sanofi-aventis

Need:

In 2004, sanofi-aventis needed to scale up its sales force in order to optimally market two new metabolism drugs for treating Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. Five hundred new sales reps, 75 district managers, and 20 regional directors were needed for the entirely new metabolism drug business unit and they had to be in place within seven months.

Solution:

Sanofi-aventis filled the regional director and district manager positions from within the organization, but it needed to cast a wide net in order to hire for the 500 sales rep jobs. DDI was engaged and helped design and execute a fully integrated hiring system, which entailed candidate sourcing, online and phone-base screening, and multiple behavior-based interviews using DDI’s Targeted Selection® interviewing system. Using this system, sanofi-aventis was able to compress time-to-hire and move a candidate through the hiring process, from online application to job offer, in as little as one week.

Results:

The sales force scale-up was completed in just 32 working days, as opposed to the seven months originally projected. By completing the scale-up well ahead of schedule, sanofi-aventis was able to realize 15,578 additional sales days worth an estimated $15 million in savings to the company. In addition, new hires performed above historical averages on knowledge tests and role plays during training.