CPR Committee Report: Amgen's Dispute Prevention

A June 6 CPR Dispute Prevention Committee meeting provided an analysis of how a leading biotechnology company works to prevent disputes. 

Tracy Blois, Head of Alliance Management at Amgen Inc., a Fortune 200, Thousand  Oaks, Calif., company that discovers, develops and manufactures medicines for serious illnesses, presented the company's mechanisms for preserving business relationships.

Amgen has been a longtime supporter of CPR’s initiatives—it is a two-time recipient, in 2010 and 2022, of  CPR's Corporate Leadership Award.

Blois explained that alliance management aims to maximize the value that Amgen and its partners capture from alliances, expand the company's strategic external opportunities, and enable industry-leading partnership capabilities across the organization.

Blois emphasized that alliance management can be described as risk management. “Part of what we try to do is recognize that if we don’t know what those risks are so that we can’t manage them appropriately,” she said.

Blois explained that she conducts quarterly alliance portfolio reviews with her team, which help track inflection points, accomplishments, and issues. Additionally, she discussed the importance of transparency with the company's business partners regarding company values and challenges.

Blois introduced a subset of tools they use which she said help mitigate risks and manage issues with the company's business partners.

During the continuing alliance maintenance period, the alliance management team will use another tool--a “health check”--to assess how the alliance with a business partner is progressing through meetings, surveys, and other check-ins, typically an annual or bi-annual assessment.

The alliance management team will often conduct joint problem-solving, which identifies the interests of the parties and the options from which both parties could benefit. Then, they will use standards of legitimacy to decide the best option to proceed.

Finally, Blois discussed one more tool they leverage, learning-based inquiry, which focuses on the importance of effective communication and the delivery of how things are said in conversations with business partners. Blois stressed that differences in language are important in opening up a conversation and bringing more creative problem-solving, constructive dialogue, and joint understanding to the table.

Blois shared an analogy to show the importance of language and communication regarding positions versus interests in alliance management. Blois told a story about two cooks who needed a whole lemon for their recipe, but only one lemon was left. The cooks instinctively split the lemon in half, one using their half for lemon juice squeezed from the fruit, the other using their half to extract lemon zest from the peel.

After the cooks threw their halves away, they realized that their recipes called for different parts of the lemon. With one lemon, one cook could have satisfied her need for an entire lemon’s worth of juice and the other could have satisfied her need for an entire lemon’s worth of zest. 

Blois explained that if the cooks had just discussed why they needed an entire lemon--their “interests”--they each could have fully met their respective recipes’ citrus requirements. Instead, each threw away half of what the other needed and an unsatisfying compromise was reached. 

“This is a story we’ll use in trainings to remind people of the importance to talk about why or what you’re trying to achieve, and get away from positions,” said Blois.

Blois shared more details on the health-check process as one of the tools in their alliance management toolkit. She explained that they measure against 14 different partnership success factors during health checks.

Blois ended her presentation by answering a number of thoughtful questions from CPR Dispute Prevention committee members.

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The author, a Brooklyn Law School student, is a CPR Institute Summer 2024 intern.

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