Winner
Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Limited
Summary of work
Historically, communications across the Novartis UK group was fragmented, siloed and uncoordinated. Highly skilled communicators faced an uphill battle to secure budget and ‘buy-in,’ and our activities continuously stalled because of confusion around governance. We looked and felt disconnected to our internal and external stakeholders. The team responsible for helping the world understand what Novartis does and why it matters, for championing the needs of patients, and for building belief and instilling a sense of purpose in associates, had hit an all-time low.
Individually we were communicators with great talent and knew that the way we worked needed to change.
2017 saw the fruits of our labours: we pulled together, took charge and made a significant impact in the 12 months. Associates now feel more connected to our culture and mission and have adopted new ways of working across our organisation. Externally we have moved from having a conservative, ‘below the parapet’ engagement strategy to being proactive and embracing modern methods, launching our social media presence and running digitally integrated campaigns for the first time. We built closer relationships with patient groups and co-created programmes of great value to patients. Our internal and external reputation has improved as a result. The change agenda we collectively pursued for the good of the team, for our organisations.
Judges’ comments
The Novartis team worked extremely well together. They were genuine, the story was great and they drove real change in a very tough area, which is incredible. The team themselves were very connected, passionate and each were humbling on their journey.
