4466 Admit it Sometimes the projects you're working on (school, work, or both) can pretty boring and monotonous. Wouldn't it be great to have a magic button you could push to get someone else to do that boring, time - consuming stuff? At Pfizer, that "magic button" is a reality for a large number of employees. As a global pharmaceutical company, Pfizer is continually looking for ways to help employees be more efficient and effective. The company's senior director of or ganizational effectiveness found that the highly educated MBAs it hired to develop strategies and innovate were instead Googling and making Power Points ”(A. Cohen," Scuttling Scut Work, "Fast Company, February 1, 2008, pp. 42-43). Indeed, internal studies conducted to find out just how much time its valuable talent was spending on menial tasks was startling. The average Pfizer employee was spending 20 percent to 40 percent of his or her time on support work (creating documents, typing notes, doing research, manipulating data, scheduling meetings) and only 60 percent to 80 percent on knowledge work (strategy, innovation, networking, collaborating, critical thinking). And the problem wasn't just at lower levels. Even the highest - level employees were affected. Take, for instance, David Cain, an executive director for global engineer ing. He enjoys his job - assessing environmental real estate risks, managing facilities, and controlling a multimillion - dollar budget. But he didn't so much enjoy having to go through spreadsheets and put together Power Points. Now, however, with Pfizer's "magic button," those tasks are passed off to individuals outside the organization. Just what is this "magic button"? Originally called the Office of the Future (OOF), the renamed Pfizer Works allows employees to shift tedious and time consuming tasks with the click of a single button on their computer desktop. They describe what they need on an online form, which is then sent to one of two Indian service-outsourcing firms. When a request is received, a team member in India calls the Pfizer employee to clarify what's needed and by when. The team member then e - mails back a cost specification for the requested work. If the Pfizer employee decides to proceed, the costs involved are charged to the employee's department. About this unique arrangement, Cain said that he relishes working with what he prefers to call his "personal consulting organization." The number 66,500 illustrates just how beneficial Pfizer Works has been for the company. That's the number of work hours estimated to have been saved by employees who've used Pfizer Works. What about David Cain's experiences? When he gave the Indian team a complex project researching strategic actions that worked when consolidating company facilities, the team put the report together in a month. something that would have taken him six months to do alone. “Pfizer pays me not to work tactically, but to work strategically,” he says (J. McGregor, “Outsourcing Tasks Instead of Jobs,” Bloomberg Business Week, March 11, 2009).
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
10-15. Describe and evaluate what Pfizer is doing with its Pfizer Works.
10-16. What structural implications - good and baddoes this approach have? (Think in terms of the six organizational design elements.)
10-17. Do you think this arrangement would work for other types of Organizations? Why or why not? What types of organizations might it also work for?
10-18. What role do you think organizational structure plays in an organization's efficiency and effectiveness? Explain.
Answer:
Step 1
10-15. Pfizer has adopted the business strategy of outsourcing. It outsources its tedious and time consuming menial tasks to Indian service-outsourcing firms. In the way, the company is able to save the valuable time of its employees, making them more effective and efficient. The average Pfizer employee was spending 20 percent to 40 percent of his or her time on support work (creating documents, typing notes, doing research, manipulating data, scheduling meetings) and only 60 percent to 80 percent on knowledge work (strategy, innovation, networking, collaborating, critical thinking). By outsourcing the documentation tasks, the employees can perform better and be more creative as this would give them more time for productive tasks. The organization has created a work specialization structure by outsourcing tasks instead of jobs.
Step 2
10-16. Structural implications:
Good-
- Specialization- Pfizer's employees can save time by outsourcing tedious menial work and concentrate on important tasks for which they are hired. They can develop more creative strategies and be specialized in their field.
- Departmentalization-Pfizer has departmentalized through different geographic areas.
- Coordination- The company works systematically through online forms and e-mails. So, there is coordination and efficient flow or work.
- Division of work-Pfizer has divided the work into different parts, thus reducing the workload of employees and improving their efficiency.
- Authority, responsibility and delegation-The authority and responsibility of each employee is fixed as per the organizational hierarchy. Work is delegated to the employees according to their skills, position and qualifications.
Bad-
The employees working at Pfizer know what the plans are better than the employees working at PfizerWorks. So, complex tasks should be managed only by the employees of Pfizer.
Step 3
10-17. This arrangement can work for other types of organizations. Organizations can outsource their projects, IT needs, HR and accounting work in order to save time and get specialized services at lower cost. However, such an arrangement cannot work for organizations that are mechanistic because they have to follow a certain hierarchy.
10-18. Role of organizational structure in an organization's efficiency and effectiveness-
- Organizational structure provides clarity of roles and responsibilities.
- Coordination in activities.
- Faster and better decision making.
- Saves time.
- Improves communication.
- Streamlines operations.
