154 Chapter 4 Table 4.3 Summary of the opportunities and mitigating measures per theme (Continued) 10. Disruptive events • Opportunities/threats • Mitigating measures • Acute situation: national disaster increases demand • Non-acute situation: overpopulation and aging elderly population increases demand • Dutch government stops regulating Sanquin’s annual budget • Sanquin creates/consolidates emergency plans that can be easily activated during a disruptive event, that includes: 1 internal communication plan (for all employees) 2 external communication plan (for donors and hospitals) 3 Sanquin operational plan (e.g., testing) with national operational plan (with the Ministry of Health and National Institute for Public Health and the Environment [RIVM]) 4 international operational plan (e.g., importing products from a neighboring country) • During acute situations, careful communication and monitoring with willing donors (i.e., via social media) so when supply exceeds demand, we provide donation alternatives • For economical, Sanquin creates transparency and disentangling economic interconnections amongst its entities • Threats • Societal: In an acute situation, too many donors donating leading to a wastage of blood; in non-acute situation, there is insufficient blood donors; natural disasters occur or an infectious disease breakout prevents donors from donating • Economical: Sanquin’s privatized entities become bankrupt • Ecological: emerging viruses; major pandemic; emerging pathogens due to traveling; transfusion-transmissible viruses or infections; emerging side effects of transfusions • Political: instability, war, blood scandal, terrorist attack, cyber threat • Operational: Massive long-term power failure from major environmental incident affecting infrastructure, delivery of services, spoilage of inventory Abbreviations: EU, European Union; GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation; RBC, red blood cell. Mitigating measures When experts discussed what measures could be taken as a response to the consequences of relevant and uncertain forces, overlapping concepts of leadership, innovation, communication, and collaboration were found. As blood supply organization had leadership as a sub-theme, experts emphasized the need for the organization’s leadership to have an innovative and flexible mentality and attitude; in fact, experts emphasized that agility or flexibility in decision-making throughout the entire organization impacts its ability to be proactive or quickly react. The word “innovation” occurred throughout the mitigating measures of other themes, such as in commercialization/open EU market and change in perceptions, highlighting the desire for new, proactive, and creative ways (Table 4.3). Communication, both internal and external, were repeating key elements. Internal communication had to do with the leadership in blood supply organization being able to communicate its strategy to all levels of the organization along with having protocol(s) in place in case of disruptive
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