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Issue link: https://lifescienceleadermag.epubxp.com/i/216720
Contract Sourcing Style & Substance In The Supplier Space T By Wayne Koberstein, executive editor his theme has been on my mind so much I'm starting to repeat myself: What is real, and what is illusory in the world of drug, diagnostic, and device development? How do we know one project will succeed and another fail? From what spring might we even draw some measure of assurance? It is not a matter of random chance. Products going through development do not exist as ideal forms floating in a vacuum. Like a space-probe launch, or the maiden flight of a new airliner, countless components have come together to create a product of life science, and any one of them can go wrong. Every time a purchaser faces a supplier with a sales pitch, the inevitable question must be, "If I buy this, am I creating a potential weak point, or am I adding another lever of advantage?" Whatever the component — a patient-enlistment plan or data-entry form, a biomarkers study or a human-factors analysis — and whatever factors affect its quality, reliability, and cost, the buyer must know the supplier's goods or services increase the product's odds of success. ONE PLUS THE OTHER The thought came to me from a seemingly unrelated marketing research study on why mobile advertising is generally less effective than its Web or print counterparts. Forget the study itself, because I didn't stick around for the conclusions, but instead wandered off in my own mental direction. Of course, mobile ads are tiny, intrusive, and most often incongruous with whatever app you happen to be using. So, when would you be most likely to break stride and pay attention to one? Remember, style is important, if only to compensate for the small screen and thumbs-on operations of phone or 34 LifeScienceLeader.com pad. But substance is equally or even more important to overcome one's natural resistance to any intrusion into the immediate task at hand. Sadly for me, the first time I clicked on a mobile ad, it led to a dead end. The ad was simple and clean, a picture of a sleek, little device promising "cool connectivity," which caught my eye because I was looking for a better way to input audio into my mobile devices. Despite the disappointment when I found only a decorated plug-converter at the other end of the ad link, I realized something from the experience: It took both (eye-catching) style and (need-answering) substance to move me to action. Whether by lucky accident or devious design, the advertiser had hit both buttons for its target audience, namely, me, and others like me, looking for substantial material behind the stylistic pitch. The lesson here is that the supplier might do what the mobile advertiser did — hit the right buttons of style and substance, promising in the buyer's own language what the buyer wants to hear, but not delivering on the promise. Or, the supplier could take the high road, communicating in the buyer's language and offering solutions it knows it can deliver, reliably and over the long term. In that case, style and substance work together to form a strong client/supplier bond. Unless you present your "pitch" in terms December 2013 the purchaser understands (style), it doesn't matter what you can deliver. But if you cannot deliver what you promise (substance), no matter how persuasively you promise it, your only chance of staying in business is to keep lining up new, short-term customers. SIMPLE, SOUGHT, & ELUSIVE OK, that advice sounded obvious and corny. But it is truly funny how real, adult life has a way of confirming old homilies, making youthful cynicism seem foolish in the rearview mirror of experience. At every event or publication where I've seen this industry's purchasers and suppliers in discussion, each side seems almost to plead for one golden but elusive quality in their relationships: trust. Simple human trust. Despite IT-powered statistical analyses, databases, background checkers, and other high-tech systems for evaluating potential vendors or clients, the main thing both sides are yearning for is to do business with people they can trust — and who will trust them in return. Naturally, the principle of trust extends beyond mobile advertising, which first sparked this line of reasoning for me. Every supplier has a face it turns toward clients and potential customers. What possible means can the purchaser use to see behind the face and know whether it confirms or conceals the truth? Probably the means that is least used — personal engagement. Go