Over the years, I have prioritized the importance of meeting a wide range of potential vendors early in your planning stages.
When you work in a virtual biotech organization, you only have access to a very small team and vendor interaction becomes a key resource.
In the process you identify your needs, shape your outsourcing strategy, and understand which capabilities are available with your potential future partner(s) - and most importantly - which NOT.
In my experience, it is vital to understand which capabilities are NOT available when you contract a vendor. No single vendor can offer you the entire breadth of activities at the level of experience and professionalism that you may need - although they typically will claim they can.
Further down the road - after you have contracted your vendors and kicked-off the project - it is what they can NOT do that leads to additional resource requirements and delays...
Further down the road - after you have contracted your vendors and kicked-off the project - it is what they can NOT do that leads to additional resource requirements and delays...
By understanding what you can NOT expect from your vendor - enables you to manage the shortcomings proactively.
Conferences like "Outsourcing in Clinical Trials", "DIA", "Biotech Clinical Outsourcing Partnerships", "Partnerships in Clinical Trials" etc. provide you with a great opportunity to scan the market for vendors, to evaluate a potential fit for your current needs and to make decisions about who you want to continue to interact with.
In this way you can reduce the amount of Business Development meetings at your office - not to forget the amount of requests for meetings by Business Development staff every month.
No comments:
Post a Comment