement begins early in the drug development process, you should try to get involved in the planning of clinical trials.
Why? Because the most effective research programs both advance science and support marketing goals. From a public affairs perspective, you may be able to offer important insights on issues such as treatment sites, the scope of the trials, and the target patient populations. A successful example of this strategy is Agouron's protease inhibitor, nelfinavir, which has quickly filled a niche in treating HIV infection in children _ a patient population that had not been studied with competing products.
You also might be able to offer insight on how clinical development decisions can lay the groundwork for building coalitions with important third-party organizations. What do the major patient advocacy groups want to see in a clinical trial? Can your program target their goals?
So when it comes to doing your homework, perhaps the slogan should be amended to: "Know local, think global, act local."
Include all players
It is important to take an inclusive, step-wise approach to developing global strategy. The best global programs are developed with frequent, direct interaction among the public affairs and marketing groups at headquarters, the country managers, top marketing people and public affairs executives in the affected markets, and outside agencies.
The involvement of marketing people at headquarters is particularly important, because country managers often come from a marketing background, and may be less familiar with the role and value of public relations and public affairs.
Your first meeting with your international colleagues is not the time to present a finished program. Get together much earlier in the process to brainstorm ideas, and be sure to reflect their input in the final product. Your colleagues will be more likely to see the possibilities of the program if they can see their own thinking in its content.
These interactions can take place in already-scheduled events such as regional managers' meetings and international medical conventions. During these brainstorming sessions, it helps to build real cases into the agenda, so the value of PR is not only discussed but demonstrated.
Another key is to integrate your efforts with other parts of the global marketing program, such as advertising and promotion. Try to meet regularly with the rest of the marketing team and their agencies to find synergies among the different pieces of the program.
Companies that want to achieve this kind of integration on a global basis should consider hiring public relations agencies with truly global capabilities. This requires an agency with a strong presence in Europe, Asia/Pacific, and Latin America.
The benefits are twofold. During the program development phase, the agency can make use of its international network to gather the best market intelligence and important localized information to shape the program. Once the program is ready for implementation, the agency's local offices can be called upon to help your country managers customize the program for their markets.
Nancy Turett is managing director of Edelman Healthcare Worldwide (212/704-8195; e-mail: [email protected]).
Contributing to this month's column are Ame Wadler, executive vice president at Edelman Healthcare's New York headquarters; Mark Cater, director, Edelman Healthcare/London; and Verdayne Nunis, director, Edelman Healthcare/Singapore.