Building an Executive Community for Business Development

Case Study: Builds an Executive Community for Business Development

SITUATION
 
There are some issues that will always have the attention of company stakeholders, including the health of Americans. With experts predicting the average Fortune 500 Company spending as much in healthcare dollars for its people as it earns in pretax profits, this issue is now driving executives at all levels to join forces for solutions.
  
COMPLICATION

From ordinary conferences or meetings, little action is taken. No prework is used to qualify attendees as potential partners. Receptivity to potential partnerships may not be tested ahead of time. At how many of these meetings are exercises conducted to create transparency and accountability among the attendees? Ask your leaders whether partnerships are serendipitous and not from a sound strategy tied to integrated initiatives or defined business objectives.
   
SOLUTION

An executive community, made up of leaders who can most influence your business, allows you to be in a position to tap them for sponsorship, research and involvement in key issues. A direct, unconventional forum for bringing execs together, and for discussing research, issues and policy, this type of approach becomes an influential business development vehicle for you. Focusing on positioning you as a thought leader or expert, the forum’s core premise is noncompetitive and focused on finding partnerships and sharing research initiatives to a particular problem, or “big task.” Attendees to the third annual Big Task Weekend (see: www.bigtaskweekend.org) were presidents, C-levels, HR and sales leaders, and Executive Directors of government or nonprofit entities.
 
With a mission for enabling ones chosen professional path to be a place for personal growth, attendees learn techniques for building relationships for revenue growth as well as relationships for career success. Activities include speed partnering sessions and partnership breakfasts; as well as stress reducing activities, such as executive fitness and leadership sessions. Personal health stories are shared and personal commitments to health and wellness are made in a round table setting that ends in a gratitude circle. The partnership ideas and proposed solutions can drive success for the attending companies and sponsors. Collectively, the companies in Big Task Weekend 2006 represented 2 million employees and a Gross National Income between that of Brazil’s and Australia’s GNI.
 
BENEFITS

The executive community successfully crossed industries including: consumer packaged goods (CPG), healthcare, technology, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, banking, nonprofit and government. With the right people in the room and the right questions being asked, active discussions evolved to include:

• A healthcare company’s research on coffee’s helpful effects for wine drinkers 
• A CPG company licensing beverage ingredients with a national beverage company
• A CPG supplier agreement with a national meal planning business
• A CPG that works with a healthcare company’s physicians for education/product claims
• A company’s nutritionists & CPG produce managers educate on fruit & vegetables
• A manufacturer’s soy products to be included in the shakes of a global fastfood chain 
• A nonprofit senior organization and CPG companies lower grocery costs for members