To truly make a sustainable difference, we need the engagement of all stakeholders

The marketeer wants the agency it knows and trusts, not the ones on the list; the agency has spent a fortune on a pitch only to find the budget is a fraction of that suggested and the plan has changed anyway, with the ideas presented now not appropriate; and there is no way procurement can achieve the efficiency benefits required if its strategy is not being followed. Wherever you sit in the partnership triangle, does it sound familiar?

Many initiatives have tried to address this partnership challenge: the Healthcare Communications Association’s (HCA) own Pitching Code of Conduct, and the IBA and ISBA’s Positive Pitch Pledge to name two you may be familiar with. I am sure these, and others, have made some difference, but with the emphasis being on ‘some’. The scenario still exists, but why? I suggest the truth is that supporting these types of initiatives is often based on the feeling that it is the right thing to do, but when the moment comes, other factors take over. In addition, historically these initiatives are often driven by one or two of the stakeholders, rather than all three. As a result, they perhaps fail to incorporate an in-depth understanding across all partners of key insights, such as the resource and success implications of each other’s actions; the needs and objectives of each other; and the importance of getting it right to ensure a sustainable, cost-effective and successful business partnership. On the individual occasions where we do get it right (there are some, but let’s be honest, it’s a long way from a panacea), then all partners win.

If we are to truly make a sustainable difference, we need the engagement of all stakeholders in the partnership triangle – business partners (marketing, medical affairs, advocacy, policy, market access, communications), procurement and agencies. We need to try to understand each others’ positions, objectives and perceptions and then, together, identify the way forward. This holistic approach is exactly the path the HCA is embarking on.

The first stage, of course, is to listen to all partners in the triangle and understand where they are coming from. This also provides the opportunity to do a sanity check to ensure that all stakeholders agree that existing health communications business partnerships, and their associated processes, are not meeting expectations. And, probably no surprise, most importantly, that all parties agree.

This first phase has been recently completed and the feedback is publicly available at: the-hca.org/PartnershipTriangle

By examining the differences among stakeholders in terms of purpose, perceptions and processes, you uncover some of the fundamental challenges. Examples include:

Purpose: although partners believe they are the connector between the other stakeholders, there is a lack of clarity regarding who is responsible for managing certain processes and relationships. Both business partners and procurement believe it is their role to identify and onboard new agencies. At the same time, procurement acknowledges a gap in its depth of understanding of its company’s activities, which it recognises can impact its relationships.

Perceptions: more time is invested by all stakeholders where there is bigger financial investment or potential reward. The relationship between business partners and agencies seems to be the strongest within the partnership triangle. This can cause frustration for procurement who expressed having more transactional relationships with the other stakeholders. All stakeholders agree on the importance of early, effective and open communication between the three parties, and a greater understanding of each other’s work.

Processes: while procurement views its processes, eg, RFIs, RFPs and pitches for agency selection, as largely effective, business partners and agencies feel they are based on a product-centric model that is not always appropriate for the management of health communications services.

Business partners and procurement both identify ‘partnership’ and ‘value’ above ‘cost’, as important factors influencing agency selection. However, there are differences between these two stakeholders about the preferred suppliers list (PSL), which business partners feel inadvertently favour larger agencies. Agencies themselves believe they do not always receive the increased business opportunities proposed from PSLs, despite providing the cost reductions and investments requested. Agencies also desire the development of a more value-based measure of their services.

While all stakeholders acknowledge the time and resource burden of the procurement processes, unsurprisingly, agencies particularly feel the burden and find this challenging.