PfizerWorks: New Outsourcing Model to Improve Employee Productivity

            
 
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This case study was compiled from published sources, and is intended to be used as a basis for class discussion. It is not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a management situation. Nor is it a primary information source.



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Case Details:

Price:

Case Code : OPER081 For delivery in electronic format: Rs. 300;
For delivery through courier (within India): Rs. 300 +Shipping & Handling Charges extra

Themes

Outsourcing \ Job Analysis \ Productivity \ Human Capital

Case Length : 13 Pages
Period : 2005-2009
Organization : Pfizer, Inc.
Pub Date : 2009
Teaching Note : Not Available
Countries : US
Industry : Pharmaceuticals

Abstract:

In 2005, Pfizer, Inc. (Pfizer) was faced with a financial crisis with many of its leading drugs nearing patent expiry. The company announced cost-cutting initiatives including a reduction of its annual budget by US$4 billion. However, the company realized that cost-cutting measures alone wouldn't suffice. To ensure that Pfizer once again moved to a strong position, it had to adopt a strategy to leverage its human capital in an efficient manner. On analyzing the activities of the employees, Jordan Cohen (Cohen), who is now the head of PfizerWorks program, found that instead of focusing on high-value work for which they were recruited, spent a disproportionate amount of their time on mundane tasks such as data entry, researching, creating documents, working with PowerPoint, etc.

Operations Management Case Studies | Case Study in Management, Operations, Strategies, Marketing Management, Case Studies

This led Cohen to start the PfizerWorks program (initially called 'Office Of The Future') in early 2008 after months of testing the initiative with some employees. It involved outsourcing the time wasting tasks to two Indian-based business process outsourcing (BPO) firms. The program was well received by employees of Pfizer and was appreciated by industry observers, However, some industry observers were not happy about the initiative as they felt that instead of outsourcing these tasks to other countries, these should be outsourced to companies or people in the US. According to Cohen, the PfizerWorks program had helped increase productivity of its employees and these highly-paid employees of Pfizer were now able to better focus their time and attention on more strategic aspects of their work rather than waste precious time and effort on more mundane tasks. As of mid-2009, Cohen was also exploring ways to make the program more effective.

Issues:

» Understand how the workplace has changed in the 21st century and understand how organizations are trying to get the best out of their employees in the new milieu.

» Understand how organizations are trying to improve the productivity of its employees.

» Understand how job and task analysis could help companies adopt a strategy to leverage its human capital in an efficient manner.

» Understand the differences between productive tasks and reproductive tasks and how this knowledge can be used to improve employee productivity.

» Understand the issues and challenges related to outsourcing and off shoring and understand how organizations are using these innovatively.

» Explore further changes that Pfizer could make in its PfizerWorks program to make it more effective.

Contents:

  Page No.
Office of the Future? 1
Background Note 2
The Problem 3
Outsourcing Tasks 4
How it Works 4
Results 5
What People Say 5
Outlook 6
Exhibits 8

Keywords:

Organizational effectiveness, Outsourcing, Outsourcing model, employee productivity, employee efficiency, Job analysis, task analysis, productive tasks, reproductive tasks, human capital, job design, cost-cutting, pilot project, collaboration, PfizerWorks, 'Office Of The Future', off shoring, knowledge process outsourcing, Business Process Outsourcing, Pfizer

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