Alliance management at merck: Establishing an operational 100-day plan for alliance launches and management

Abstract

Pharmaceutical industry faced many challenges in the past 20 years that led to a change in business models which is still ongoing. One of the adaptions is the increase in importance and number of strategic alliances. This thesis looks at the launch phase of an alliance and proposes an operational 100-day plan for the use during different sub-phases. This plan is validated by a survey with alliance managers at Merck KGaA. The survey evaluates specifically their perception on timely involvement into the transition activities from business development to alliance management, the governance structure and metrics of alliances and collects feedback on the proposed 100-day plan. The contents of the plan are considered as useful for the launch of an alliance by the survey participants and their feedback shows opportunities to further improve the best practices at the alliance management department as a follow-up after completion of the thesis.