Guilherme Barbassa gives an interview to the SBPC/ML magazine talking about the importance of strategic management in clinical analysis laboratories
It is common to find laboratories that cannot invest in strategic management due to lack of time, thus neglecting various improvements that could increase their business efficiency in a highly competitive market with increasingly smaller margins. With this in mind, Stratec, with the support of SBPC/ML – Brazilian Society of Clinical Pathology/Laboratory Medicine – has just launched Stratec Laboratórios, a software developed especially to assist in the management of this type of company.
We interviewed the director of Stratec, Guilherme Barbassa, the creator of the product along with the president of SBPC/ML, Paula Távora.
SBPC/ML: What is strategic management?
Guilherme: Strategic management is a way of managing the company to ensure that long-term results are achieved, that is, aiming to achieve the organization's vision. For this to happen, it is necessary first to define a strategy, a plan on how this strategy will be implemented, ensure that this plan is executed, and, whenever necessary, initiate replanning. For results to be achieved, it is necessary to have a PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, and Act) at this more global level of company management.
SBPC/ML: Why is strategic management important for clinical laboratories? What are the benefits?
Guilherme: Many laboratories, for historical reasons and also because the owners“ backgrounds are very technical, operate at the level of operational quality but have little insight into business performance and even strategies. Therefore, they focus heavily on product and service quality and don't work as much on the organization's business projects. Strategic management forces people to dedicate a minimum amount of time to thinking about the company as a whole and business performance, and how to achieve the expected vision. What I see happening a lot with small and medium-sized laboratories is that the company's vision is defined, but no plan is defined to achieve that vision. So, with strategic management, the manager is ”forced" to dedicate time to this perspective of the organization as a business that must generate results sustainably through a defined strategy.
SBPC/ML: Does strategic management apply only to large laboratories or also to medium and small-sized ones? Why?
Guilherme: Strategic management applies to laboratories of any size. Of course, the tools and practices used will vary according to the management maturity of each company, but the concept of strategic management applies to any laboratory, regardless of size.
SBPC/ML: What are the methodologies and tools that support strategic management and what are their advantages?
Guilherme: There are several concepts that work in this area of strategic management. The first of these is PDCA, which is generic and is behind various methodologies. It can even be applied in conjunction with other methodologies such as BSC and GPD and VBM. The BSC is an American methodology, developed at Harvard, whose main difference is that it defines that monitoring only the organization's financial objectives does not guarantee long-term sustainability; it is also necessary to monitor customers and markets, internal processes and learning and growth. GPD - Management by Guidelines, on the other hand, has Japanese origins (Hoshin Kanri) and its main difference is the deployment of the organization's global goals for all areas and the entire organizational structure, ensuring coherence between the goals of operational processes and the company's global goals. And finally, there is another methodology called VBM - Value Based Management, also of American origin, which has a more economic focus, seeking to identify the activities that generate value for the organization and link the goals of these activities to the overall goal of generating economic value. What is most interesting is that these methodologies are not mutually exclusive and can be used together. Each organization, knowing the existing methodologies, can create its own strategic management model, incorporating the practices it feels are pertinent to its company.
SBPC/ML: And how is strategic management monitored? How do you know if it's working?
Guilherme: Well, the final product of strategic planning is made up of a few elements: strategic objectives, indicators, action plans, projects and follow-up reports. These elements can be grouped together to make it easier to interpret and monitor this strategic planning. A traditional form of organization is through strategic maps, which are used especially in the BSC methodology. They show how the strategic objectives relate to each other in order to achieve the final financial results. Strategy maps are the translation of the organization's strategy into a figure that is easy to follow and communicate. Another way of grouping the elements of planning can be via dashboards or contribution panels, where we can create a thematic grouping of indicators and projects. So, these dashboards can be created to group indicators and projects by theme. For example, I could have performance dashboards by collection unit, showing the behavior of each one, or a dashboard with information on relationships with operators, among others.
SBPC/ML: You commented on the indicators. But what are they for and how do you use them?
Strategic management indicators are used to track the results obtained from all company efforts. While plans and projects are means to achieve expected results, it is through indicators that we know whether they have been achieved or not, and whether replanning is necessary. For example, in the case of laboratories, indicators such as recall rate, average service time, and net profit can be created. The system we are planning with SBPC/ML for laboratories already has a set of pre-established indicators specifically for this segment, which can serve as guidance for managers.
SBPC/ML: Does strategic management help set goals for the laboratory? How is this done?
Guilherme: Yes, strategic management helps to set goals since you can set the goals to achieve the organization's vision. So targets are set not only based on the company's history, but also on where the company wants to go. Using the PDCA concept in operational goals, if you have an improvement goal, you should immediately create an action plan, because nothing improves on its own. Someone always has to do something to achieve an improvement. And there are practices such as results monitoring meetings or the use of strategic management support software that will guarantee the “C” and “D” of PDCA. If the targets are not being met, the person responsible for them must fill in a follow-up report before going to the results meeting, containing information on the analysis of the target not met and, above all, the actions proposed so that the target can be met next month. There are some typical formats for these follow-up reports, such as the fact-cause-action report, the three-generation report or the report containing the five whys.
SBPC/ML: Are there strategic management softwares?
Guilherme: Yes, there are software programs specifically designed to support this strategic management process in organizations, such as Stratec's software. We have prepared a program with the support of SBPC/ML that includes the software and a set of indicators, strategic objectives, and strategic maps specific to laboratories. It is up to the laboratories to define the goals to be achieved and the projects that will support the organization's best performance, as well as the action plans to achieve each indicator individually. In Stratec, it is also possible to track results through dashboards, which can be filtered by areas or projects or even an individual dashboard, with the user's goals and indicators. The software is 100% web-based, can be accessed from any tablet, cell phone, or computer connected to the internet, and is extremely easy to use.
This interview was originally published in the journal of SBPC/ML – Brazilian Society of Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.
Learn more about laboratory management software by clicking here.
