Description
As a small-scale hospital located in the city of Faridabad in northern India, Drishti Eye Center (Drishti) had recently expanded its operations by diversifying into pharmaceutical sales. The founder and managing director of the hospital soon faced conflict among the members of his sales force when a young sales representative received a poor performance evaluation, which he viewed as unfair. In response to this situation, the salesman decided to join a union, a move that was completely unprecedented at Drishti. Facing a high-performing team that now found itself operating in a hostile environment, the hospital’s director had to decide how best to manage the conflict.
Learning Objective
This case was written to help students develop their analytical and decision-making skills with regard to sales force evaluation. It identifies a variety of issues in the sales force environment, including union representation, team conflicts, and power dynamics between superiors and subordinates. This case can be used to discuss the following issues especially in an Indian context: ·objective and subjective evaluations of a sales force ·distribution structures and management ·characteristic features of the pharmaceutical market