Hello from Hamburg,
What if mRNA could be used as a drug? What if laboratory tests could be replaced by intelligent machines? What if we didn't work on one therapy, but on several at the same time to increase the speed at which we can fight serious diseases? What if we became a company whose gears were made up of artificial intelligence? These are questions that the American pharmaceutical company Moderna asked itself in 2010, the year it was founded.
Moderna originated from a venture capital fund dedicated to business ideas that come from research. The founders of Moderna are working on the mRNA method, which teaches the body how to produce a special protein that supports our immune system in preventing and defending against diseases. A blueprint is introduced into human cells that turns them into producers of important antibodies. Behind this is the vision of therapies that are able to fight serious diseases in a targeted and individualized manner.
Moderna uses a platform model for drug development, in which the company works on several diseases at the same time that have the same defect as their cause. In this way, the company learns from failed trials in one disease directly for other disease symptoms. Since its foundation, Moderna has consistently pursued the vision of a fully digitalized biotech company. From the very beginning, the company documented data from research and preclinical development in a way that provided it with a good basis for the early use of artificial intelligence. In spring 2020, twenty algorithms were in use in production and another twenty in the development and testing of therapies. When the coronavirus pandemic hit Europe and the USA, it was easy for Moderna to fully digitize mRNA to combat the coronavirus, ramp up the production of mRNA-based vaccines and thus make an important contribution to the fight against the pandemic.
At the beginning of these forward-looking decisions and possibilities were "what if" questions. Thinking the impossible. Seeing what we don't know as interesting. From these questions, Moderna and the fund behind it build prototypes that test the theories in practice. In the best case scenario, this results in spin-offs that have to assert themselves on the market. Just like Moderna.
When the present holds a great deal of uncertainty, as is currently the case, strategy work seems particularly paradoxical: How can we make a reliable statement now about where our company is heading in the coming years? Five annual plans, a comprehensive target picture of the company in x years - that seems implausible to those involved. And yet the organization needs orientation more than ever: Where do we want to go? What can I rely on? Will my job still exist in the future? Employees and managers are asking themselves these questions more urgently than ever.
This is the time for bold hypotheses. Strategic ambitions without the claim that they will actually materialize. It is the time for "what if" questions that aim far into the future. Addressing seemingly unrealistic and over-optimistic hypotheses. That suggest a concrete state in the future and pursue an implementation plan backwards from this state. Like Moderna, which, with the bold vision of a "fully digitalized biotech company" at the time of its founding, documented its business processes across corporate functions, subsequently digitalized them, linked them with data, automated them and individualized them using AI. The opposite of incremental development of innovations or scenario planning based on status. Because if the status is fragile, it is not a good starting point for answering the question of how the company will be competitive in the future. Now is the best time to work on what we previously considered impossible to implement.
How are you currently dealing with the future in your company? How do you strike a balance between the impossibility of planning for the future and the organization's justified need for orientation?
