SUBJECT NAME : SALES FORCE &

CHANNEL MANAGEMENT

GUIDED BY:

FACULTY NAME: RUBY CHANDA

Assignment- 2

Ex-PGDM(2019-20 BATCH)

Prepared By:

Mainak Biswas (PRN: 19020475011)

 CASE STUDY SOLUTION OF CABOT PHARMACEUTICALS

Cabot Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The case study describes the 12-year career of Bob Marsh, a pharmaceutical salesperson. Bob
Marsh is eventually asked to resign from his position at Cabot Pharmaceuticals. Soon after his
termination from the company, Bob's former customers begin to complain, and the company's vice
president of sales is asked to investigate Bob's termination and to decide, what to do.

The case study addresses issues of aligning strategy and sales efforts, evaluation criteria of
performance, and on-going performance management in field selling.

Information About BOB MARSH

 Academic Credentials • Top Flight Pharmacy School
 Sales Experience • At a Drug store, successful
 Military Experience • Naval Pilot, good service record
 Family and Community • Full family and community life
 Regional Fit • Grew up and lived in Toledo where he would work

Who Supervised Marsh? Evaluation

John Meredith 1992- High Experience Below Standard to Above Average
1997
Bill Couch 1997- High Experience Satisfactory to Well Above Average
2000
Jim Rathburn 2000- Low experience Satisfactory to Probation to satisfactory
2002
Vince Reed 2002- Low experience Satisfactory to Completely –unsatisfactory to probation
2003
Antonia Wilkens 2003- Low experience Probation Evaporates
2004
Ted Franklin 2004- Medium Fired
2004 experience

Bob’s Analysis
• Choice: Bob was reluctant to follow management guidelines, but followed his own actions
 • Intensity: Bob had put forth lot of efforts in his territory, the result was rejected in sales
performance
• Persistence: He was continuing his efforts over the years.

Bob’s Ability was great in terms of reaching the expectations of his manager.
 Lack of
motivational programs enable Bob’s to adhere Management directives policies. After 10 years
of working in Cabot, Bob’s career seemed to have plateaued .

CAREER PLATEAU UNDER FRANKLIN

 Satisfaction with income in comparison with peers.

 No upward mobility.
 Burden of unfair treatment from previous 3 managers.
 Withdrawal during disengagement stage. Continued managerial apathy helped rush the
stage.
 No remonstration during termination reveals how Marsh had left the happenings to fate
and reconciled to the fact that the job was no longer his cup of tea.
 The rejection of even the last request may have catalyzed feeling of reprisal against his
beloved company.
 Marsh is perceived as being moody, unfriendly, indifferent, and lethargic
 Marsh feel behind schedule in reading assignments and collecting required market data.

Bob’s Behaviour Analysis

Strengths
• Sincere, enthusiastic, quick learner, loyal , dedicated
• Very good customer rapport

• Loyal & dedicated to the work & the company
• Didn’t leave the company even after being put on probation multiple times
• Willingness to improve

• Good working relationship with fellow associates


Weakness
• Non-conformance to management directives, company policies and sales objectives. 

• Inconsistency in maintaining records & poorly organized sample bag 

• Catch-as-catch-can approach, tendency to prejudge the customers 

• Lacked in organization skills, planning and follow up activities 

Organizational Factors
• Continuous change in District manager creating pressure on Bob to match up with their
expectations
• Managers using tough approach with a plateauing problem, without understanding the problem
properly
• Relying on past data by managers.
• Bob’s positive Customer Relationship Management skills not considered in his evaluation
Good Decisions taken by Franklin
 Took time to “know” Marsh
 Set no time to reach objectives
Bad Decisions taken by Franklin
 Set a list of “survival procedures” almost unreachable
 Too many procedures
 No empathy at all
 No real reasons for firing him

SOLUTIONS
1) Bob didn’t seem to be motivated by salary hikes alone and Proper motivational tools
tailored to Bob’s Needs were missing and should be designed such that:
 Better performance evaluation- MBO 

 Creating Perception of Better Effort lead to Better Performance- So that 
 efforts become
valuable. 

2) Motivational programs should have some elements tailored to Bob’s needs by including
non-financial rewards such as:


 – Job enrichment


 – Recognition


– Opportunity for promotion

In the current scenario, the right set of actions should be to reinstate Bob because:

3) Bob maintained a very strong connection with the clients & his reinstatement would reduce
the risk of losing long time customers
4) He has served the company with total dedication & loyalty for 12 long years & knows the
selling function inside-out
5) His experience can be of great use to the company.
To solve the motivational & plateauing problem, the company should:
6) Highlight prospects for promotions & higher
7) Assign Bob a new territory, where he can start afresh
8) Give him a new assignment, such as coaching new salespeople, gathering competitive
intelligence, surveying customers for new product ideas or developing a new territory