MAKING LOCAL KNOWLEDGE GLOBAL

David Martin, chief operating officer of Lexington Labs, was apprehens ive about the upcoming meeting with his senior sales executives. Just a few years earlier, when the pharmaceutical company enjoyed extraordi nary success, gatherings with the sales force had seemed like celebrat ions. But in the past 18 months, sales had begun to fall, as had earni ngs. And most of the top sales personnel had begun to focus on their o wn businesses as major changes swept through the health care industry. When Lexington was expanding abroad, it had set up decentralized offi ces and given managers the freedom to develop local relationships and processes. That strategy had worked well for many years, but under the new health-care industry it had become a serious weakness. Instead of developing personal relationships with doctors, representatives of ph armaceutical companies now had to answer tough questions from governme nt officials and hospital administrators. Many reps felt that they nee ded more financial and medical information, as well as backup in the f orm of an expert team put together by corporate headquarters. Martin s ensed that the solution was a system to facilitate the flow of knowled ge across borders. Sales executives needed to share vital information about products, customers, competitors, and selling techniques. But wh at kind of system would work best? Unfortunately, Martin's apprehensio ns were justified. The meeting only emphasized how fragmented the comp any had become. How can Martin get Lexington to function as one global company? Five experts offer their opinions on the issues raised by th is HER case study.