Amber Pharmaceuticals Case Study

BRAND MANAGEMENT PROJECT (SECTION STI - ST6)

SEMESTER 2

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Read the case below and answer the questions given at the end. Attempt 2 case study each carry 25 marks

1. Case Study

AMBER PHARMACEUTICALS

In a pharma company manufacturing and marking drugs and medicines, the

research staff has developed a number of new products and formulations

which are effective. But at the same time it has to meet severe

competition from stalwarts with foreign collaboration. Mr. Shah, the

Vice President Marketing has a very successful Pharma Marketing

background. He has been with the company for the past 4 years. Mr.

Shah had made ambitious plans for capturing sizeable share of market

in the Gujarat State. The company being medium sized, Mr. Shah had

kept his marketing department and the marketing team lean and trim.

The field sales staff was given aggressive targets and were virtually

pushed to reach the respective targets. The field staff worked to

their best abilities to compete their respective targets. Mr. Shah had

himself been working hard almost 11- 12 hours a day.

There was no formal appraisal and reward system in the company. During

last 5 years more than 60 Medical Representatives and the Area

Supervisors had left the company due to unsatisfactory increments and

promotions. Those who left the company were star workes. But Mr. Shah

did not care for this high turnover. He was over confident that he

would be able to hire freshers and also select candidates who were not

happy with their remuneration in their respective company. Mr. Shah

had never communicated to the field sales staff about their

performance or reasons for not recognizing their outstanding

performance in a few cases. There was on the whole a great

dissatisfaction and good performers were leaving the company.

Questions:

(a)What do you perceive is the basic problem in' AMBER'?

(b)What are the steps you will take serially to correct the situation?

2. Case Study (25)

Modern Industries Ltd. (MIL) in Bangalore is an automobile ancillary Industry. It has turnover of Rs. 100 crores. It employs around 4,000 persons.

The company is professionally managed. The management team is headed by a dynamic Managing Director. He expects performance of high order at every level. It is more so at the Supervisory and Management levels. Normally the people of high calibre are selected through open advertisements to meet the human resource requirements at higher levels. However, junior-level vacancies are

filled up by different types of trainees who undergo training in the company.

The company offers one-year training scheme for fresh engineering graduates. During the first six months of the training, the trainees are exposed to different functional areas which are considered to be the core training for this category of trainees. By then, the trainees are identified for placement against the available or projected vacancies. Their further training in the next quarter is planned according to individual placement requirements.

During the last quarter, the training will be on-the job. The trainee is required to perform the jobs expected of him after he is placed there. The training scheme is broadly structured mainly keeping in mind the training requirements of mechanical engineering graduates.

Mr. Rakesh Sharma joined the company in the year 1983 after his B. Tech . degree in paint Technology from a reputed institute. He was taken as a trainee against a projected vacancy in the paints application department In MIL, the areas of interest for a trainee in Paint Technology are few. Hence, Mr. Sharma's core training was planned for the first 3 months only. Thereafter, he was put for on-the-job training in the paints application department. He took interest and showed enthusiasm in his work there. The report from the shop manager was quite satisfactory.

The performance of the trainee is normally reviewed once at the end of every quarter. The Training Manager personally talks to the trainee about his progress, strengths and shortcomings. At the end of the second quarter, the Training Manager called Mr. Sharma for his performance review. He appreciated his good performance and told him to keep it up. A month later Mr. Sharma met the Training Manager. He requested that his training period be curtailed to 7 months only and to absorb him as an Engineer. He argued that he had been performing like a regular employee in the department for the last one quarter. As such, there was no justification for him to be put on training anymore. Further, he indicated that by doing so, he could be more effective in the department as a regular