Capellon: Their Problems and Solutions Capstone Project

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Capellon

My work as a management consultant means that I must analyze and assess the marketing sector of the pharmaceutical company in a continuous and ongoing fashion. This means that I need to provide help in shedding light on the company's top management as a means of comprehending how the activity of this department is evolving in reference to concrete strategies, goals which are not realized and fundamental performance indicators which report smaller values when compared with the exact same period of the previous year. This paper will look at the unique case of Capellon, a company which is currently in a marked decrease in sales, despite a marked financial and staff push to increase their sales. This paper will discuss the unique needs and stressors of this company and will determine the specific weaknesses which are leading it to be so dysfunctional. Finally, the paper will discuss a particular, multi-faceted solution for the company.

Goals of the Marketing Department

In order to discover if a company issue originates with the marketing department and how to best illuminate this issue, one needs to pinpoint the objective involved and the necessary level of accomplishment. Thus, interviews need to be conducted with the company leaders and all managers. In this case, the following goals were revealed: bolstering sales by 20%, bolstering the number of pharmacies that carry the product by 15% and bettering all relations with business associates.

It was also useful to engage in concerted sales analyses to demonstrate that these goals were not realized: the feedback from sales managers reported our competitors thriving at the expense of our own products. Promotional activities were used as a means of pushing the product forward, but the results continued to be less than what many of us anticipated. This meant that the product manager needed to step up his game and his results and work harder to engage in marketing tactics that could really move the product forward. Essentially, this analysis meant that our competitors had a marketing manager who was more in touch with effective marketing techniques.

Situation Analysis

One of the biggest problems that was revealed was with the marketing team: communication was strong, the budget was increased, but sales not only didn't increase, they were less than the year before. All of these extra efforts had caused a decrease in sales, something that no one had expected. The one thing that could be certain was that there was internal unrest and unproductive changes within the department. In fact, interviews revealed that the long time manager of the nursing department had in fact moved on to a competing company, something which no doubt shook the overall morale of the company. The replacement manager (a group product manager) proved to be an unsuccessful collaboration as this manager ended up leaving the company as well for a competitor. Thus, a marketing manager was hired from an outside agency. This new manager still needed time to become acclimated, and it was found that her altogether different working style required the rest of the team members be able to adjust for a particular period of time. As expected, many of the team members in place proved themselves to be resistant to change, and a range of disagreements then surfaced. This was the point when pressure began to mount and become largely unmanageable: meetings became longer and more contentious, nerves were on edge, and communication became more riddled with conflict. This manifested as an increased employee turnover within departments, particularly within the marketing department. For instance, a common trend that would manifest in this department would be when people would be hired, treated badly, and would then leave for positions elsewhere.

Problem Diagnosis

The most aggravated issues within the company happened on a strategic, tactical, and operational level (Davila et al., 2012). Poor management was one of the most overwhelming issues faced by the company: this made staffing feel like a revolving door, and kept productivity at an all-time low. Another fixed manifestation of the problem was that there was constant upper-level management interference with the marketing manager. On the one hand, this was understandable, as the marketing department needed as much help as they could get; on the other hand, it made this manager feel micromanaged as if there was absolutely no trust involved. The problem became even more aggravated with surveillance cameras were put in marketing offices -- a blatant form of distrust. To make matters worse, more long meetings were scheduled and employee satisfaction rates plummeted.

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Solutions

One of the first actions that needs to be taken regarding this issue is that the overall motivation of the marketing team needs to be improved, before their performance and sales can even be improved. For instance some sort of friendly sales contest or competition among product managers and sales representatives where the winner receives an exotic vacation can increase their morale and involvement for the moment (Reh, 2014). Such activities can help in the building of morale which can have a huge impact on productivity.

An additional solution which was discovered was centered on the importance of adjusting the human resources strategy within the pharmaceutical company. It was determined that a more decentralized approach to management would be best, as the problems in connection with the firm, are generally derived from the centralized type of management. Thus, by decentralizing the decision-making process, top managers' authority then becomes limited to a more strategic level.

As part of this solution, the overall recruitment and selection process also needs to receive levels of improvement. Recruiting for positions like marketing manager needs to originate from internal centers of origin (Compton et al., 2009). Thus, this means that the marketing team would most likely thrive if a single member was promoted to manager from inside the department. Professionals who have thus far been recruited from external companies just haven't been up to speed with the very specific and very unique way of conducting business that this company has -- something which is of paramount importance to the higher levels of management. A decentralization of leadership style means that external recruitment will become a solution for lower management levels overall.

Overall Assessment

It's quite common for companies and groups to have to deal with problems daily; it's the job of managers to be able to focus on anticipating what those problems are likely to be. As this report has discovered thus far, the bulk of these issues result from interpersonal friction, inefficient motivational tactics or unsuccessful leadership styles. There needs to be an increased focus on pinpointing these problems and developing on the spot solutions for them.

Assessing Needs

As Rossett and Sheldon (2001), have memorably stated, business needs are generally connected to results or influence, whereas job performance needs are almost always more concretely linked to behavior. This means that when it comes to better comprehending a client's unique needs one can often start by assessing a client's expectations. From a management standpoint, a client's needs are generally connected to finding marketing solutions to drive forward the client's specific business objectives.

Capellon Pharmaceuticals, however, exists as a company riddled with issues among human resource management that have prevented it from functioning properly. The job performance of the company has impacted it, as a result of such connected management issues. In order for the firm to connect to the client in a sound and proper man, the client's needs must be properly understood with a marketing plan properly drafted up to reflect this.

In this case, it was found that the issues were connected on two arenas: those external to the company, such as in their connections with customers and the internal issues. Externally, it became clearer and clearer that there was a lack of both communication and discussion regarding which solutions would be most appropriate to the marketing strategy as a whole. In this case, if the company can't offer such things, then they really can't lead the process in a beneficial manner and be able to move results forward. Internally, the marketing department lacks a certain degree of cohesion, and that even once a marketing strategy is selected, implementing it with any sort of skill or grace is something that can be next to impossible for this department. This is partly as a result of the absence of leadership -- much of this stems from the way in which the original marketing manager left the company. Thus, as a result, the marketing team has not been able to follow the most lucid instructions to develop a marketing plan that works.

It can be useful to examine Rouda and Kusy's (1995) definition of a needs assessment, which is viewed as a "systematic exploration of the way things are and the way they should be." Thus, this indicates that the client and the company will have an obligation to have their first meeting during a time when they will need to determine what their accomplishments have to be, and….....

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