What is a “whitespace”? Simply put, a whitespace is an uncharted territory. Over the past several months, I’ve met with a few individuals throughout Indiana to discuss the state’s future in life sciences. Best I can tell, there is no official strategy for Indiana’s life sciences initiative. Best I can tell, Indiana wants to have anything and everything life science related. Maybe there is a life science strategy: Add jobs? Those of us who have met and discussed this topic agree that Indiana needs to establish a more specific and measurable life science strategy–one that finds a whitespace in the industry that leverages on the strengths and assets within the state. Maybe Indiana needs multiple strategies. For example, what makes sense in Indy may not be applicable to Bloomington or Warsaw.
The Urbanophile Blog recently posted a blog titled “What is a Strategy?”. To quote the post:
There are four parts to a strategy-driven program:
- A vision for what you want to achieve
- A set of capabilities or programs you need to get there
- A list of activities to bring them into reality
- Execution, execution, execution.
There’s also continuous re-evaluation and refinement all along the way.
Let me just say strategy is strategy. I’m by no means trying to say strategy is trivial. Rather, the principles of strategy are fundamental. Whether you want to be the amateur sports capital of the world or you want to be known as a world class city or you want to be the orthopedics capital of the world, the strategic elements are universal.
Many in the state compare Indiana to Boston, San Diego, Silicon Valley, etc. In my view, however, we should stop lumping the entire state together when it comes to life science initiatives. There are likely four (at least) clear regions / areas that are distinctly different when it comes to Indiana and the life sciences industry: Warsaw (orthopedics), West Lafayette (biotech, early stage discovery), Bloomington (catheter-based products), and Indy (pharmaceuticals, IVDs). Each of these regions has at least one flagship, stable company in these respective spaces that can help be a foundation for a successful strategy. Let’s first establish a vision for each of these regions. We can then follow the other parts identified by the Urbanophile for a successful, strategy-driven program.
