The 2023 conference season for alliance and partnering professionals is about to get off to a great start with the ASAP Global Alliance Summit, April 3 – 5 in Tampa, FL. The Rhythm of Business is proud to once again sponsor this premier, cross-industry event. It brings together veteran leaders and people just entering the field for three days of learning from outstanding speakers as well as from each other. The networking and community are unsurpassed. Guaranteed, more than a few connections that result in jobs and new business opportunities will be kindled or renewed.

The Rhy...

At the ASAP Biopharma Conference, we presented our new Master Class on The Power of Positive Influence: The Alliance Professional’s Superpower. Read the write up about it from the editorial team at ASAP. 

Contact us if you’d like information about bringing the workshop version of this Master Class to your alliance team.

Join us for a special opportunity to experience a version of our popular training on the strategic alliance startup process, Start it Right or Start It Again. Until now, this course has only been offered in company-specific settings. On June 23 and 24, from 11:30am – 1:00pm EDT, The Rhythm of Business will share our process, tools, and templates for standing up and successfully launching a strategic alliance in an interactive, digitally-delivered, case-based ASAP Master Class.

We use two fictitious but very real case studies to guide the discussion, allowing participants to choose the alliance situation of their choice. One case study describes a codevelopment, cocommercialization alliance between a biotech and a large pharma. The second describes a software vendor (ISV) partnering with an advisory services partner (GSI), distributing their offering through cloud and managed services providers (CSP and MSP).

In addition to industry and alliance-purpose customization of the startup process, we have also adapted our process, tools, and templates for the realities of remote work. The adaptations are the result of consulting to six startup alliances, including complex biopharma, digital health, and tech ISV-GSI alliances since the start of the pandemic.

This is a great opportunity. It is well-suited for both new members of your team to learn the basics of alliance startup, as well as experienced people who want to hone their craft. We guarantee there are key takeaways and actionable insights for all.
Click here for registration information. Contact us if you’d like to discuss bringing this course in-house.

Strategic alliances and alliance management professional development opportunities are aplenty this spring, including online and in-person options. You can find us speaking on the following venues:

March 29, 2022 - ASAP Webinar: Leaning into the Future: Priorities for Biopharma Alliance Professionals
​
April 20 - 21, 2022 - ASAP Global Alliance Summit: Master Class Helping Your Partners Help You: Using the Power of Positive Influence and panel discussion How Alliance Professionals Deliver Value in BioPharma Commercial Alliances

May 9 - 11, 2022: Strategic Alliance Management Congress: Top Five Opportunities for Getting a Little Better Every Day

May 18 - 19, 2022 - Biopharma Project Managers' Conference: Everyone Needs Some Alliance Management Skills in the Biopharma Ecosystem

Click more for details about these presentations and links to the...

Join us on February 17, 2021 for an interactive presentation Techniques for Successfully Collaborating with Strategic Suppliers and Partners presented to the Project Management Institute’s Mass Bay Chapter. The session, which will be held over Zoom, introduces participants to:

• Pros and cons of typical collaborative operating models and how to decide what is right for your collaboration
• How to establish appropriate oversight and feedback models that provide freedom to operate
• Understanding how to use value and influence, the secret sauce of collaboration
• How to build trust across organizational boundaries—and why there is no collaboration without trust

We also share a practical framework for joint solution development projects that gets you on the path to successful partnering, producing the solutions customers want. Register today!

Top Five Opportunities for Getting a Little Better Every Day

On February 24, we present the trends we see in our work over the past two years with biopharma alliance professionals about the small changes in everyday practice of alliance fundamentals that can make a big difference in outcomes.

This ASAP Netcast webinar presents five opportunities to improve operational excellence in alliance management that not only deliver value on their own, they also create time and space for pursuing higher value services.

Practical tools and learnings presented include:

• A step-by-step inquiry process to create alignment to guide an alliance’s decision making
• A chartering process and Collaborative Leadership Agenda to establish an alliance’s operating model, distribution of responsibilities, and desired behaviors
• A framework for comprehensive and holistic information management and communications within the alliance and between the alliance and its member partners

Getting a little better every day in alliance management fundamentals is a critical strategy both for managing resource constraints and engaging stakeholders in a collaborative approach to alliance success.

Register today! Even if you can’t attend, you’ll have access to the recording and slides.

Download our whitepaper describing the five opportunities and learn about an ASAP Alliance Excellence Award Winner that demonstrates what embracing these opportunities can do for you!
 

The Rhythm of Business is proud to once again be a platinum sponsor of the ASAP Biopharma Conference. This is the premier event for life science alliance management professionals. Even in an all-digital format, there are plenty of opportunities to network, learn from industry leaders, and put your fingers on the pulse of partnerships today.

Jan Twombly and Jeff Shuman will lead a Live Stream Master Class session on Monday, September 27^th: Operational Excellence for Consensus Decision Making in Hybrid Environments. Participants will analyze a comprehensive case study in small group discussions and address several questions to:

• Apply leading practices for facilitating hybrid meetings to structure the decision-making process
• Consider how to best prepare executives to properly consider a complex topic when not in a room together
• Overcome the trust barriers that exist because alliance teams haven’t had the venues to properly build relationships during the pandemic

 
Participants’ analysis will be informed by an upfront presentation by Twombly and Shuman that shares some of their most recent work on driving excellence in alliance management practices in a hybrid environment and at a time when alliance management services are in high demand.
 
Twombly is a long-time member of the Board of Directors of ASAP. To see the complete Conference agenda and to register, visit https://asapbiopharma.org.

Join Jan Twombly, CSAP, President of The Rhythm of Business as she leads this provocative discussion on July 29, 2021 with two dynamic alliance management leaders, Nancy Griffin, Vice President of Alliance Management at Dicerna Pharmaceuticals and Katherine Kendrick, CSAP, Head of Alliance Management at Jazz Pharmaceuticals.

Biopharma alliance professionals are perennially challenged to explain the holistic and strategic work they do to prevent the inherent inefficiencies in alliances from overtaking intended value. The discussion will offer insights into how to present the story of alliance management in a way that connects to the needs of senior executives.

We will also explore how these alliance leaders are structuring their teams and shaping jobs to better safeguard their company’s interests and further the goals of their individual alliances and the company’s overall portfolio.

As the profession evolves to take on a more strategic role, what to measure and how to communicate must evolve, too. We’ll look at how our alliance leaders are doing just that—and importantly weaving in storytelling to help the organization but its trust in the value of alliance management to grow its partnering capability and maximize the value of its alliance portfolio.

This Netcast is free for ASAP members. If you aren’t a member, contact us for a discount code.

May’s all-digital Strategic Alliance Management Congress includes two opportunities sponsored by The Rhythm of Business for participants to consider how to evolve and adapt their practices to deliver and communicate the value their services offer to stakeholders, partners, and customers.

Jan Twombly, CSAP presents Seven Habits of Highly Effective Alliance Professionals, a tour through evergreen alliance management practices that are being innovated for today’s business environment of increasing complexing partnerships in which face-to-face will remain a luxury—and the surprisingly productive ways of working we’ve adopted out of necessity will remain.

Alliance management is an enabling function, often without a direct line to revenue. It can be challenging for alliance professionals to measure and communicate the value of their services and to make their work visible. As a result, in times of uncertainty such as our current period, they can become an easy target for the budget axe. Practicing the seven habits delivers the services stakeholders value the most—and helps alliance professionals communicate that value.

An additional opportunity for conference participants is a moderated roundtable on The Value of Alliance Management. The roundtable looks at the essence of alliance management and asks:

• What are the alliance management services stakeholders value the most?
• In what ways do you measure and report alliance management activity?
• How would you like senior management to describe the value of alliance management?

Join other biopharmaceutical alliance professionals from industry and academia May 18 and 19, 2021. Network with peers and learn the seven habits that help you deliver value. There is still time to register at https://www.alliancemanagementcongress.com.

The Rhythm of Business is proud to once again be a platinum sponsor of the ASAP Global Alliance Summit, See into the Future of Alliances. This is the premier event for alliance management professionals from across industries. Even in an all-digital format, there are plenty of opportunities to network, learn from industry leaders, and put your fingers on the pulse of partnerships today.

Jan Twombly and Jeff Shuman will lead a Live Stream Master Class session on Monday March 15^th The Value of Alliance Management: Managing the Cost of Time at Startup. Featuring two case studies, one of a codevelopment, cocommercialization biopharma alliance and another of a software vendor-global systems integrator partnership, participants will address several questions and:

• Identify the potential value-eroding inefficiencies and risks in the case studies that must be addressed
• Develop a high-level plan for a fast-paced, agile startup—in a remote digital environment, without in-person interaction
• Capture the value produced by applying alliance management practices

 
Their analysis will be informed by an upfront presentation by Twombly and Shuman that shares some of their most recent work on reimagining alliance management practices to be more agile and to focus on what stakeholders value the most.
 
Twombly is a long-time member of the Board of Directors of ASAP. View the complete Summit agenda and register today.

Download an overview of our Digital Alliance Management Training

Pump up the value to demonstrate why alliance management is essential to company success.

Over the past several months we’ve worked with a variety of life science companies to take our traditional, in-person alliance management trainings and convert them to online offerings. In the process, we’ve discovered that online training can be even more successful than in-person workshops. We’ve redesigned many of our popular courses to be delivered over Zoom, incorporating rich interaction in small breakout groups with pre-reads and individual assignments.

We’ve also added a workshop delivered together with our partner allianceboard to guide alliance professionals in automating routine services to expand their reach and influence and to make their...

The Rhythm of Business’ presentation at the 2020 Strategic Alliance Management Congress offers a path to focusing on value key stakeholders recognize while meeting growing demand.

As biopharma companies evolve their business models in response to economic pressures, changing patient expectations, and new technologies that are powering everything from drug discovery to the sales process, alliances and partnerships multiply. The demand for managing alliances grows, yet in a pandemic environment, uncertainty is constraining resources and budgets making it an imperative to prove the value of the alliance management function.

On October 27, Jan Twombly, president of The Rhythm of Business and an ASAP Board of Directors member, will present her company’s prescription for maximizing the ability of alliance managers to deliver value to their organizations. She will discuss three influencing f...

A Summary of our ASAP 2020 Biopharma Conference Exclusive Executive Roundtable Discussion
 
It is really starting to settle in—there is no going back, there is only moving forward. Whenever we again experience a world where face-to-face meetings, quick drop-ins on a colleague or executive, and maybe even business travel are possible, there are some things we’ve learned in the past six months that make sense to carry forward into that next normal. In our current normal, we are not only figuring out how to deal with distanced work, we’re trying to learn how to innovate with new partners and new partnering models and ensure we deliver what matters most to our stakeholders and alliance partners to realize the outcomes and value intended by both newly formed alliances and those once operating under an entirely different set of assumptions.

These are some of the highlights of our exclusive executive roundtable discussion during the 2020 ASAP Biopharma Conference on September 15, complementing our presentation The Silver Lining: Reimagining Alliance Management to Focus on What Matters Most Now. Link to our conference presentat...

Summary of ASAP Global Summit Roundtable Discussion

Download a pdf of the discussion slides

Digital health has the potential to improve the health of millions of patients and radically change the way health services are delivered. In addition to providing benefits to patients and providers, the benefits for companies offering digital technology and life science products and services are substantial. It is a productive alliance of two innovative industries that not only innovate very differently, they go to market and partner differently. No wonder high tech and biopharma alliance managers have different jobs!
In digital health initiatives, the job of the alliance professionals is to bridge differences and find a third way that results in creating successful outcomes for the patients, providers, payers, and partners.

As part of the 2020 ASAP Global Alliance Summit, we gave a presentation on the topic and hosted a roundtable discussion of several technology and biopharma alliance professionals. The following are the highlights from o...

Summary from exclusive ASAP Global Alliance Summit executive virtual roundtable. Download the discussion slides

“We are all operating in a new norm and we need to evolve with it.” So stated one of the alliance executives The Rhythm of Business invited to a virtual roundtable discussion during the 2020 ASAP Global Alliance Summit on reimagining alliance management for the next normal. We approached the topic from two angles:
 

• The impact of COVID-19 on a people-intensive business that depends on good relationships
• The increased demand for alliance management services as companies’ alliance portfolios continued to grow in size, complexity, and new types of digital and service alliances, even before the pandemic

The silver lining of needing to find a next normal is that it gives license to fix what is broken, it forces us to become more resourceful and agile, and focuses us on what...

The Summit may be virtual this year, but The Rhythm of Business is very much engaged. We are proud to be long-time members, sponsors, and contributors to the ASAP community and to participate in this first virtual Global Alliance Summit.

 - We’re presenting On Demand Session 502, The Alliance Management Mashup: Bridging the Digital Divide
 - Jan Twombly is moderating live stream Session 207 Biopharma Commercial Alliance Management Challenges on Thursday, June 25 at 11:15 am EDT
 - We are also hosting an exclusive virtual executive roundtable on Reimaging Alliance Management for the Next Normal on Thursday, June 25 from 9:00 – 10:00am E...

Session Description
Before COVID-19 biopharmaceutical alliance managers were dealing with an increased demand for their services as companies’ traditional alliance portfolios continued to grow in size and complexity. With COVID-19 and virtual work, an additional burden has been added, but a new urgency to rethink how alliance management is done presents itself. Add to that all the new types of service, data, and digital partnerships being stood up and it is clear the time has come to reimagine how alliance management practices are implemented and the capability organized and resourced to meet growing demand.

The need to become more agile, iterative, and focused on what truly matters is great.

Agile principles have been applied to businesses as varied as Haier, a white goods manufacturer, and global healthcare companies such as F. Hoffmann-LaRoche with impressive results. This webinar introduces a practical approach to applying agile methods to the practice of alliance management and the structure of a function or team. Participants will learn:

• How to build a stable backbone to enable rapid decision making and a focus on work that creates value
• An agile approach to staffing the management of alliances that better utilizes available resources
• How to use specialist roles to drive innovation
• How to create service level agreements to ensure services provided are those that deliver the greatest value to stakeholders
• The benefits of digitizing workflow and administration to deliver consistently superior work product—and build good alliance hygiene among stakeholders

Watch the webinar
Download our whitepaper Demand for Alliance Management Has Changed. Are You Ready?  for more on this topic.
 

Making Lemonade: Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste

The unfortunate appearance of COVID-19 has all of us scrambling to keep our families, employees, and customers safe while keeping our businesses operating. At The Rhythm of Business, we’re taking all recommended precautions, ceasing travel, and the hosting of meetings in our offices until it is safe to gather in person again.
 
However, as the eminently quotable Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” We are following his advice and innovating how we deliver professional development and carryout our VitalSigns Alliance Operations Effectiveness Assessment to help the alliance management community continue to deliver value that ultimately benefits customers and patients.

Virtual Alliance and Collaboration Professional Development

Over the past several months, we’ve seen a big uptick in the number of companies wanting to offer alliance and collaboration training. In the spirit of lemonade from lemons—making the best of a bad situation—we are working with our clients to create virtual training sessions, following leading practices of distance meetings. We’ll take our day-long, or multi-day, in-person sessions and break them up into a series of webinars, making them interactive with polling and chat. In between webinars, we’ll host small groups to work on case studies, analyze situations, and take part in exercises to apply the learning. Jeff Shuman’s experience of many years of conducting MBA classes with a combination of in-person and online students is very relevant and helpful.

If you’ve been thinking about offering training to alliance team members, part-time alliance managers, or governance committee members, this is an opportune time to do so. Afterall, potential participants won’t be travelling any time soon. Here is a brief slide deck introducing our alliance and collaboration professional development offerings and how we tailor them to your current and expected portfolio of asset-based, service, digital, and data alliances, from the lab to interactions with payers.

Take the VitalSigns of Your Alliance

These challenging times require alliance teams to rally around a North Star focused on the value the alliance is intended to deliver to customers, patients, and the partners to the alliance. One way alliance professionals can deliver value to their stakeholders is to evaluate how well the alliance is collaborating and overcoming the inefficiencies that cause risk and prevent the partners from receiving intended value. Our VitalSigns Alliance Operations Effectiveness Assessment pinpoints the actions leadership and management can take now to guide their teams to overcome those inefficiencies, differences of opinion and ways of working, as well as to address simmering conflict and find innovative “third ways” that offer value creating solutions. We are taking the alliance governance committee workshops that are an integral part of this process virtual, meaning that we can speed up the realization of benefit by having a special purpose meeting that doesn’t need to wait for a spot on the agenda.

We’re Eager to Collaborate with You

There is no doubt these are challenging times. Collaboration and partnering has never been more important in all aspects of our lives. The Rhythm of Business is creatively addressing the challenge and ready to work with you to ensure that we make lemonade, innovating our way through this crisis.

In collaboration and partnership,

Jan and Jeff

Jan Twombly and Jeff Shuman
The Rhythm of Business
Reach Jan at +1 617.851.0135 or jan@rhythmofbusiness.com
Reach Jeff at +1 508.954.2896 or jeff@rhythmofbusiness.com

A diverse group of alliance professionals is convening in Amsterdam on November 14 and 15, 2019 for the ASAP European Alliance Summit. The Rhythm of Business is pleased to sponsor the event for the second year and to be offering Partnering Readiness: The Through Line from Collaborative Leadership to Collaborative Execution. Jan Twombly, CSAP, president will deliver the presentation

Partnering readiness means that throughout the organization, wherever it engages with external partners, the mindset, skillset, and toolset to partner well are infused in the culture, ingrained in behavior, and integrated into how work gets done.

The goal of partnering readiness is to introduce agility, reduce the inefficiencies in partnering, and ensure that the rhythms of partnering are not met with unnecessary friction and hurdles. This level of partnering everywhere capability is essential today. According to Cap Gemini, Institute for Corporate Productivity, MIT Sloan Management Review and others, the companies that are successful in becoming digitally-enabled and customer-obsessed—and therefore prepared to compete as we enter the 2020s—are those best able to collaborate internally and externally. These companies are ready to partner; purposefully and opportunistically, in one-to-one relationships, multi-partner engagements, and in ecosystems. They are breaking down barriers, incorporating the activities and rhythms of partnering with agility and ease into their solo activities.

Drawing upon research among the ASAP community and direct engagement with companies building their partnering readiness for today and beyond, the session:

• Presents an actionable framework to describe partnering readiness
• Identifies common organizational barriers to collaboration
• Describes initiatives ASAP members have underway to remove the barriers 

Can’t be at the conference? Download the presentation now and contact us today to learn how you can help your company develop its partnering readiness.

Download a pdf of presentation

The 2019 ASAP Biopharma Conference is in full swing, with record attendance. The opening day included a session moderated by Jan Twombly, President, The Rhythm of Business on why collaboration between medical affairs teams in complex alliances is crucial and how alliance managers can be certain they are positioned for success, thereby increasing the likelihood the alliance will achieve its intended va...

Build speed and agility into partnership development and management by acting like a startup business. Drive customer-obsessed partnering outcomes by demonstrating collaborative leadership. Our two new Learning in Action™ programs help you and your team “get smart quickly” and drive business transformation.  

The Rhythm of Business announces two new Learning in Action™ opportunities to help businesses create and grow the partnerships and alliances they need in order to provide the transformative outcomes customers seek. These programs are delivered in person for maximum learning and include: principles, guidance and tools, application through either a case study or working an actual situation—potentially with a partner—activation support, as well as tracking and reporting of success metrics. Program descriptions and links to session overviews and sample co...

The Rhythm of Business is pleased to announce that it is sponsoring the 2018 ASAP European Alliance Summit in Amsterdam, 8-9 November 2018. Now in its fourth year, the conference brings together alliance and partnering practitioners from across industries and from many countries for two days of networking, presentations, and learning from each other about how to drive business outcomes through partnering....

Jan Twombly, president of The Rhythm of Business is joined by Judy Baselice, director, alliance management at Pfizer and Ellen Locker, executive director, alliance management Merck & Co. at the 2018 ASAP Biopharma Conference in an interactive discussion about the complex web of agreements, restrictions, and obligations resulting from the explosion of clinical collaborations to create combination therapies....

Mini-workshop at ASAP Global Alliance Summit, March 28, 2018 mixes partnering acumen with entrepreneurial know how to present a framework for co-creating complex solutions at the speed of business....