How often should a country leadership team review its strategy?
I have seen both extremes.
Teams that reopen the strategy every week. Every dip becomes a crisis, and the field gets a new priority each month.
And teams that review it once a year at budget time, by which point the market has already moved.
What works in my experience is a different rhythm for different questions.
Weekly: sell-out and distributor inventory. Not to change anything, just to see whether demand is real or whether stock is simply sitting in the channel.
Monthly: execution. Coverage, frequency, and what first-line managers are hearing in the field.
Quarterly: the strategy itself. Segments, messages, resources. The whole leadership team, with enough data to be honest.
Yearly: the big choices. Which brands, which segments, which therapy areas.
One more rule. The same view goes to the managers who have to act on it. A review that only the leadership team sees rarely changes anything in the field.
“Watch the numbers weekly. Question the strategy quarterly.”
Lesson 16 of 16 in Step 1: Setting strategy, with the full guide and a checklist for this week.