Case Study

Multinational Pharmaceutical
Company

Background

  • A large multinational pharmaceutical company was undergoing rapid expansion and organizational change in it’s Middle-East operations, and wanted to ensure that it’s teams were collaborating effectively and coordinating workflow efficiently as the organization progressed.

  • Network Centrality was utilized to identify which departments were the most important to collaborative practices, and who held the vital information necessary to complete work tasks. This provided the organization with valuable insight into it’s communication networks and workflow networks in the Middle-East.

  • 153 employees completed the Network Centrality survey, exploring communication and collaboration, workflow, and competency.

Findings

1

Communication & Collaboration

The first topic explored was communication and collaboration, with participants asked to identify how often they communicated with colleagues regarding work-related topics.

Network Summary

  • In the network graph, circles represent individuals and lines represent communication relationships.

  • The Human Resources, Learning & Development and Procurement teams have high internal communication. Therefore they have strong communication relationships within their own team. In contrast, Finance communicate less internally.

  • The Learning and Development team communicates frequently with other teams and other teams communicate frequently with them, whereas the Marketing team do not communicate frequently with others. Therefore, important information from the Marketing team may not be communicated and shared with others.


Vulnerability Analysis

  • The communication network was assessed to determine if it was vulnerable to change.

  • The top 10% of individuals who were important and scored highly on Social Quotient CORAL metrics were removed in a vulnerability analysis. This hypothetical analysis demonstrated that if these 10% of individuals were lost, the network would lose 25% of it’s communication relationships.

  • This suggests that these individuals are exceptional communicators and share information effectively with others. However, other members of the network are overly reliant upon them, such that the communication and collaboration capability of the organization would be severely impeded should these individuals leave.

2

Workflow

The final topic explored was customer insight, with participants asked to identify which of their colleagues they shared customer insight with to support sales and projects.

'Network Summary

  • In the network graph, circles represent individuals and lines represent advice-seeking relationships.

  • The Human Resources and Research & Development teams often seek advice internally within their own teams. However, Finance and Sales have very low internal scores, therefore, their workflow between team members will be harder than for other teams.

  • Silo effects were identified for a number of teams, suggesting that their ability to get work-related advice and streamline workflow cross-functionally was limited.

 

 

Vulnerability Analysis

  • The workflow network was assessed to determine if it was vulnerable to change.

  • The top 10% of individuals who were important and scored highly on Social Quotient CORAL metrics were removed in a vulnerability analysis. This hypothetical analysis demonstrated that if these 10% of individuals were lost, the network would lose 33% of it’s workflow advice relationships.

  • This suggests that these individuals are highly respected and essential for workflow, due to the quality of the advice they can provide to their colleagues. However, this could overburden these individuals and lead to burnout. It also increases the network’s vulnerability, as workflow would be significantly less efficient in their absence.

3

Competence

The final topic explored was competence, with participants rating which of their colleagues they believe to be competent in their job roles. 

Competence

  • An average competency score was determined for each individual, and an average competency score was calculated for each department.

  • The Learning & Development team received consistently high perceived competency ratings. Therefore, individuals have more confidence in the competency of the Learning & Development team.

  • The Marketing, Procurement and Sales team received consistently lower competency ratings. Therefore, individuals in the organization have less confidence in the collective competency of these teams.

Competence & Communication

  • The competency ratings were integrated with the communication and collaboration network data to determine if there was a pattern in perceptions of competency.

  • Competency ratings correlated strongly with Social Quotient CORAL measures in the communication and collaboration network.

  • This suggests the key communicators in the center of the network are also perceived as the most competent.

     

Competence & Workflow

  • The Competency ratings were also integrated with the workflow network data to determine if there was a pattern in advice-seeking relationships.

  • Competency ratings correlated strongly with Social Quotient CORAL measures in the workflow and advice network.

  • This suggests that individuals who solicit and are sought after more for advice are also perceived as the most competent, whilst individuals on the periphery of the workflow network receive lower competency ratings. This could explain why these individuals are not sought after for advice; because people perceive them as less competent. 

Solutions

Many departments showed a silo effect, with a lack of communication and collaboration with other departments. To encourage greater inter-departmental collaboration, it was recommended that the heads of department meet with each other more frequently to share updates on their work, and to allow their team members to communicate with other departments on active projects.

As individuals who were central in the communication and workflow networks were perceived as more competent, it was recommended that individuals at the periphery of the networks be integrated more proactively with their own and other departments to develop their own expertise, and therefore their own competence. New hires were also integrated into the network more effectively by being assigned a mentor who was strongly centralized in the communication and workflow networks.

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