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CEO Rountable at FFE 2016

(L-R) Darshan Patel, Partner, PwC; Krishna Singh, Founder-CEO, GlobalSpace Technologies; Vikas Dandekar, Editor - Pharma & Healthcare at The Economic Times; YS Prabhakar, CEO Sutures In-dia; CT Renganathan, Managing Director RPG LifeSciences; Ali Sleiman, General Manager India, Merck Serono

Sankar Dass, COO & Director, CURATIO Healthcare.

Sankar Dass has more than three de-cades of experience during which time he has has built major brands like Omez, Razo, Nise, Ketorol, Stamlo, Mintop, Ve-nusia and others.

Prior to his current role, he was the Vice President in Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories.

BrandStorm 2016 Keynote FFE 2016 Keynote

Darshan Patel, Partner, PwC

Darshan is a Partner leading the Forensic Services practice in Mumbai with substantial investigative and forensic accounting experience in USA and India.

He has been with the organization for over 22 years out of which, he spent 9 years as part of the forensics practice in New York. He has over 14 years of work experience across practice areas of Forensic accounting, Disputes & Litigation.

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MISSED OUT ON THE ACTION

AT FFE & BrandStorm

2016?

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CONTENTS MedicinMan Volume 6 Issue 3 | March 2016

Editor and Publisher

Anup Soans

CEO

Chhaya Sankath

Chief Mentor

K. Hariram

Editorial Board

Salil Kallianpur; Prof. Vivek Hattangadi; Shashin Bodawala; Hanno Wolfram; Renie McClay

Executive Editor

Joshua Soans

Letters to the Editor: [email protected]

1. FFE 2016 Takeaway: Sales Coaching is Critical to Frontline Success ..........................................6

Frontline managers need to be taught how to coach Reps for sales success.

K. Hariram

2. Do You have the Doctor’s Ear? .........................8

Insights into how Doctors schedule appointments with Medical Reps and how to take advantage.

Suman Deb

3. BOOK REVIEW: Total Communication by Vivek Hattangadi ............................................13

A complete guide to verbal and non-verbal communication for the pharma professional.

K. Hariram

4. Standard Operating Procedures: Good or Evil? ............................... ...................................15

Standard Operating Procedures (“SOPs”) can either boost or burden a company’s operations - the onus is on the frontline manager.

Pankaj Mehrotra

5. Up-Skilling for Growth .................................18

As the fastest growing major economy, India offers tremendous opportunity for growth. Up-skilling the field force is crucial to successfully harness this opportunity.

P. S. Parameswaran

We’ve changed the formatting of articles to make the PDF more mobile-friendly.

Tell us what you think: [email protected]

GlobalSpace Technologies (“GlobalSpace”) is a young and passionate organization with a mission to solve complex problems with simple solutions. They specialize in mobility with their integrated solutions, seamlessly running on their tablet PCs. In the words of its Founding Director Mr.Krishna “GlobalSpace was conceptualized to empower every feet on street to do their job better by leveraging technology”.

GlobalSpace builds SAAS based software and hardware product platforms which include CLM (E-Detailing) platform, Sales Force Automation (CRM) Tool, Mobile Device Management and SOLT Tablets. GloEDGE, a cloud based one stop content management and analytics platform, is the company’s flagship CLM platform. Its cloud based CRM tool GloSFA, delivers simplified and enhanced user experience. GlobalSpace’s unique SOLT Tablet is deployed for installing and upgrading applications as well as for activating their functionalities depending upon the subscription.

By serving out-of-the-box solutions that delight customers everyday, GlobalSpace eyes to change the landscape of the enterprise mobility industry and become a leading provider of breakthrough mobility products and solutions in the Indian market. GlobalSpace is an organization purely driven by passion & modernization. `

GlobalSpace Technologies at FFE 2016

(R) Krishna Singh, Founder-CEO, Global-Space Technologies makes a point at the CEO Roundtable @ FFE 2016. (L) Darshan Patel, Partner, PwC

(R) Krishna Singh, Founder-CEO, GlobalSpace presented a memento by Chhaya Sankath, CEO, KMV

(R) Amitabh Sinha, COO, Pharma, GlobalSpace Technol-ogies is presented a memento by Chhaya Sankath, CEO, KMV

(2-L) Amitabh Sinha, COO, Pharma, GlobalSpace Technologies makes a point at a panel discussion. (L-R) Deep Bhandari, Head of Business Unit - Multiple Sclerosis, UCB; Jagmohan Singh Rishi, Assoc. VP, L&D, Business Analytics & Digital, Wockhardt; Anup Soans, Editor, MedicinMan.

(C) Krishna Singh, Founder-CEO, GlobalSpace present-ing a memento to Deep Bhandari (R), Head of Business Unit - Multiple Sclerosis, UCB - and a long-time patron of MedicinMan. (L) Anup Soans, Editor, MedicinMan.

Medulla Communications at BrandStorm 2016

(L) Praful Akali, MD, Medulla Communications speaks on “Unleashing the Power of Digital Marketing”; (C) Dr. Manish Verma MD, Director Medical Affairs, Sanofi; (R) Pankaj Dikholkar, General Manager, Abbott

(L-R) Anup Soans, Editor, MedicinMan; Chhaya Sankath, CEO, KMV; Praful Akali, MD, Medulla Communications; Dr. Manish Verma MD, Director Medical Affairs, Sanofi; (R) Pankaj Dikholkar, General Man-ager, Abbott

(L) Praful Akali, MD, Medulla Communications moderating a panel discussion on case studies of successful brand strategies of phar-ma in the Indian context (L-R) Ajit Nair, Marketing Manager, Sano-fi; Nandita Dandekar, Respiratory Commercial Manager, GSK and Daleep Manhas, General Manager & Associate Vice President at McCann Health

(R) Praful Akali, MD, Medulla Communications presented a memento by Chhaya Sankath, CEO, KMV

Medulla Communications is a deeply specialised healthcare communications agency, focused on providing integrated strategic, marketing and creative communication for healthcare clients across all media and target audiences.

Since it was founded, Medulla Communications rose to the ranks of the top 3 healthcare agencies in the country within 6 years, servicing clients like Novartis, Sanofi, MSD, GSK, J&J, Colgate, Heinz, and others.

Medulla Communications is India’s biggest winner at The Rx Club Show 2014 at New York – one of the leading global Creative awards in Healthcare.

At Cannes Lions 2015, Medulla Communications bagged a Bronze Lion for its Spinning Living Room print campaign for Johnson & Johnson.

Integrated Healthcare Communications

FFE 2016 TAKEAWAY: SALES COACHING IS CRITICAL TO FRONTLINE SUCCESS.Frontline managers need to be taught how to coach Reps for sales success.

7 | MedicinMan March 2016

At the recently concluded FFE 2016, it was heartening to witness the emphasis on the dire need to improve the quali-

tative aspect of the Frontline Managers when it comes to leading their sales team. Almost all the speakers emphasized the need of the hour – Sales Coaching by Frontline Managers.

Today’s pharma organisations are well-aware of the value of training their field sales force. How-ever, most of the organisations fall short and don’t realize the importance of developing their front-line sales managers.

They assume that their Medical Representatives (MRs) can seamlessly transition from a position of selling to one of managing/ leading, despite the requirement of a substantially different skill set between the two job functions.

It is a well-established fact that training front-line managers not only produces a compel-ling return on investment, it’s also a critical element of sales success.

One of the most valuable skills a Frontline Man-ager should learn is sales coaching. When Front-line Managers know how to coach, companies can readily leverage them to improve the sales performance of their entire field sales team.

The implementation of UCPMP rules are round the corner and so also the stringent MCI rules. Hence there is an urgent need for the pharma companies to ramp up their sales force quality and marketing approaches.

With respect to sales force quality, I strongly rec-ommend Sales Coaching since this skill has a sig-nificant “force multiplier” effect.

K. Hariram

K. Hariram | FFE 2016 Takeaway: Sales coaching is Critical to Frontline Success

To help understand the WHY, HOW and WHAT of ‘SALES COACHING’, I have simplified the content that I presented at FFE 2016 in the form of info-graphic.

Sales coaching is an on-going process in which a Frontline manager must coach his entire team in a systematic manner.

Fortunately, sales coaching is a skill that can be learned, practiced and perfected.

“SALES COACHING IS THE MODERN SALES MAN-AGEMENT” M


K. Hariram is the former MD (retd.) at Galderma India. He is Chief Mentor at MedicinMan and a regular contributor. [email protected]


Twenty years back, in India, selling med-icines by medical representative was a well-respected profession; doctors and

the trade used to give medical representatives a lot of respect and time.

But the glamour factor is much lower these days.1,2 A qualitative study in Mumbai revealed that doctors feel that every minute taken up by the medical representatives is time which could have been spent seeing patients and making money in the clinic.

Thus now a day’s many doctors perceive medical representative’s visits as an intrusion.3

According to the Medical Council of India (MCI), the total number of registered doctors in the country is 9,36,488 as on December 31, 2014.4

Although there is no exact data available on the number of medical representatives; however, according to McKinsey & Co. India has 100,000 medical representatives and is likely to triple by 2020.5

Presently, there is one medical representative per 10 doctors. In a similar study by McKinsey & Co. found that there will be at least 3 MR per 10 doctors by 2020.6

Suman Deb

DO YOU HAVE THE DOCTOR’S EAR?Insights into how Doctors schedule appointments with Medical Reps and how to take advantage.

Suman Deb | Do You Have the Doctor’s Ear?


On an average a medical representative meets 8-12 doctors in a day. Many companies have developed doctor-visit matrix where a medical representa-tives needs to meet 2-3 times depending on the potentiality of the doctor.

In a month, doctors are being met by at least 60 – 100 companies7 and due to various divisions a doctor meets 240-250 medical representatives in a month (An average of 20 – 25 medical representa-tives per day).

It has also been observed that majority of doctors agree to spend 2-5 min with medical representa-tives.8 Thus doctors usually spend 40 minutes to 2 hours interacting with medical representatives in a day, which can be utilized to see patients or make money.

Many private and government hospitals have barred medical representatives from meeting doc-tors in OPDs.9,10

During the visit to the field for meeting the doctors and various feedbacks that I have received from my field colleagues, doctors have developed certain strategies/techniques to avoid medical represen-tatives.

Below mentioned are the examples of few:

» Doctor specifies the time for interaction with medical representatives (Example: 5 PM to 6 PM)

» Doctor specifies one day of a week for meeting medical representatives (Wednesday/Saturday)

» Doctor meets 4-5 medical representatives in a day OR accept 5 business cards for appoint-ment

» Doctor allows one medical representative to talk for 20-30 seconds

» Doctor directs the medical representatives to detail only the brand name (nothing else to be communicated)

In a month, doctors are being met by at least 60 – 100 companies and due to various divisions a doctor meets 240-250 medical representatives

in a month (An average of 20 – 25 medical representatives per day).

» Doctor does not allow to detail the brands and take only samples from all 10-15 medical repre-sentatives within 5 minutes

» No Visual Aid detailing. Only reminder card to be placed

» Detailing can be done for 1 brand (name and composition)

» Standing Call: 20-25 medical representatives wait for the doctor outside the consultation chamber and share one or two brands or just hand over LBLs to the doctor when he enters or exists the chamber.

» Corridor call: Doctors interact with the medical representatives when they are moving through the corridor of the hospitals.

Few doctors have formulated more stringent system for medical representative:

» Medical representatives should take the ap-pointment around 5 AM. Appointment will be accepted for 5-6 calls only. Around 11 AM doctor meets the representatives. Medical rep-resentatives need to wait physically till 11 AM. Moreover, medical representatives can meet the doctor every 15 days.

» Doctor allows only one visit every month. Ap-pointment should be taken one month before. If a medical representative misses the call, that person will not be eligible for the next month call.

» Doctor meets 3-5 medical representatives late at night (12:30 AM to 2 AM).

» Doctor meets medical representatives only on Sunday. Within ½ an hour doctor meets 30 medical representatives.



Common types of calls:

Standing Call: 20-25 medical representatives wait for the doctor outside the consultation chamber and share one or two brands or just hand over LBLs to the doctor when he enters or exists the chamber.

Corridor call: Doctors interact with the medical representatives when they are moving through the

corridor of the hospitals.

» Doctor takes appointment over phone. Ap-pointment can be taken between 6 and 7 AM and representative can meet the doctor around 11 AM. Doctor accepts the appointment of a fixed number of medical representatives.

» Doctor takes appointment on the 1st day of the month. Every day meet only 2 medical repre-sentatives.

» Medical representatives are not allowed to de-mand prescription.

» Doctor accept the call only if the medical repre-sentative is with the manager.

» Doctor only accepts MRs wearing a tie.

» Doctor meets only a few specific companies’ representatives (MNCs and big Indian compa-nies)

Another set of doctors have made it very inno-vative:

» Doctor meets only 6 medical representatives a day. He meets medical representatives only 3 days in a week at 11 AM. Initially doctor accepts business cards of 15 medical representatives. Doctor puts the card in a bin and then through lottery picks up 6 business card of medical rep-resentatives whom the doctor will meet.

» Doctor meets 10 medical representatives every day and allows detailing only the brand name of 3 products. After doctor meets 10 medical representatives, he charges Rs. 100 for any ad-ditional number of medical representatives.

» Appointment from the doctor to be taken through SMS only. Medical representatives should send the SMS at 8 AM (and not be-fore 8AM). Doctor will accept first 5 requests through SMS. Doctor sends the confirmation and time through SMS.

Day by day the overall situation is getting shoddi-er. Marketing team of pharmaceutical companies needs to find out a suitable way out to help medi-cal representatives.


... medical representatives, who are more innovative or creative, will be able to perform better than the

others... More importantly, medical representatives should be able to create a space in the heart of

doctors by helping them in various ways.


Product management team needs to provide in-puts which are creative and can offer value to the doctor.

Inputs related to new and updated information about the molecule or any recent advancement the therapeutic area will help the medical repre-sentatives to share these information with the doc-tors and thus creating impact inside the clinic.

At the same time, medical representatives, who are more innovative or creative, will be able to perform better than the others.

Medical representatives should try different ways of doing things, so that they can improve the qual-ity of call during in-clinic interaction. More impor-tantly, medical representatives should be able to create a space in the heart of doctors by helping them in various ways.

Training programs for medical representatives should come out from the traditional form of im-parting only medical knowledge. Training needs to be designed to address these issues and how to handle these difficult doctors.

During the induction program and joint field work by 1st and 2nd line managers should coach the medical representatives on the above mentioned scenarios. M


References:1. http://www.researchgate.net/post/

Is_working_as_a_pharma_medical_repre-sentative_a_glamo rous_profession_in_In-dia_or_elsewhere_globally, Pandi-Perumal Seithikurippu Ratnas. Is working as a pharma medical representative a glamorous profession in India or elsewhere globally?, Cited on-16.02.2016.

2. V. Srinivasan. It is Possible to Get Back The Respect of Medical Representatives? The Pharma Review (January-February 2015).

3. Nobhojit Roy, Neha Madhiwalla & Sanjay A Pai. Drug promotional practices in Mumbai: a quali-tative study, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics Vol IV, No 2: April-June 2007; PP: 57-61.

4. http://www.indiamedicaltimes.com/2015/03/13/india-has-9-36-lakh-doctors-of-modern-medicine/, India has 9.36 lakh doc-tors of modern medicine; India MedicalTimes, Friday, March 13, 2015. Cited on -06.01.2016.

5. http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/welcome-to-india-the-land-of-the-drug-reps-09082011.html. Adi Narayan. Welcome to India, the Land of the Drug Reps, Bloomberg, September 08, 2011, Cited on-06.01.2016.

6. http://www.google.co.in/url?url=http://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mck-insey%2520offices/india/pdfs/india_phar-ma_2020_propelling_access_and_acceptance.as&rct=j&frm=1&q=&esrc=s&sa=U&ved=0a-hUKEwjT-ZCF3ZXKAhVDWY4KHZm3DvEQFggT-MAA&sig2=CnLyDJKei9LtsmGUaKnVzg&usg= AFQjCNHaUQccVk-YrNUcbaIBIWP2goryDQ, Pharmaceutical and Medical Product practice; Indian Pharma 2020: Propelling Access and ac-ceptance, realizing the true potential, McKinsey & Co. Cited on-06.01.2016

7. http://www.slideshare.net/sk_prince/building-relationships-with-doctors-for-ef-fective-marketing-in-pharma-indus-try-through-crm, By Shahzad Khan. Building Relationships with Doctors for Effective Mar-keting in Pharma Industry through CRM, Cited on-06.01.2016

8. Akash Jain, Medical representative visits – Information or Knowledge sharing, Brandspeak, Nov 22, 2011.

9. Dr Mulamoottil. Kerala hospital bars medical representatives from meeting its doctors, India MedicalTimes, Friday, February 8, 2013.

10. Dr M Ashraf Malik. JNMCH restricts entry of medical representatives in its OPD, India Medi-calTimes Saturday, November 19, 2011.

Suman Deb is a Training Manager at Emcure. lnked.in/suman-deb


http://lnked.in/suman-deb

TOTAL COMMUNICATION

A book by Prof. Vivek Hattangadi

BOOK REVIEW

Communication works for those who work at it.” – John Powell

True to this saying, here is yet another de-lectable “ten-Sunday brunch” in the form a book: “TOTAL COMMUNICATION” authored by Prof. Vivek Hattangadi.

As I sat down to read through, I could not resist finishing all ten brunches in one go and much to my surprise, I did not feel that I had over eaten. On the contrary, I was feeling a sense of satisfac-tion.

Prof. Hattangadi writes in his inimitable style that could well be tasted, enjoyed, assimilated, digested and the essential nutrients will act as excellent nourishment adding a great amount of value to every individual in every walk of life and more importantly to the sales professionals.

He has divided the whole subject in his book Total Communication into two sections each divided into five sub-topics for easy bites. Each sub-topic unfolds the variety and various sub-tle components of communication with easy to understand examples and eye-catching illustra-tions.


K. Hariram

K. Hariram | BOOK REVIEW: “Total Communication” by Prof. Vivek Hattangadi


In today’s digital world and in every gadget that we use, there are two components, the hardware and the software.

The author dishes out the tasty software of com-munication in his 2nd, 3rd, 4th and the 5th brunch-es with the emphasis on: ‘it is not what you say, but how you say.’ There is a special emphasis on LISTENING which is a rare dish in today’s busy and multi-tasking world.

Understanding how to cook and what ingredients are required is one thing and actually dishing out palatable and tasty stuff is another altogether. Cooking is an art and so is communication.

Section 2 gives the practical approach of how, when and where it can be effectively used, be it emails, presentation or written communication adding a section with specific focus on health care professionals.

Given the shift to social media, texting, chat rooms, etc. communication has become more transaction-al than transformational. It is all about conveying and rarely about convincing. Rightly put ‘in selling it is not just telling.’ It is more like fast/ junk foods which satiate hunger sans nourishment.

Prof. Hattangadi’s book TOTAL COMMUNICATION comes at the right time providing tasty and nour-ishing brunch to the mind and is insightful, well written and filled with examples. It is a crystal clear roadmap — with ten delightful destinations along the way — that can guide individuals through the most challenging of environments. M

Prof. Hattangadi’s book TOTAL COMMUNICATION comes at the right time providing tasty and nourishing brunch to the mind and is insightful, well written and filled

with examples.

K. Hariram is the former MD (retd.) at Galderma India. Full profile on P. 5

Organizations, today, find Standard Op-erating Procedures (“SOPs”) necessary to ensure compliance, accountability

and efficiency. On the other hand the sales and marketing teams – the implementers – may find SOPs to be complex, increasing their work load and an avoidable diversion from their core job of increasing demand of products.

The trend of maintaining a set of written and detailed instructions in form of a SOP originat-ed with the manufacturing manuals which were used to instruct and guide workers about how to operate machines and maintain quality stan-dards.

The acceptance of SOPs as a quality manage-ment tool is evident from the fact that many pharmaceutical organizations have more than 500 SOPs as the guiding document for most of the departments covering their major activities.


Pankaj Mehrotra

STANDARD OPERATING

PROCEDURES: GOOD OR EVIL?

Standard Operating Procedures (“SOPs”) can either boost or burden a company’s operations - the onus is on the frontline manager.

Pankaj Mehrotra | SOPs: Good or Evil?


Benefits of SOPs:

J Standardize and improve quality of the prod-ucts and services offered

J Enable an organization to protect its interests and image from media scrutiny

ü Minimize errors which may happen due to wrong interpretation/ communication of infor-mation

ü Speed-up the process by avoiding uncertain-ties and confusion

ü Vital tool to transfer knowledge and skill espe-cially for new employees

Pitfalls of SOPs:

û May be used by different departments to avoid responsibility

û The complexities of approval processes in terms of new formats and duplication of information

û Delays in getting approvals/ expense reim-bursements

û SOP can give rise to typical bureaucratic mind-set restricting individuals and organization’ flexibility and response to changing market dynamics

Manager’s role:

In 1990s, the role of the manager was limited to un-derstand and implement strategies by promoting right set of brands to right set of doctors.

The proliferation of communication channels has necessitated focus and use of right communication channels. The effective use of new communication channels depends upon SOPs - well laid down guidelines, their understanding and appropriate use.

You must have seen the look on the face of sales and marketing staff when a new SOP is rolled out because of anticipated complexity and increased work load while being expected to meet their tar-gets.

The effective use of new communication channels depends upon SOPs - well laid

down guidelines, their understanding and appropriate use.

Pankaj Mehrotra | SOPs: Good or Evil?


The situation is further complicated by the length, use of technical jargons and inability of top manag-ers to project SOPs as an enabler.

A manager can enable team to use the SOPs ef-fectively by:

ü Projecting SOPs as a guide, friend and effective quality management rather than a compulsion

ü Playing an active role in formation of SOPs in order to make them user friendly, contempo-rary and relevant

ü Simplify the process, formats. For e.g. creating one page summary similar to abstract given in project reports/ clinical trials.

ü Increase our own understanding of SOPs, role and responsibilities of different departments

ü Motivate team by consistently sharing benefits and best practices

ü Anticipate challenges and probable solutions

ü Implement effective corrective and preventive actions

ü Spend quality time to address problems and offer solutions in a constructive way

All dynamic, quality-conscious pharmaceutical or-ganizations can use SOPs to sensitize and coach employees about organizational policies and pro-cedures to be followed while interacting with inter-nal and external customers.

The proactive approach of managers will lead to effective implementation of SOPs resulting in im-provement in the quality of interactions instead of them being treated as an avoidable diversion from the core job. M

All dynamic, quality-conscious pharmaceutical organizations can use SOPs to sensitize and

coach employees about organizational policies and procedures to be followed while interacting

with internal and external customers.

Pankaj Mehrotra is a Product Group Manager at GSK. His views are personal.lnked.in/p-mehrotra

http://lnked.in/p-mehrotra

India’s GDP grew at 7.4% in the July – Septem-ber 2015 quarter as compared to 7% in the previous quarter due to a resurgence in man-

ufacturing growth.

The manufacturing sector greatly increased its growth rate in the second quarter of this finan-cial year, rising to 9.3% compared to 7.2% in the previous quarter and 7.9% in the second quarter of the previous financial year.

This growth rate in the second quarter of this financial year reinforces India’s position as the fastest growing major economy in the world.

“Make in India” initiative is a potential driver for India’s manufacturing sector to emerge from the shadow of the country’s services sector and seize a greater share of the global market.

The acceleration in the manufacturing sector shows that the government policy direction is bearing fruit. The Make In India campaign with its objective of raising the growth rate in the manufacturing sector has begun to make an im-pact.


P. S. Parameswaran

UP-SKILLING FOR GROWTH

As the fastest growing major economy, India offers tremendous opportunity for growth.

Up-skilling the field force is crucial to successfully harness this opportunity.

P. S. Parameswaran | Up-Skilling for Growth


India’s pharma industry may touch $55 billion by 2020. However the pharma and life sciences sector is under continuous stress with regulatory chal-lenges from various local and overseas regulatory bodies, inspections finding major shortcomings, and issue of 483 leading to a dip in exports. This has led to a fall in volumes and capacity utilization in many major companies.

On evaluating the IIP, Index of Industrial Produc-tion, the weightage of Manufacturing in Overall Index of Industrial production is 75.52%. The Index of Manufacturing grew at 2.6%. But Medical and associated industries showed a decline of 12.8% in the Index during April to September 2015-16 over corresponding period of previous year.

Indian manufacturers should strive to improve the overall productivity, develop skills, and embed compliance across every stage of manufacturing.

India has a massive workforce and is an emerging supply base. India’s manufacturing sector could generate 25% to 30% of GDP by 2025 thus pro-pelling the country into the manufacturing big leagues, along with developed countries which will also create new manufacturing jobs.

Up-Skilling for Increased Productivity

One of the critical success factors is improved la-bour productivity. A close look at the productivi-ty shows that there is a lag in overall productivity across supply chain – Production Planning, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Quality and Maintenance. There is a gap which can be fixed by having a fo-cused approach by looking within – “change thy-self”.

Both the operations and the people engaged in operations will have to evaluate what changes can be made.

The time has come to look inwards and support new ways of working. To make employees more accountable the overall organization structure needs to be reevaluated as lesser the layers of man-agement will build better interpersonal relations amongst front line managers and staff.

The time has come to look inwards and support new ways of working.



This also will provide better clarity on roles and competencies available. Continuous improvement in process excellence and quality improvements is the need of the hour.

Another area to focus on is productivity of the ex-isting machines/assets. For example use of tools like Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), Change Over, and Reliability of Equipment are possible when manufacturing companies apply traditional lean management techniques to keep machines running longer and to reduce time wasted during retooling and production line changeovers.

To drive the above, a targeted skill development program is required. Indian manufacturers should establish in-house training centres to promote vi-tal manufacturing roles to support all functions in manufacturing. These skill development centres can provide training on both hard skills and soft skills.

Frontline workers are not the only ones whose skills need upgrading - frontline managers and their re-porting managers also need to be up-skilled.

This will help in ensuring that there is a blend of skills for workers to operate the machine and take out products.

For frontline managers and key leaders, training programs can ensure significantly improving the reliability and energy efficiency of the production process as well as important metrics on safety and quality can be achieved.

Frontline mangers can be given both class room training with hands on fieldwork in the form of operational improvement projects. The projects can focus on frontline employees identifying root causes of problems and find solutions through cross-functional teams.

The outward changes are very positive and look bright for manufacturing but that calls for looking inward wherein all operations professionals right from top to bottom of the pyramid should look in-ward to examine the current modes of operating and learn what make the plants tick.

Continuous improvement in process excellence and quality improvements is the need of the hour.



By looking outward and getting a complete picture on the change required, individuals should look at themselves and get better clarity on their roles and responsibilities and identify the gaps.

Erica Ariel Fox book on Winning from Within calls this phenomenon “closing your performance gap.” That gap is the disparity between what people know they should say and do to be successfully and what they do in practice. The performance gap can affect anyone at any time.

These gaps come from roles and responsibilities which were defined years ago but which, in the current scenario, may need further refining from both hard and soft skills perspective.

Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist famously wrote, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” M

By looking outward and getting a complete picture on the change required,

individuals should look at themselves and get better clarity on their roles and responsibilities and identify the gaps.

P. S. Parameswaran is an experienced Professional in Operations and Supply Chain - API/Formulations/Nutrition/Medical Devices.

Email: [email protected]

Health & Medicine

Indian Pharma's Only CEO Roundtable on Field Force Excellence