Turning digital ambition into transformative action in just two days

How Chiesi responded proactively to the demands of a world in the middle of a global pandemic

The Chiesi executive team are forward thinking and ambitious, driven by a core set of values that binds them into a strong team. Together, they had an ambition to take Chiesi to the next level by responding proactively to the demands of a world in the middle of a global pandemic.

As a business that had fostered close relationships with its valued customers through face-to-face interactions, it was now presented with the challenge of maintaining that customer-focused ethos in an increasingly socially distanced environment. Chiesi saw the digital world as the key to this journey and wanted to shape a strategic approach backed up by concrete ideas that could be brought to market quickly.

With Equal Expert’s help and two dedicated days, it set out to find five strategic and actionable ideas that would bring this ambition to life.

Outcomes

19

clear, detailed and immediate outcomes identified

8

pragmatic and transformative actions shortlisted

About Chiesi

With revenues of £296m in 2019 and a record of vigorous growth, Chiesi Ltd. is now the number one affiliate in the Chiesi group. With a focus on important therapy areas, such as neonatology, organ transplantation and rare diseases, alongside treatments for respiratory conditions, Chiesi Ltd. is poised to extend further still the contribution it makes to public health in the UK. Health and pharmaceuticals.

Industry

Health and pharmaceuticals

Organisation size

6000 global employees

Location

Challenge

Day 1: A strategy defined

Working remotely due to coronavirus restrictions, the Chiesi executive team met via a Zoom session and virtual whiteboard, facilitated by two Equal Experts Strategic Advisors.

The intent was to take Chiesi to the next level by embracing the opportunities and challenges of the digital world.

By the end of what proved to be an extremely collaborative and productive day, the team had established and agreed on their five long-term goals.

Aligned with these goals, nineteen significant outcomes were identified, and the associated measures of success were defined. We visualised the outcomes using our proprietary tool, the Roadmap Radar.

Solution

Day 2: Turning strategy into action

Now that the framework was in place, the team focused on the immediate practical actions that could be undertaken for each outcome, and by lunchtime a wealth of realisable ideas were on the board.

In the afternoon, another of our tools, the Bet Canvas, was used to turn the first two candidate ideas into actionable initiatives, and the participants were in a position to form teams and move to delivery.

Results

Exceeding expectations

The executive team set out to identify up to five impactful ideas that could be pursued with immediate effect. What they produced was a rich strategy, a framework for reshaping the delivery organisation, nineteen viable ideas and a shortlist of eight on which to focus first. As facilitators, we observed that the primary reasons for this success were the clearly collaborative culture within the executive team and the high level of belief in the organisation’s mission and values.

When we wanted to start our digital journey, we needed some support to get off the starting blocks. With lots of ideas, but struggling to find focus, Equal Experts was able to help us visualise our goals and start to add some structure to our plan and help formulate a strategy. As if this challenge wasn’t hard enough, we chose to hold our two-day workshop virtually from our homes due to the COVID lockdown.

Helping us to get our ideas onto paper (actually an interactive cloud-based whiteboard!) the team at Equal Experts was able to show us some excellent tools to help us prioritise them and shape them into a strategy.

The pace of the two days was set just right, and with a good mix of coaching from the EE team and a chance for the Chiesi Senior team to interact with one another, the output was exactly what we were looking for.

After having time to reflect on the outcome, we will definitely look to work with Jon Ayre, Dave Cox, Kev Gray and the rest of the team again in the very near future.

Dave Barnes

Technical Director & QP , Chiesi Ltd.