Klaus Ehrlich in the new, as yet unfurnished, Novo Nordisk European regional office in Zurich.

Europe under change

Novo Nordisk’s European organisation is changing from a collection of individual affiliates into one cohesive sales organisation. Perspective spoke to Klaus Ehrlich, senior vice president and head of Region Europe, about the changes.

Up until 2002, Novo Nordisk’s European organisation was divided into two regions. Region 1 was Germany, Austria and Switzerland; and the surrounding European countries made up Region 2. In February 2002, it was decided to merge the two regions into one.

"Right away I could see that we could create a more harmonious Europe by further integrating some of our activities," says Klaus Ehrlich, who was appointed head of the European region. 

"Our first step was to consolidate the European coordination functions, including the regional office in Belgium, our HRT marketing unit in Germany and the Haematology Business Unit in Switzerland, into one office in Zurich, Switzer­land. We chose Switzerland because it is centrally located in Europe; and it has a strong tradition – as well as labour force – in the pharmaceutical industry."

"We could also see that we could combine the European Business Areas in a more logical way based on geographical location and similarities in culture and market potential. Therefore we put together the Mediterranean countries (Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal) in one Business Area; joined the Netherlands with Belgium/Luxembourg and France; and combined the Business Area for the UK and Ireland with the Nordic countries. Instead of the seven Business Areas we used to have in Europe, we created five Business Areas with similar size and opportunities – all reporting to the Region Europe office in Switzerland," Klaus Ehrlich continues.

A main objective behind the changes was to create a stronger focus and a more common view on Novo Nordisk’s sales force in the region. The hierarchical levels in the organisation were reduced to create more direct reporting lines between sales forces and senior management in Europe. And in setting up the new structure for the sales forces, norms for the industry were reviewed and a ‘golden standard’ was established, including key performance indicators that must be respected all over Novo Nordisk’s European organisation. "With the new organisation we will get more transparency in targets and rewards for sales performance across Europe. You need motivation and fair rewards for the sales force. They are the ones who are directly creating value when they realise goals, and they should be rewarded for it," says Klaus Ehrlich.

The reorganisation has left the European organisation much more focused on sales and, as a consequence, much flatter and 150 positions leaner. "With the changes we have now implemented, our ability to quickly react to market changes and implement strategic decisions in a fast-changing European business environment has increased significantly," says Klaus Ehrlich. "Moreover, the sales force structure is now in a better shape to leverage opportunities from our product launches and from the excellent initiatives taking place regionally," he says. 
 

	Key facts The organisational changes in the five Business Areas that make up Novo Nordisk’s European region increase attention on the sales forces and market effectiveness. They aim to ensure a strong focus on Novo Nordisk’s customers and market opportunities in Europe. The most important changes are: Reporting lines from the local sales forces are shortened – there will be no more than one managerial level between the local sales force and the head of the Business Area, for example the head of Europe South (Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal).  Country managers will be directly responsible for diabetes sales and marketing, whereas the local hormone replacement therapy and growth hormone therapy operations will report directly into the Business Area. That will improve collaboration and create synergies across the growth hormone and HRT operations in the European countries.   Back-office functions have been reorganised to eliminate duplication of work and improve the support to the sales force. As a result, shared services within finance, IT and other office-based functions will be applied more widely to allow local affiliates to focus on their sales operations.

Global production

Novo Nordisk has 68 affiliates all over the world that see to it that the company’s products reach millions of customers. 
But where do we make which products? You can find the answers here on this map.

The green dots mark companies not owned by Novo Nordisk. 
They produce our products on licence or contract and include: 
Contract manufacturers: Sweden – packaging of tablets; 
UK – packaging of tablets. 
Licence manufacturers: Yugoslavia – packaging of insulin products; Korea – formulation, filling and packaging of insulin products; Mexico – packaging of growth hormone; India – formulation, filling and packaging of insulin products.

Top    Next