Consult the oracle: a pharma exec's guide to consulting

Consulting has an in increasing role to play in the pharma sector. BJ Richards, Source Global Research offers a pharma executive’s guide to the service.

You don’t need us to tell you that Europe’s pharma & biotech industry has a lot on its plate. The demand to develop innovative drugs and devices, maximising the profitability of R&D investments, improving efficiency and slashing costs, plus the endless crush of regulatory demands. It’s an agenda that keeps pharma executives and their teams scrambling. Now more than ever, it’s driving work for Europe’s management consultants. Indeed, in markets across Europe, consulting to the pharma & biotech industry is not only on the rise but growing a good deal faster than consulting as a whole, a trend we expect will continue for the foreseeable future.

In Germany, for example, consulting to the pharma & biotech industry grew an impressive 10.7% last year while consulting overall grew just 6.5%. Likewise, in the Benelux region, consulting to the pharma industry grew 7.7% while the larger market’s growth sat just below 5%. Even in France, where the pharma market continues to be constrained by an environment of uncertainty, consulting in the sector still grew 4.1% to the overall market’s 3.6%.

Pharma and consulting haven’t always enjoyed such a cosy relationship. In fact, the industry has long been among the most reluctant to engage with consultants, largely out of fear that management consultants didn’t have the high level of specialised industry knowledge necessary to make engagements successful. But as the pressures have mounted, and as the questions have become bigger and more complex, pharma leaders have had little choice but to turn to consultants for help. And it would seem the industry likes what it’s found, as it now depends on consultants more and more each year.

We can’t say we’re surprised. After all, the world’s leading consulting firms are already well known for having the scale and breadth of capability to deal with complex projects that cut across business functions and geographies - qualities of importance to Europe’s big and ambitious pharma companies. Add in the fact that consultants have been going hard after this reluctant but attractive market, spending the last few years making big investments in their pharma capabilities, and clients here are finding that they’re now able to get that widely admired scale and scope from like-minded pros who wear the t-shirt and speak the lingo. So it’s little wonder that consulting is at last proving so popular.  

With the pharma industry investing in consulting like never before, it’s inevitable that there will be a lot of companies and executives shopping for consultants for the first time. Maybe they know they need help but are unsure of what consulting can do for them, how they should go about picking potential partners, or how to get the most out of their consulting engagement once it’s started. Here are our top three tips for making it work:

1.  Know what you’re looking for

Before making the first exploratory phone call to a consulting firm, you need to have a clear idea of what you want consulting to do for you. Whether you already have a well-defined project in mind or you’re looking for someone with the expertise needed to help you flesh out a solution to a pressing problem, being able to articulate where you are and where you’d like to be, will make the consulting process easier from first conversations to project’s end.

2. Know who can help you get there

When people look for a consultant, they’re usually looking for an expert. But what sort of expert would suit you best? In broadest terms, consulting skills are of two varieties. There are issue-specific skills, for instance, expertise in regulatory compliance. Then there are industry-specific skills, where the consultant speaks your language and knows your industry (and your competition) inside-out. Ideally, you’ll want someone who offers a healthy mix of both, but getting the balance right means thinking hard about the nature of your project, its complexity, and how important it is that someone ‘gets’ you before they can help you achieve your objective.

3. Keep the lines of communication open

The most effective consulting projects are those where the client and the consultant work together as a team throughout the life of the engagement. By making sure you give your consultants the information they need, promptly supply all promised resources, and check in early and often to identify and address stumbling blocks, you will go a long way towards ensuring a successful project and a solid return on your consulting investment.