Commissioning and vendor relationships
This branch covers medical writing that one organisation buys from another: what a sponsor weighs when it chooses a provider, how a supplier answers the request for proposal that puts the work out to bid, how a supplier such as a contract research organisation's writing group turns an account into a lasting partnership, and the weak points the supplying agencies have named themselves, from how they train and audit the freelancers they use to how procurement asks them for information. Start with choosing a medical writing service provider if you are buying, and with responding to a request for proposal if you are bidding.
It leaves the rest of the commercial relationship to its neighbours. The medical communications field the work is supplied from is in medical communications, and the medical affairs function that commissions much of it in medical affairs writing; deciding to move into agency or in-house work is in medical communications and agency roles; the same relationship seen from a practice of one is in finding and keeping freelance clients; what is charged and what the agreement covers is in freelance agreements and pricing; carrying a won project through to delivery is in managing a client project and managing an editorial project; staffing and training the group that does the work is in leading a writing team; the writers' associations acting together are in speaking for the profession with one voice; and the entry-level agency posts the field offers are in which employers take an inexperienced writer.
- Choosing a medical writing service provider — the buyer's criteria for picking a supplier, and why commodity procurement fails on this service
- Responding to a request for proposal — the supplier's side of a bid, and what business development asks of a writer hired for science
- From vendor to trusted partner — what a writing vendor needs in place, why vendor–sponsor relationships fail, stating and improving the value proposition, TRUST, the classic disputes and a lost client's confidence, and the project management sponsors expect