Cabot Pharmaceuticals

Cabot Pharmaceuticals Inc is a major manufacturer of prescription drugs for medical and dental professions, with over $4 billion of revenue in 2003. In 2004, executives of Cabot received a number of letters from angry customers regarding termination of its detailer Bob Marsh who served the area of Toledo, Ohio. Marsh had served Cabot for close to 12 years and was supervised by 6 different district managers & 2 different zone managers.

Analysis:

Bob Marsh joined in 1992 as detailer in Toledo, Ohio at a salary of $52,000 along with company automobile, generous fringe benefits and reimbursements for all business travels. His initial attitude and enthusiasm was well received and his potential was capped high in the organization. He was willing to join organization in any sales territory and had expressed interest in international assignment. Personal rapport with physicians was outstanding but this could also be due to him being assigned his hometown & nearby areas as sales territory, where he was actively involved in community affairs.  

1. Marsh’s salary was not used as an effective incentive to change his behaviour, despite being below standard he was provided salary appraisals. Marsh was able to increase sales however in the process was not following the basics of his jobs. Meredith could have withheld increments to change his behaviour.
2. No specific actionable improvement areas provided by Meredith or documented for gauging Marsh’s performance
3. Improvement from year 3 onwards look like a defence by Meredith to save his position in front of zone manager & VP sales.

1. Incentives not being used as a way to change behaviour. Poor record keeping is tolerated. Salary increase only due to increase in sales, not against Sales potential in area.
2. No specific actionable improvement areas provided by Couch too.
3. As long as sales keep on increasing no attention is paid to other areas of Marsh attitude.

1. Rathburn talks about Marsh not selling to his potential but he does not sit with Marsh to come to a potential for his territory.
2. Actionable specific goals given by Rathburn gave Marsh a clear goal and expectation which he was required to meet and he did so during probation.
3. Falsifying record was a serious offence and probation was used justly to drive home the message that such behaviour would not be tolerated. However, in addition to this company should have also contemplated on changing Marsh’s territory as he was gaming the system due to his rapport with physicians in the area.
4. Again an increment in provided to Marsh just on the basis of one time turn around, better practice would have been to withheld this bonus and release it in parts condition to Marsh following proper planning & record keeping practice

1. Marsh has reverted back to old habits not clear if it is because he only received a small increment of $3,000 or some other reason.
2.  Reed developed an action plan which was not taking inputs from Marsh, Marsh had to passively agree to most of details. Some conflict due to being headed by a younger and newly prompted managers are felt. Not sure if use of probation was just.
3. Wilkens did not provide any actionable items in her 6 month with Marsh, and evaporated the probation due to limited interaction.
4. Apathy of organization also comes into picture, better handling of a serious case could have been done by Zone manager amidst a number of changes. Attitude of Marsh was bound to turn sour after this.

Franklin came at a point when Marsh had already turned apathetic towards the organization and probation again did not help much. His motivation was low and even the fear of losing job was not having any effect on him. Still asking Marsh to resign while he was in good rapport with customers was not correct, a better way to handle the situation would have been to shift him to a new territory or to other arm of Sales team to interact with HMOs.  If Marsh had continued to perform in the same way there as well terminating him would have been much easier.