Wiring
Culture is too easy a word for folks to toss around so let's not use it. The real question is whether you're wired to win. You can buy the best equipment and hire the strongest resumes but if you don't wire the place right it won't run right.

Employee Engagement: Wiring To Win
The reason most biotech and pharma companies are not wired to win is because engagement isn't complicated enough. That's right, it's hard because it's too simple. Our organizations are populated by some of the smartest people in the world and these smart people want problems to solve, the more complicated the better. Even our so-called continuous improvement programs focus on technical solutions. Meanwhile, we still haven't wired the place right and that means we'll never have a shortage of technical problems to solve because an organization that lacks engagement will never lack errors and performance problems.

What if we could focus on getting better at one thing and the result would be improvement in all areas, even the technical ones? Biotech and pharma clients of the Driscoll Consulting Group are getting better at that one thing and it's improving everything else. We have a customized approach to engaging the team that quickly wires the place to win and once that's done everything else gets better.

We Help You Get Better By Keeping It Simple
Chris Driscoll stumbled upon the foundational literature in employee engagement when he was fixing semiconductors plants a decade ago. After trying every other trick in the book to help the worst performing site in a 9-plant network he focused on engagement. In less than 6 months , that plant was the highest performing in the network as measured by yield, cycle-time, schedule adherence and customer rating.

Results like that have a way of staying with you. Chris took the approach to biotech and pharma and has simplified it while continuing to show dramatic results.

Tapping Technical Tendencies
The typical approach to engagement in our industry is to administer a long survey once or twice a year, report disturbing results, and do nothing to improve them. Our approach is different. We use a short customized survey and administer it more frequently. The idea is to give technical managers data that they can take action on then to gather more data to see whether the new actions worked. The point is to learn the relationship between the actions of management and the engagement of the team. When we identify and practice the key actions, we have a workplace wired to win.

If you're ready to wire your workplace for success, contact us and we'll provide a detailed proposal for your review.

Cost Reduction / Cost Control
The Driscoll Consulting Group also works on specific cost initiatives. The following cases are typical.

Case 1: Saving A Manufacturing Site By Increasing Profitability
A major global pharmaceutical manufacturer projected that a recently acquired manufacturing site for biologicals production and packaging would never become profitable under existing start-up plans. The global leadership team had already considered using a CMO but the best cost scenario would have put production thousands of miles away from the product's largest market. So the company chose the Driscoll Consulting Group to determine if the cost-base at the site could be reduced to return a sufficient profit.

The result: The Driscoll Consulting Group identified and implemented process improvements and a value stream organizational design that put the site solidly in the black. The site reduced costs by $10 mil/yr and the site head had high praise for DCG: "The highly competent and resourceful professionals helped us design an organizational structure that will enable us to achieve and sustain profitable operations. Working collaboratively, they brought us to see new possibilities and to create a flexible and competitive organizational design that would also reinforce the behavior and values we need to succeed."

Case 2: Organizational Design For More Output At A Lower Cost
A major biologicals site was under significant pressure to reduce costs while moving from it's current production process to a new, high-density process. Under normal conditions, the site would have brought in contingent staff to help maintain existing production levels while bringing the new process up in a new building. Given the cost pressure, the site could not utilize contingents. The Driscoll Consulting Group was selected to determine how the site could accomplish significantly more work while reducing costs.

The result: Process improvements produced $5 mil/yr in cost reduction and a value stream organizational design enabled the site to maintain current production levels while bringing on the new process and new building with the same total headcount.

Strategy Deployment
Biotech and pharma will be led by those companies that can change quickly. Rapid and effective change is only possible with an engaged workforce and one of the key drivers of engagement is clear expectations. Clear expectations start from the top with Strategy Deployment. The Driscoll Consulting Group developed the Gameplan Strategy Deployment process to help companies develop the agility to succeed in rapidly evolving industries.

The Gameplan utilizes a one-page strategy document with an accompanying process that takes the high-level strategy of an organization and connects it all the way down to critical work group tactics. This is accomplished on a single page and has the effect of clarifying for each employee where the organizations is going and what their individual role is in getting there.

Every company has some form of a cascading goals process but the Gameplan is different. The Gameplan measurably improves operational performance and simultaneously improves employee engagement.