Strategy at Novo Nordisk, Manufacturing Development

Manufacturing Development is a catalyst for the acceleration of operational excellence and the introduction of disruptive solutions at factories all around the world as well as for the introduction of new products. The lead time of the production and deviations must be reduced significantly, and the processes must be automatized and digitalized.

What is the main challenge in your strategy realization?

To become even better at experimenting and trying out new things. Our culture is characterized by documentation and control, which are useful in certain areas, but it permeates through our culture to such a degree that we let ourselves be controlled by KPIs.

We work with what we call Action Tracks in which we over the course of 100 days realize strategic initiatives in an experimenting fashion, and this really makes a difference. I constantly talk to my managers and employees about the importance of experimenting due to the many areas where we could be better at playing, experimenting, and trying out new things. And when we do this, the outcome is always positive.

How do you understand the term "Strategy"?

To me, the problem is twofold: What do we want to achieve? And how do we want to achieve it?

The first question often gets more attention than the second one, but the ‘how’ is crucial if you want to realize your strategy – and we ought to talk much more about that than we do currently.

We use Hoshin Kanri, which is a process through which targets are communicated and acted upon such that we break our strategy down to very concrete actions and not merely general targets. At each of our management meetings, we begin by discussing this for an hour – and it works.

How do you manage the strategy realization?

To focus on the dream has become more and more important to me: What are we capable of in one, two, five years? I am also very focused on ensuring that managers along with their employees look for inspiration in their surroundings, also from very different industries. We invite in people from the outside world, we listen, and we let ourselves be inspired. It just does not work if I simply go to my employees and tell them what to do. My managers have to understand why it is important that we progress.