How would you describe PCMG to someone in no more than 20 words?

“A forum for outsourcing managers to network and share experience and advice.”

What attracted you to join PCMG as a member and how did it happen?

“I’d never heard of it in 2006 until Roger Joby, who was helping set up the first international PCMG conference in Prague, asked if I’d speak. I was impressed that there were more people like me who were having to learn so much ‘on the job’ and willing to share know-how and market insights.”

What benefit did you gain from joining the committee?

“The opportunity to interact and build long-term professional friendships with people from different perspectives and companies. Ordinarily, these types of working relationships are limited to colleagues in the workplace – which is limited in scale and scope in smaller companies and also subject to internal politics. It’s been a chance to learn how things can be done and extend my abilities through the collective knowledge of the experienced members of the Committee.”

What experiences weren’t you expecting before you joined the Committee which proved useful in the workplace?

“Becoming Committee Chair! I was only invited to join the Committee at the June 2011 conference at which Andy Parrett announced he was stepping down. Up until then the Committee had seemed a bit distant. In January 2012 I became Chair (Lan as Vice-Chair) as there was a small exodus of Committee members and officers leaving David Davies as Secretary and the Treasurer. So, what I really wasn’t expecting was to have to lead the team at short notice with five months to identify venue and develop the 2012 conference. It proved useful as it developed my abilities in team leadership where I was building a new small outsourcing group.”

How has membership of the Committee changed your working perspectives?

“Not really changed, but enhanced my perspective on the range of approaches used by different pharma/biotech. It helped me decide I definitely didn’t want to go back to big pharma and be a small cog in a big, impersonal machine.”

What are the major changes in the outsourcing landscape that are affecting members of PCMG?

• “The threat of replacing people with systems as AI and technology risks automating the selection and management of suppliers and replacing working relationships with processes.”
• “The rise and fall (and rise?) of biotechs creating instability and the replacement of FTE outsourcing people with contractors who don’t have long-term commitment/investment to develop and improve best practice (becoming more like the US where we’ve failed to set up PCMG because, I believe, employers and employees’ perspective are limited to short-term, often financial, outcomes.”
• “The shift to online interaction instead of F2F meetings. Would online marriage be viable? Then why expect business relationships to work well that way. Joyless.”
• “Trump. The decimation of the US state-sponsored R&D in medical science will increase cost, decrease pipeline and strangle innovation and risk-taking in clinical development.”

What piece of advice would you give someone considering putting themselves forward for a place on the PCMG Committee?

“Try it! You’d be amongst friends and you won’t find anything like it at work or any other professional associations. Jobs may change, but PCMG Committee colleagues can be for life.”

 

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