AI Issue 4 2017

10 Acquisition International - April 2017 within our organization. We have great clients with a 100% client retention rate, and we have brought our clients much success during the years, as we manage their breakthrough therapeutic brands across a broad variety of therapeutic areas. We are driven to continue to build upon our clients’ current success and disruptively drive forward their future therapeutic endeavours. Our leadership team has demonstrated during the past 20 years that this commitment to who we are as an award-winning, scientific agency across the board is a main driver, as all team members are united in living our purpose to support our clients to share the scientific story of the diseases they touch and the therapies they discover for all in need. “One of the most important and effective drivers of our cultural success is our strength in knowledge- sharing by initiating and facilitating effective, outcomes-directed communications, internally and externally with our clients. We have a bright team of experienced communicators with great communication skills, who also train clients and their teams on how to effectively and efficiently facilitate conversations that produce the most desirable outcomes. We especially give training support for how to have difficult conversations while in the field or at a congress. We believe that engaging in outcomes-directed conversations is a dynamic process where the potential outcomes of the conversation should be kept in mind in preparation and implementation of communication. We have many ways of communicating internally within our organization, both in-person and virtually, as we have incorporated many effective and efficient online tools that create interactive collaboration rooms for our internal team. We always mind our approach in conversations, how our thoughts and ideas develop (especially while we are participating in a brainstorm), whether the message that we want to send is clear and engaging to the recipients, what tone we are using, and whether we are making assumptions about the truth of our message or of someone else’s. We place high value on asking great questions, as they are the most effective way to learn more about someone or something, as it is an integral part of building relationships and pulling through the most desired outcomes. “Our diverse, scientific agency thrives on our culture of accountability and find that in our culture of learning, holding ourselves and each other accountable both horizontally and vertically in our organization leads to higher performance and is a main driver of our program excellence. We believe that in order to successfully establish a culture of accountability, everyone must have clear expectations of what success should look like for our agency and for our clients. This clarity of expectations builds trust and transparency between employees, our leadership team, and our clients, as we communicate with each other to build strategic solutions with the most impactful results. In this way, each employee understands what it means to improve, as we have regular feedback on all projects, weekly company-wide project updates provided by each Senior Client Services Director at our weekly Company Snapshot Meeting facilitated by the Vice President of Client Services. We celebrate performance monthly with our Monthly Celebrations Event Program, hosted monthly by our EVP of People+Events, through awards and recognition at both a local and national level, as well as offering bonuses. We are a highly collaborative, transparent team and provide each other feedback on a one-on-one basis regularly in addition to holding formalized performance reviews throughout the year.” This commitment to ensuring a supportive, collaborative internal culture ensures that Simpson Healthcare’s clients receive the very best support and service from all staff at all times, which is particularly vital when working in such a crucial market as healthcare, where some projects could potentially be the difference between success and failure. In order to ensure complete client satisfaction, the firm’s client focused approach starts right from the beginning of any new project, as Danielle is eager to highlight. “The philosophy behind our client services experience when we take on a new client or begin a new project is that through collaboration with our clients, with our key contributors and internal team, we come together to provide exceptional program excellence. At the start of a new project, our internal team will align with our client on strategic vision, project management details, and the long- term value that will be added to the healthcare field throughout the entire therapeutic brand lifecycle. Most importantly, we want to understand and develop the story the client needs to tell. We ensure we have the right members on the team, and this means pulling through the experience of the organization with previous similar challenges. We engage our own best practices, but also acknowledge that every client is different and brings their needs, opportunities, and challenges. After working with the client to clearly define the problem or opportunity, we outline the objectives and timelines. We believe everyone on the team should know the client’s goals and how our story will support it. Internally, we collaborate to drive disruptive innovative solutions using a wide array of lenses and perspectives. “In addition to being highly collaborative, our process encourages independent thinking and team members will pause for individual ideation before returning to share for team feedback. We have formal best practices that we share internally with our teams that we have found to drive efficiency and produce the best possible outcomes that we want to achieve for our clients. We also believe in the discovery and sharing of new best practices, which are often discovered through direct experience. To maintain internal alignment on projects and their progression, we hold a weekly organization-wide meeting, ‘Company Snapshot’, facilitated by Senior Vice President of Client Services, Fenna Calder, when all project managers provide updates on deliverables across all client accounts. This practice has driven openness and transparency within our organization and effectively ensures program excellence/quality for our clients.” Looking to the future, Danielle is confident that the firm can continue to offer its clients the very highest standard of care. “Going forward, in order to expand on our commitment to program excellence for our clients, we have used our passion for healthcare and disruptive innovation to build and customize specialized service offerings that provide long-term value to their business and to the healthcare field. Through the collaborations of talented members of our team, and our CEO and Chief Strategy Officer, Kelly Simpson-Angelini’s strategic guidance on the purpose and intent of disruptive innovation, Simpson Healthcare has developed, and successfully implemented, a new line of Futures work. The value in looking ahead cannot be overstated, as it allows conversation about potential “Future States” to take us beyond current assumptions. During this process, we envision potential Best and Worst Futures, without any reference to present day. We imagine what could be, without current constraints. The value is in the perspective generated from the exercise, which creates a different conversation around decisions we must make in the present day. “Once the Futures have been imagined, the drivers to reach those Futures are identified, which help identify opportunities to shape a “Desired Future,” or avoid impact from an undesirable one. Throughout, we gather and analyze global datasets, policies, practices, and other influential variables that could influence or disrupt key markets in healthcare across the longer 10–20-year vision for the future. These inventories are a starting point for change based on the identified opportunities from this process. We are proud to unite to support our clients and shape the future of healthcare so that the best therapeutic treatments may be available to provide a brighter health outlook for those in need.” Overall, Danielle is proud of the success that Simpson Healthcare has achieved so far and is excited that it can continue to build upon this and support even more clients over the months and years to come. “Ultimately, we are honored for this prestigious award and look forward to further success of Simpson Healthcare Executives, but also to a bright future for scientific communications more broadly. The world can be volatile, and in the age of ubiquitous information, we strive to lead through sound, scientifically based information presented in a manner that resonates and can create meaningful change for our clients. Our key strengths are the ability to tell the right story, and our commitment to program excellence in client service. We understand the role of the disease or product is one piece of a larger story that includes the patient and their caregivers, the healthcare providers, the health system that must be navigated, and the client’s strategic intent. Like our clients, we keep the patient firmly in our sights as the center of the story. Our offerings include traditional medical and scientific communications, but the diversity and experience within our organization allows us to bring to bear the larger context of healthcare that facilitates high-level strategic consulting as an important part of what our company delivers for every project we work on. “As such, moving forward we will continue to aim to provide an exceptional client experience by providing strategic insights, as well as on-time, on- budget program excellence in all of our projects. At Simpson Healthcare, we embrace our core values: maintain passion about making a difference by pushing the boundaries to deliver unique strategic value for our company, our clients, and our community; keep it real by developing strong, authentic relationships internally and externally with our clients; look to the future by never losing sight of the larger context and bigger opportunity; know we are better together and dedicated to collaborative teamwork to ensure the highest quality work product; and finally, we bring our best selves to work every day, which means we are committed to achieving personal balance and strength, both at work, and in our own lives.”