Accelerate: AJourney from Business to People
26
CASE 5
Accelerate: A Journey from Business t
Op}e
It is the fifth day of 'Accelerate', a five-day leadership development inter .
d f R ' d I d' vent1 on £
otential sales officers an area managers o ap 1 , a ea mg pharmac . or 4s1 .
P • f h ' • II d 'F ' ·d euticaI
The concluding sessi on o r 1 s program 1 s ca e 1 res1 e char with L conip
11&h
-
· I H d A • O • ea der ' •
Sreekant (Learn ing & Deve opment ea - s1 a perati ons) and Amri h ( N 1 n
a 1 1y ,
, v h .' 1
Head, India) will have a free-·wheeling conversation with the parricipan: ( at 1 ona1S ch
·1 . a 1e
officers & area managers) wI11 e try mg to answer e1. r questions. s Prom0
ted sSal
h es
t
About Rapid
Rapid is a British multinational pharmaceutical company founded in 1987w·h
ters in London. Ir is renowned for its dermatological treatments and skin It headquar
With a workforce of about 6,000, the company currently has offices 1·n28 care Products-
customers in over 98 countries. • count • •
fies and
In India, Rapid started its operations in the year 2000 and has been growinga
rate of around 25%. The company offers a wide range of products for pigmen; a?
annual Iasma (a skin conclition), alopecia (male and female pattern of baldness) and
aation, Ole. range of products for solar protection-cum-damage repair. complete
About Accelerate
Amrish leads the sales team for India operations of Rapid as Sales Head. Currently, heh
268 direct or indirect repartees. Figure 1 shows the current organizational structure oft :
sales team of Rapid. Rapid reaches its customers via 2 channels: prescription and retail.
Sales officers are individual contributors who work either in prescription or in retail.A
sales officer in the prescription channel liaisons with doctors & hospitals in the defined
geography. The aim is to inform doctors about Rapid's offerings, their composition and
answer any questions that they may have. In this process, the idea is to convince the doctors
that Rapid offers the best skincare products and are suitable for patients.
A sales officer in the retail channel works with pharmacies, mom-and-pop stores, super
markets and related retail outlets where Rapid products can be bought.
Area Managers, on the other hand, are responsible for driving business through both cha
nels (prescription & retail) through a team of sales officers. They are accountable fo their
performance to Regional Managers, who d ive business development & sales for a region.
Every year, some high potential sales officers are promoted to the position of area man-
h • • of re-
agers and similarly, some deserving area managers are promoted to t e posi ti on h
gional managers. These promoted employees (both sales officers and area managers) t en
undergo 'Accelerate', a custom-curated leadership development program to address gaps
zbikode.'Jbe
• Prepared by Paya! Anand and Prapti Aggarwal (Doctoral Scholar), both from Indian Institute of Management Ko . correct
• ed ' th
case is prepar to serve as a basis of class discussion and is not designed to present illustrations o
f e i e orrect or in
handling of administrativedecisions. rc
Accelerate:A Journey from Business to People 27
erformance, upskill the promoted ind· d. ..
iJl P h 'bT • d IVt uals for their new positions and sens1nze
thern todt e resphons1 i ttiesh an dacc untability that the new roles entaif. The intervention
ea over t ree mont s an bringst h . ·
js spr . d I oget er in-house business leaders and domain
erts in management eve opment.
eJ<ffireside Cha:; Lead rs' is the concluding session of Accelerate wherein Amrish and
sreekant try to . ut dast mte connectivity by tying the learnings of the participants to actual
• ss scenanos an address thei r qu t1' 0 b l • ·
bus ine . . es ns Y everag mg upon their own experi ences.
While Acce]erate has huge implications for sales officers and area managers, it holds rel-
evance for_ other employees too. For example, this program holds importance to Nivedita,
che Learning& Development Manager, who had been closelyinvolved in designing the
program for the la t three _rears. A repository of questions asked by participants helps her
incorporate them mto design & deliverables for nextyear.
following are s?me of the key and most frequently asked questions (and follow-up re
sponses from audience, Sreekant & Amrish) in the Firesidechat.
Asked by: Ranveer
Position: Area Manager to Regional
Manager Question:
As managers, a part of our job is also to build camaraderie in the team. For that, I
often take my team out for dinner, make sure to do a team huddle every day at the
end of the day and things like that. However, there is a new sales officer who just
does not open up. I mean, he skips the dinners most of the time. He'll just send me
an email every day on the progress of his targets or drop me a message but would not
speak when I conduct a team meeting. His performance is not an issue. He does his
job well. In fact, when it comes to business, I know he would have done his visits to
the doctors assigned to him sincerely. I don't know how to get him to become a part
of the team like others.
To this, Sreekant asked Ranveer, "Does he express himself in a one-on-one meeting?"
Ranveer shared that he could not say because he hadn't had the time to schedule one.
Asked by: Manish
Position: Sales Officer to Area Manager
Question:
For me, as a sales officer, my boss is everything. For every problem, I expect him to
have answers because he has seen the -field. But whenever I ask him something,
he does not answer it in direct or simple terms. He starts describing various
options and at the end of the meeting, I am left feeling, "so what exactly is the
onclusion now?" There is no absolute closure to any meeting. I have started
turning to oth-
ers for my struggles now.
He is friendly and relaxed, and in the sales -fiefd, this is rare.' and I appreciate
that. But I like keeping it focused and getting straight to the point. .
28 Accelerate: A Journey from Business to People
To this, Arindam, another sales officer in the audience said, "I have been th
what you are talking about. One thing you can do is, at the end of the meet. ere. I k110
boss, you can say-So, we have decr'ded... , or, so, we agree that....-this witlnl g With Yo"l'u
the meetm· g at m• g cone1 try to close,.
someth usr•ve".
Asked by: Mehar
Position: Sales officer to Area manager
Question:
I am a go-getter. I achieve my targets, and that is why I have been promoted M
boss understood that, but my new boss does not. He keeps insisting thatJ iv:h
ld a written plan for everything. How many doctors in what locations I will bev·
..1111 in a day. On a certain d. ay, when I s pent more time with a retailer and
. .
h meet
failed to I
a few others, he t JOught I was wastmg trme. I had a reason; I know that in the (utu
that retailer could open a few more stores. How do I know it? It's a hunch! re
How do I make him trust me?
A lot of sales officers could relate to what Mehar had said. One said,"we hear things whenw
are outside,around the clients and we get intuitions." Other said,"We may not always be
right but we have to take risks". Yet another said, "Not everything can be /mt in an excel
1
sheet."
While the discussion was on, Amrish asked, "All of you are now going to be area
man agers. Some of your sales officers may be investing time with a retailer, but
others could possibly be just slacking off. This is a common issue in sales. As a
manager, how would you differentiate?"
Many of them affirmed that this could be a potential issue they may face and some
raised hands to discuss it further.
Asked by: Sanavar
Position: Area Manager to Regional Manager
Question: .
A sales officer in my team works in the prescription vertical. He is a good guy,
has potential but it is not refiecting in his numbers. I can see that he is visiting fewer
hos pitals than others. To see what the issue could be, I went with him for a
few visits.
On a particular visit, he was scheduled to meet the doctor, but he let an
expecting mother go in because he felt that she needed to see the doctor more
urgently.
In another instance, I found that he was sending the daily business update on
_be half of a colleague who would skip coming to the office for the day-end
meeting. When I asked why he was doing it, he said that the colleague had
some emergency at home, and he was just helping out.
_kInow_all of these are_ good gestures, but these are costing him ti":e, and P1:;:
tzally hrs career at Rapid. We are here to do business, and that requires some
sions. How do I explain that to him?
Accelerate: AJourney from Business to People zg
Sreekant asked Sanavar and everyone · h .
,.t about being right or wrong.?" int e audience, "He is not wrong, but is he right? Is
As the event came to an end Nivd' · • 1 .
• b s• b ' e tta ts cunous as to how the majority of questions did
not pertat tou m ss ut to people management. She is convinced that there isa
unifying
theme tot ese peope management 1·ssues but unabl t · · h ·
e o pinpoint t e issue.
Discussion Questions
Primary Concepts
Personality-behavioural differences, MBTI, interpersonal communication, workplace
relationships, person-team fit
Questions
1. Do you think understanding your colleague's working style is an important factor
in knowing them better? Why?
2. What is the relevance of Sreekant's question to Ranveer?
3. Why do you think Manish is unable to communicate effectively with his boss?
4. Is Mehar's ask that her boss should trust her instinct, right? What would you
advise her?
5. What should Sanavar suggest to his subordinate?
6. Should team members have similar behavioural skillsets or different from each oth
er? Explain your answer using the MBTI framework.
7. How can Nivedita and her team contribute to resolving the highlighted interper:
sonal issues in the case? Suggest.
•
Appendix
Country
CEO·
Sales
Head,
Regional
.Managers
Area
Managers
Sales
Officers
