I’ve always been among those who believe that government would benefit either from bringing in people from the world of business or from adopting some of the practices of corporate life to help deliver services more efficiently and speedily.
A government may have many levers in terms of resources and people available to it, but lacks the ability to move as quickly as a company can. Has the Covid-19 crisis, though, turned that on its head?
This year’s unseemly spat between Britain and the EU over the export of vaccines from manufacturing sites on the continent demonstrated to me that governments have actually mastered the art of negotiation skills – and quite impressively so. While the row was unnecessary on all sides, it did demonstrate a number of factors we could apply to business life.
Speedy contracting
Acting fast is vital. We should be impressed that compared to a year ago, the world can see light at the end of the tunnel from Covid-19 thanks to scientists’ success in developing vaccines. What Britain was good at doing was moving at speed to lock in contracts with the drug companies and going for accelerated regulatory approval in early December 2020.
The missteps from the EU in 2021 have been caused chiefly by being just that one pace behind at all turns
Being first counts, even if only by a matter of days. The missteps from the EU in 2021 have been caused chiefly by being just that one pace behind at all turns. This has fed through to the negative media coverage across Europe that the EU is responding to events rather than being in control of them.
Bold step
Britain’s decision to buy then unproven vaccines was a bold step that could have backfired. Acting quickly was a risky move, and one a company weighing up the potential pitfalls may not have made.
Being decisive also counts. From early in summer 2020, it was becoming clear that vaccines were the only way out of the pandemic. The EU spread its buying power across a diverse range of potential treatments rather than throwing its backing behind a smaller number of suppliers, as the US did with Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson, and the UK did with Pfizer and Oxford/AstraZeneca.
By concentrating on these options and putting resources behind them, Britain was able to move ahead with its rollout on schedule.
It is understandable why the EU hedged it bets across a number of different drugmakers, some of whom had much later approval deadlines, such as towards the end of 2021. The difficulty is this strategy left it at a disadvantage when negotiating to buy stocks of the drugs that were available – hence the agreement only later to mop up extra Pfizer supplies. Backing one or two drug companies early on in the process has been the correct strategy.
Stand firm
The third lesson was standing firm when the dispute between the UK and EU over potentially holding back exports emerged. The infighting between EU members over whether withholding stocks was the right decision left the bloc in the position of negotiating with one hand behind its back while the UK was united in its stance.
This pandemic has taught us many lessons about how our businesses operate in times of great challenges. When it comes to assessing successful strategies, we may need to look at how government responded and what we can take away from them, as well as learning from commercial peers.
