Client Stories

Focusing on leadership to be the best

Company: Global 500 pharmaceutical
Business Units: Sales and marketing divisions of U.S. business
Executives: Sales and marketing vice presidents
Teams: Sales and marketing leadership teams

Situation

The vice president of sales sought to establish his organization as the best in the industry. He partnered with Gap International to develop people's leadership, to increase teamwork and to align the top two levels of leadership around being the best. The vice president then launched an initiative with Gap International to drive excellence throughout the organization, directly involving 1,500 people and indirectly affecting all 6,000 members of the organization.

Subsequently, the vice president of marketing worked with Gap International to have brand leaders and product-development leaders work as a unified team. Marketing's senior leadership team used a Gap International program with the marketing directors to instill critical competencies of leadership and to bring new thinking to execution.

Sales and marketing teams that once operated independently of - or even in competition with - one another came to work as one team grounded in principles of trust, integrity and mutual support.

Results

• The Vice President of Sales estimated a 40-percent increase in the productivity of his 6,000-person sales force as a result of the organization's partnership with Gap International.
• Among the results produced were an increase of 48 percent in the sales of new and key products, market leadership in key products and the highest growth year since the organization's inception.
• Members of the sales force won the industry's "Sales Representative of the Year" for three consecutive years.