The Global–to–Local Gap: When Lean Structures Create Wide Distances

Lean organizational models promised clarity, speed, and efficiency. But as many pharma and life science companies removed the regional layer, a new and unintended gap emerged. This gap now slows execution more than it accelerates strategy.

The idea behind the shift was logical. A simplified two-tier structure with Global Strategy at the top and Local Execution at the frontline should have created a more direct connection. Shorter paths. Faster decisions. Clearer accountability.

This is not what happened. Instead of growing closer, global and local teams are now further apart. The connective tissue that once translated, moderated, and balanced the realities of both worlds is gone. Without this buffer, every strategic shift, every efficiency initiative, and every operational requirement lands with full force on the level that is least equipped to absorb it.

What was meant to streamline the system has created a new type of structural tension. This tension now shapes how strategies are deployed, how teams collaborate, and how execution unfolds at the customer interface.

🌍🛣️ What Happens When the Regional Buffer Disappears

The regional layer once served as a stabilizing force. It translated strategic intentions into executable realities and filtered local insights back into global thinking. It protected global teams from being overwhelmed by market-specific demands and protected local teams from being overloaded by global expectations.

With this buffer removed, the system behaves differently. Global teams now interact directly with affiliates that vary widely in size, maturity, and available expertise. Smaller markets operate with lean structures and often without the subject matter specialists who once connected global frameworks to local execution. As a result, global deliverables are more difficult to adapt and the burden of interpretation shifts directly to brand and field managers.

At the same time, global organizations increasingly concentrate attention and investment on the biggest markets. These markets already have more resources than others. The smaller affiliates, which operate at the edge of their capacity, feel the impact most. They are asked to absorb more work, adopt more complexity, and translate more content with fewer people.

In this new constellation, the absence of a regional layer becomes highly visible. The pendulum between global efficiency and local investment now swings without moderation. And every swing lands on someone who cannot afford to miss a step.

This is not a failure of people. It is a consequence of structure. Yet structure can be redesigned through new methods that reconnect global clarity with local viability.

👩🏽🦰👨🦰👦🏿🧑🏻↔️👦 Two Worlds, Two Granularities

One of the most overlooked sources of the Global to Local Gap is the difference in the level of granularity required at each tier of the organization.

Global works at the level of data-driven personalization. Here, the focus is on the largest customer groups, the most common market scenarios, and the statistically relevant drivers of engagement. The output is designed to scale. It is built to optimize efficient advertising and to create brand experiences that work across many markets at once. Precision at the level of segments and cohorts is the operating system of global teams.

Local works at the level of personal individualization. Representatives and other customer-facing roles engage in real time with individual customers and their specific situations. They succeed when they can respond to context, adjust in the moment, and connect strategy with the reality in front of them. This is not personalization based on a segment. This is individualization based on the person in the room.

This difference creates natural friction. Global optimizes for efficient reach designing for scale, consistency, and data-driven personalization. Local requires clarity in the detail to enter the selling zone to build trust, adapt in the moment, and translate strategy into actions that work in a real conversation.

A representative cannot operate on statistical predictions. A representative needs to know what to do, what to say, what to show, and how to adapt the brand story in a way that makes sense in the moment. This requires a level of specificity that is rarely produced at global level.

‼️ The Overload on Local Managers

When the regional layer disappeared, a quiet but powerful shift took place. The responsibility for translating strategy into execution did not vanish — it simply moved downward.

In many lean organizations, this translation used to be supported by regional or local commercial excellence and capability building teams. These teams acted as interpreters, designers, and integrators. They ensured that global ambition could become local practice. They built tools, prepared training, and brought clarity to the frontline.

With these roles reduced or eliminated, the work did not stop. It now falls directly on:

• brand managers
• field managers
• customer-facing teams

These roles already operate at full capacity. Adding execution design, content adaptation, field enablement, and capability building on top of daily responsibilities creates a load that is neither visible in the org chart nor reflected in resource planning.

The consequences are predictable: Brand managers are pulled into operational firefighting instead of strategic brand building while field managers spend more time translating content and less time coaching their teams.

Representatives receive materials that are high in quality but low in usability, because no one had the bandwidth to adapt them to the level of detail required at the customer interface.

🧭 When Overload Is Not an Accident

The increased workload at local level is not always an unintended side effect of lean structures. In some organizations it reflects a deliberate choice. The logic behind this choice is straightforward: if local teams are expected to adopt what is created above country level, global content creation becomes more scalable, more efficient, and easier to justify.

This rationale supports the investment into global content studios, centralized medical and promotional asset teams, genAI-powered content creation, and sophisticated content management systems. The promise is clear — global content becomes faster, cheaper, and more consistent, and local teams simply deploy what is delivered.

The challenge remains unchanged. If global content lacks the granularity that local execution requires, local teams are forced to bridge the gap on their own. And this has direct implications for the most critical role in the commercial model: the representative.

Without the necessary specificity, the representative is no longer able to personalize in the moment, respond to context, or adapt to the individual customer. The role shifts from trusted partner to message delivery channel — and customers immediately feel the difference.

Customers do not need another channel pushing centrally created messages. They need communication that makes sense of the brand in the specificity of their own reality. When representatives lose that ability, two consequences follow:

1. Customer access erodes because interactions no longer create value.
2. Rep-based engagement models lose impact because the human channel is no longer differentiated from digital advertising.

The intention behind global-first content creation is understandable. But without a mechanism that brings global material down to the required level of detail, the strategy undermines the very asset it depends on: the representative as a trusted partner who protects, expands, and deepens customer access.

🛠️ Redefining the Handover Point

To close the Global to Local Gap, organizations first need clarity on one essential question: Where exactly does strategy stop and execution begin. This is the handover point — and in many lean structures it is neither defined nor owned.

A handover point that sits higher in the organization assumes that countries take on the translation work. In this model, affiliates are expected to dissect global strategy, adapt global content, and design local execution frameworks. This requires skills, time, and roles that many markets no longer have, especially after regional or local commercial excellence functions were reduced.

A handover point that sits lower in the organization shifts the responsibility upward. Global must then anticipate the steps that representatives need to take in order to individualize customer engagement. This includes scenario planning, conversation pathways, objection handling, contextual cues, viable sequencing, and situational decision support. If global chooses this approach, it must be capable of producing execution-ready material with the level of granularity that the field requires.

Neither approach is right or wrong — but the absence of a deliberate choice creates avoidable friction.

🎯 Bottom Line

Lean structures reduced hierarchy, but they also widened the space between global intent and local reality. The missing regional buffer accelerated strategic tension and shifted translation work onto roles that were never designed to carry it.

The core issue is not structure. It is the absence of clarity. Global operates at the level of data-driven personalization. Local must individualize in the moment with real customers.

Without a defined handover point and clear ownership for translation, representatives receive content that is too high-level, and execution becomes inconsistent and fragile.

Closing the Global to Local Gap does not require more layers or more content. It requires defining who translates strategy into execution and ensuring that this translation produces the level of granularity needed at the frontline.

🔭 Looking Ahead

The Global to Local Gap is not only a structural challenge. It is also an invitation to rethink how organizations create clarity, build competence, and prepare their teams for a future shaped by volatility and constant change.

Customer-focused and design-based methodologies — such as Design for Execution — offer more than a way to translate strategy into viable field behavior. They activate teams, unlock local expertise, and create shared ownership for the solutions that land in front of customers. When combined with applied capability building and a structured mechanism for continuous improvement, these methods reduce the distance between global and local while strengthening the people who carry the strategy forward.

This approach does more than close a gap. It builds solution competence, adaptability, and future readiness in markets that vary widely in size, maturity, and complexity. It turns execution from a burden into a creative process, and transforms frontline teams from receivers of content into co-designers of engagement excellence.

In the next edition of Enter the Selling Zone, we will explore how Design for Execution works in practice, how applied learning accelerates adoption, and how a continuous improvement loop turns individual interactions into systematic success.

Stay tuned — the real work of execution starts where strategy ends.