Create a Culture of Trust to Fuel Innovative Thinking in Our Regulated Industry

Sales and marketing professionals and Medical, Legal and Regulatory (MLR) must trust one another as collaborative partners versus opponents in our highly regulated industry.  When cross functional teams operate in a culture of trust, this fuels innovative thinking instead of misalignment.

Benchmark data and case studies show that misalignment during promotional review costs companies millions of dollars and reduces effectiveness in an ever-more restrictive culture.    When marketing teams, their promotional agencies, and MLR are not in alignment, companies can lose 25% of their time rewriting noncompliant promotional materials.  This impairs the speed to market.

With successful collaboration, discussions are no longer about “my process” or “your process” but about mutually desired outcomes.  This means greater focus on the higher collaborative purpose—a win-win situation for everyone.

A clear partnership is especially important when discussing new or never-tried concepts prior to investing significant resources into content creation.  Tension is not unusual when businesses need to set compliant goals despite the constant evolution in regulatory and technology environments.  The environment also continues to change rapidly with increasing scrutiny on areas such as regulatory compliance, disclosures, privacy, trademark and copyright infringement.  State and federal agencies are very active players in the social media space and are watching its evolution carefully.  The environment will only get more complicated and restrictive.  As data, diversity and demands intensify, it will be more challenging to be increasingly collaborative, creative, and compliant. 

Companies are actively working to enhance multi-channel communication through investments in infrastructure and leadership development. However, enduring cultural change requires altering how we think and what we believe about one another. MLR must believe that it’s their role to help advance business objectives. Commercial/marketing must believe that it’s entirely possible to enjoy a competitive advantage while operating within a compliant culture.

This is the ideal opportunity to ensure the marketing organization and its promotional agencies are trained on regulatory compliance.  In this way, conversations regarding MLR are based on government requirements. That’s why the CCC Regulatory Compliance Training University is a valuable resource for the Commercial organization and MLR.

When strong relationships, alignment and problem-solving approaches are part of the culture, businesses can more easily evolve and innovate through new product launches and in the face of complex business challenges.  Once we trust one another’s ability to deliver value and work together to manage risk and increase sales, we protect and grow the business, and serve patients and public health. I refer to this as healthy tension … when cross-functional teams operate in perfect balance.