Company strategy alignment in a complex Belgian healthcare landscape

Problem

Developing a comprehensive strategy with the in-house public and government affairs team

An international pharmaceutical company reached out to us to position and guide its public affairs team in the organisation and beyond. Multinational companies in Belgium are facing a complex policy landscape. To enhance the company’s impact, an internal and external positioning exercise and strategy was conducted. We identified the following necessary steps:

• Define a clear goal and objective of the internal policy & governmental affairs team.
• Engage the internal stakeholders to strengthen the collaboration for a stronger external impact.
• Define a strategy for policy impact in Belgium.

Strategy & approach

Stakeholder engagement & policy impact: building consensus and driving meaningful change

The company enlisted our expertise in positioning and strategy development to find focus in their policy outreach strategy. The following steps were made:

• 1. Internal audit: thorough consultation of the internal stakeholders to identify the needs and opportunities for the policy & governmental affairs team.
• 2. Value proposition development: based on the needs and positioning of the company and its policy asks, crafting a focused positioning highlighting the necessities and qualities of the team and company.
• 3. External analysis of the stakeholders: mapping and audit of the broad range of relevant stakeholders, platform organisations, sector organisations, patient organisations, agencies, policy makers, …
• 4. Strategy & recommendations: synthesising the intelligence of the previous steps into a comprehensive positioning and strategy, based on the unique needs and asks of the company and the team.

Streamlining Internal Processes for Effective Policy Impact

Our approach consisted of an elaborate internal consultation process, combined with strategy and workshop exercises with the internal team. This combined with an in-depth analysis of relevant external stakeholders resulted in a strategy for the internal workstream optimization and an externally focused policy outreach strategy.

• Stakeholder engagement
• Corporate positioning
• Strategy workshop
• Internal process optimisation

From Internal Streamlining to External Impact: A Strategic Approach to Policy Positioning

Our expertise in policy strategy, our knowledge of the Belgian healthcare system and our experience with big multinational companies enabled the successful implementation of this project. The creation of an internal streamlined process to bring together all relevant internal stakeholders, together with an external outreach strategy helped the policy & governmental affairs team to position themselves internally and externally, with a clear focus on their goals and policy asks.