About

When we first began working with this leading life sciences company, they had just come out of a major merger. As with many large-scale integrations, the newly formed organization was facing the challenge of unifying two very different operational legacies. Each former entity had its own systems, standards, and approaches to meetings—none of which were integrated, and much of the data was either missing or siloed. Between the two companies we need to identify and then build upon the best practices of each.

Another key factor: guest and healthcare professional (HCP) attendees required close scrutiny. The company needed clear approval workflows and robust tracking mechanisms to meet compliance requirements in every region where they operated.

Ambition

The company came to us with a clear and time-sensitive goal. They needed to unify both organizations under one cohesive meetings program—policies, processes, technology, people, and culture included.

And they had a hard deadline. According to their Transitional Services Agreement, everything had to be live and operational within 18 months. No room for error. The pressure was on to design, build, and launch a globally consistent program from the ground up—one that would work across business units and geographies and stand the test of time.

Approach

Discovery & Current State

We started with deep discovery—surveys, interviews, and working sessions with internal stakeholders. Our goal was to get under the hood and understand:

• How meetings were being planned and governed
• What gaps and inefficiencies existed
• The critical needs across regions and business units
• Dependencies on legacy infrastructure and processes

This gave us the insight we needed to design a program that was not only strategic, but also realistic and sustainable within their unique organizational context.

Policy, Procedure & Job Aids

From there, we partnered closely with leadership and key stakeholders to build a solid foundation. We helped them establish governance frameworks that made sense for their business, and we crafted a full suite of best-in-class documentation: policies, procedures, job aids, and tailored training materials. We also built interactive, online training modules—required annually for all colleagues—so the expectations around compliance and process were clear and consistent across the globe.

Implementation

With buy-in and structure in place, we got to work on implementation. That included:

• Leading workshops with stakeholder groups to align on expectations and bring everyone along the journey
• Reorganizing the global meetings team and introducing strategic new roles
• Configuring and launching a meeting management platform across all markets
• Running a full tender for a new TMC (Travel Management Company) and implementing new protocols for guest and HCP travel
• Ongoing monitoring of adoption and building out the technology roadmap for long-term integration

Achievement

This was a true partnership, and a great example of how thoughtful design, global alignment, and human-centered change management can turn complexity into clarity—and set the foundation for lasting success.

• We created and launched global meetings policies and procedures in 26 languages

• We designed and trained a global strategic meetings team
• We built LMS training modules and rolled them out across the organization
• We managed the end-to-end rollout of the new meetings platform, supported with training, measurement, and iterative improvements
• We developed a long-term tech roadmap to ensure sustainable integration and powerful reporting capabilities
• And most importantly—we did it all within the regulatory timeline, meeting every requirement set forth in the Transition of Services Agreement