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Case Study (Organizational Structure)

Pfizer created "Pfizer Works" which allows employees to outsource tedious tasks like creating documents and PowerPoints to outsourcing firms in India with the click of a button. Internal studies found employees spent 20-40% of time on support work and 60-80% on knowledge work. Now, an executive was able to have a team in India research and create a complex report in a month that would have taken him six months. This has saved an estimated 66,500 work hours for Pfizer employees.

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156 views2 pages

Case Study (Organizational Structure)

Pfizer created "Pfizer Works" which allows employees to outsource tedious tasks like creating documents and PowerPoints to outsourcing firms in India with the click of a button. Internal studies found employees spent 20-40% of time on support work and 60-80% on knowledge work. Now, an executive was able to have a team in India research and create a complex report in a month that would have taken him six months. This has saved an estimated 66,500 work hours for Pfizer employees.

Uploaded by

mohammad irbaz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Case Study

A New Kind of Structure

Admit it. Sometimes the projects you’re working on (school, work, or both) can get 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
organizational effectiveness found that the “Harvard MBA staff we hired to develop strategies
and innovate were instead Googling and making PowerPoint.” 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 engineering. 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
PowerPoint. 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 Joe 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. He says, “Pfizer pays me not to work tactically,
but to work strategically.
Discussion Questions

1. Describe and evaluate what Pfizer is doing with its Pfizer Works.

2. What structural implications—good and bad—does this approach have? (Think in terms of the
six organizational design elements.)
3. 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?
4. What role do you think organizational structure plays in an organization’s efficiency and
effectiveness? Explain.

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