Case Study
Case Study No. 3
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 PowerPoints.” 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 PowerPoints. 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 PfizerWorks 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
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 PowerPoints.” 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 PowerPoints. 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 PfizerWorks 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