No More "Jack of all Trades"
Sanofi has restructured communications to get the best out of its people’s talents.
As smartphones and social media put rocket fuel into the speed at which news – good and bad - gets round, it makes sense for pharma companies to look carefully at how they manage communications. Sanofi has completely changed the way it goes about things in the US and Canada, revamping its communications operation to create Communications Resource Centers (CRCs) in a bid to make the most of all its talents. “CRCs are virtual, temporary teams that come together based upon the requirements of a certain project,” explains Brandi Robinson, Vice President and Head, North America Communications at Sanofi.
Playing to strengths
Her idea is that there is no way of being good at absolutely every communications discipline. “People have different competencies as communicators and we wanted to give our clients the correct ones,” she begins. “In the past, we’ve been asked to be jacks of all trades– you would have product specialists being asked to do internal communications, for example - but this may not be where most people’s strengths are.”
The CRCs cover broad areas such as employee engagement, content channel management and corporate reputation. “Now, you can call on specific colleagues who do have that skill to help with a project,” Robinson says. “That’s how the Resource Centers work – then they disband and people go back to their other roles.”
Winning combinations
Sanofi in North America began the project in 2014, with the full backing of senior level management in the US and Canada, by creating 12 CRCs. That number has now been whittled down to six. “We no longer needed some of them,” says Robinson. “We realized that media, social media and regulatory could be combined, for instance.”
There is no guarantee that this number would not rise to eight tomorrow, but equally, “based on what our internal partners are telling us, there might come a point when I only need three.” In other words, pragmatism is key. “We can flex up or flex down based upon business needs,” she goes on.
As well as being virtual teams, CRCs are also talent development opportunities for Sanofi communications specialists who would like to explore other areas of the business. “For people interested in issues management, for example, there would be the opportunity to learn hands on with a team.”
Talent development
This is the sort of initiative that can be the difference between an ambitious communications person staying with a company and one who feels straitjacketed and slipping away from it – and indeed, staff in the North America operation are expected to move every 18 months to two years between CRCs, fostering the idea of the Centers as a development tool for the company. Core leaders in the teams act as trainers to create other experts.
Co-ordination for the activities of the communications team as a whole comes from Robinson and a manager in the project management office (PMO). “That person and myself are the connector to ensure that everyone is collaborating,” she says.
How CRCs work
In practice it works like this: an assignment requiring a speech for one of the executive team members, for example, is put into place and the skillsets of people on the various CRCs are assessed to see who would be the best fit. “We pull people from each of the CRCs to help,” explains Robinson. If a new product is being launched, the process would start in the brand category CRC with the product PR lead and then radiate outwards. “That person is building a plan to execute,” Robinson says. “They call the PMO and say: ‘I need to put together a communications plan for the new launch, including media relations, internal relations and issues management, and I’d love to get feedback from colleagues’. These people would then come together to add their input to the plan that’s being built.” When it comes to executing the plan, different communications experts are then brought in to offer their expertise.
Touching base
Robinson’s team is geographically disparate, stretching across four locations in the US and Canada, so there is a need for regular sessions to touch base with one another. “The team comes together via conference calls and webcasting once a month,” says Robinson. “This means everyone knows what the priorities are so that when these things hit their desk, they know they have to help as much as they can. I also bring them together once a year face-to-face and we can talk, among other things, about the governance of the CRC process, whether we need to merge them or add some, or switch people to get the most out of them.”
Piloting the model
Sanofi is headquartered in Paris but Europe has not adopted wholesale the CRC model – perhaps for reasons of cultural difference. “In corporate HQ, there is an internal communications CRC,” Robinson continues. “Globally there are some CRCs but not to the extent that I have in North America. I’m the pilot for this model.”
She may not be alone for long: Robinson believes her restructure to the CRCs system has helped communications take its place at the top table within Sanofi – a route which other parts of the company may well follow. “It takes communications from being the order takers and moves us into the position of having a strategic dialogue and being a counsellor to the business,” she insists. “We’re delivering better communications, building more effective plans and being more effective internally. It is bringing us to the forefront.”