The Care-Link - a Pharmaceutical and Health Care Company Case

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT        

SCOPE OF THE STUDY        

KEY ISSUES IDENTIFIED IN THE CASE STUDY        

THE ROLE OF TRAINING MANAGER        

SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT        

REFERENCES        

ANNEXURES        

Annexure 1        

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In performing my case study, I had to take the help and guidelines of some respected persons, who deserve my greatest gratitude. The completion of this assignment gives me much pleasure. Firstly, I would like to show my gratitude to Mr. Dharshana Amarasiynghe, Module 5 Lecturer, IPM for giving us a good guideline for assignment throughout numerous consultations.

Secondly, I would like to appreciate the immense patience shown by my parents while I was working on this. Also, I would like to thank them for supporting me wholeheartedly and providing me with everything I ask them for.

Also I would like to thank I.S. Hettiarachchi for helping me throughout and motivating me.

I would also like to expand my deepest gratitude to all those who have directly and indirectly guided me in writing this case study.

Many people, especially my classmates have made valuable comments, suggestions on this case study which gave me the inspiration to improve my case study. I thank all the people for their help directly and indirectly to complete my module 5 case study

INTRODUCTION

The Care-Link, a pharmaceutical and Health care company that has a staff of 200 and it contains around 77 medical reps and the management staff is comprised with around 7 managers in seven key areas. The training is mostly carried out in an outsourced basis and it is said that the company spends huge amount of money on training and developing its’ employees. The training would include overseas training and outsourced training. The in-house training is also carried out, but it is mainly handled by the Training manager, Mr. Ravi Fernando but this training is limited for the product training, and it incurs a minimum amount of cost respectively. Then a new CEO joins the company in 2009 and challenges Ravi to justify the effectiveness of training through evidences of reports. And there were series of discussions organized for the employees who were trained before. But they could not explain what they gained from the training and its practical advantages for their job. Ultimately it was revealed that the product knowledge of medical reps and sales reps was not up to the expectations. Finally, CEO requested a total plan for training initiatives in 2009 in order to approve money for further training programs that would be organized by the company in the future.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Given that this is a case study and there’s only so much detail given. I had to work within a certain scope. It’s stated in the case study that Mr. Ravi Fernando is the training manager of care link, however it’s not stated how long he has been holding that position for. Also we’re considering only the people who have attended these training programs, be it foreign or local, during the past year. Not beyond that. Even though Mr. Ravi Fernando has extensive experience in the field of pharmaceuticals, it is not given whether he has any training and development skills.  

KEY ISSUES IDENTIFIED IN THE CASE STUDY

When considered the case study we can point out several issues that have caused this sort of a situation in the company itself.

Since Mr. Ravi has failed to meet what he expected from the organized corporate trainings. Not only the huge of amount of money spent (since arranged local and international corporate training programs are costly), the efforts,  the time and the expectation all meaningless wasted.

With my analysis of the given care, I concluded the followings are the major causes of failure for corporate training at care link:

• Improper planning of the overall training programs of the company 

The planning stage of a relevant training program is critical since if it fails to plan, it plans to fail the overall training program which is going to be conducted in the near future. With regard to the above case study we can elaborate that initial planning has not been properly carried out, hence the problems that are related to evaluation arisen respectfully. And it has not been properly figured out, how the training would be effectively carried out during the relevant time period, and how the trainees should link the outcomes of the training to their day to day job role.

•  The real training needs are not being identified

The case itself depicts that the real training needs is not been properly identified and therefore the trainees would have not obtained the sufficient training which is more suitable to their job roles and responsibilities. And their effort, to put on the training they undergo has been reduced to a level, which cannot be expected in accordance with the company standards.

• Not selected the best people to be trained

Since the training department has arbitrarily nominated the trainees, not necessarily the best people.  The training department has not undergone a proper evaluation of selecting the people, while who is more suitable to the training in order to achieve the optimum outcome of the investment, in other words getting the maximum ROT (Return on Training) to the company in more effective manner.

• Adhoc money allocation of the company without investigating the outcomes of the expensive training

Especially with regard to overseas training programs, there should be a proper archiving mechanism of the past experiences or the former outcomes of the overseas training and the current ways of planning overseas planning should be well focused in order to overcome the shortcomings or the mistakes which had been occurred in the past and to improve the overall training programs.

• Not undergone proper evaluation of the standards of the product knowledge of the employees

 Since, it has been found in the case that the product knowledge of both medical reps and the sales reps is not up to the company standards, and the main reason which would have caused this situation could be the problems in assessing the product knowledge of each and every employee, after respective training period. Therefore, the management has not discovered whether their knowledge has been upgraded or not upgraded, in accordance with what the company expects.