CASE STUDY
Pharmaceutical Sales Organization Doubles in Size, Evolves Its Culture
Challenge
A fast-growing pharmaceutical sales division was about to release their first “blockbuster” drug. They had an ethical, relational, highly communicative, yet hard-driving culture unlike any in the industry. They needed to significantly expand their sales force and leadership structure in advance of the release.
Company leaders feared the loss of their unique and successful culture during this rapid scaling phase. It was critical that newly hired sales leaders and representatives rapidly integrate into its culture. Creating an agile and aligned sales team was an absolute necessity.
Immediately after the decision to design and implement a go-to-market strategy for the new drug, senior leadership asked us to help them envision, design and orchestrate a process that would expand their sales team, choose, align and integrate new members, and simultaneously preserve and further evolve their great culture.
Solution
We partnered with a cross-section of regional leaders and sales representatives to precisely define their current and desired culture. We identified clear areas for improvement, which surprised the leaders who previously thought the culture to be perfect as it was. Simultaneously, we specified the breakthrough leadership and sales representative competencies, which were immediately integrated into their hiring and onboarding process.
One highlight of the project was the “One Tribe” five-day event – a strategy, alignment and team-building workshop, which took place on a native people’s reservation. This was a momentous moment in this organization’s history. The company founders and long-serving leaders recounted the history of the company while gaining the active involvement of others to create a “shared story” of their successes, challenges and occasional setbacks. This powerful event immediately preceded one of the most successful product launches ever in the history of the industry.
Results
- 183 leaders and sales representatives, were recruited, hired and on-boarded by a process described as meaningful, respectful of diversity standards, culturally-aligned and time-efficient.
- 28 new regional sales teams were built, and team relationships strengthened to weather the challenges of their rapid, continent-wide product launch.
- The most successful product launch to date.
- Leaders attributed product launch success to the fully-integrated process
- FDA and competitive challenges forced the company to course-correct several times during the launch, with the sales team showing agility and exemplary learning abilities.
- New sales members engaged and aligned with culture quickly and contributed to Sales Force Effectiveness rating.
- New sales strategies and approaches were collaboratively developed by the expanded sales force.
- Sales force earned the highest historical Sales Force Effectiveness rating ever.
