yes, employment at Forest could take "a turn for the worse" at any moment, but isn't that true of EVERY company? Other bad things could happen, too:
you could be in an accident today....
you may be diagnosed with a disease....
your kid might get sick....
your house could burn down....
my point is bad things happen in life. But people on this board (at least most of them) believe bad things happen every minute of every workday for everyone employed by Forest.
the silent majoriety doesn't like everything going on at Forest, but we realize we must have some degree of "positivity" in our lives - both professional and personal. If something bad happens, we deal with it and move on with our lives....we don't dwell on it or bitch while waiting for a layoff to happen. Matter of fact, we find comfort in the fact that forest has never had a layoff, and we continue to add new people.
OK...how long until someone blasts me with a "drinking the kool-aid" comment???
How enlightening Aristotle!!! Just know that YOU may have a decent situation but there are other people not as fortunate as you at Forest.
But go ahead and find COMFORT in the fact that Forest has never had layoffs...because you know past history is a great predictor of future events! I can also tell you something Forest have never done before...that is face patent expiration of their lead product that brings in ~60% of their revenue with nothing remotely close (in revenue generating) to replacing it.
There is optimism, there is blind optimism, there is even ignorant optimism...but then there is stupidity. There is a perfect storm coming together right now for a downsizing or right sizing in the future despite the hiring that is going on in the present. Forest may keep all of the hospital sales force...maybe! But when they finally throw the towel in on the antibiotic, there will be cuts made on that segment of the business. When that is, I am not sure. Could be 2 year from now, could be 5. But there is possible that Forest acquires a second “Hospital specific” drug to add onto the hospital sales force. That is always the wild card at Forest. Acquisitions of a phase II or III product can change everything. But with Howard starting to back out of the business more and more and the patent expiration of Lexapro, a very realistic scenario exists for Forest to be bought. It will be in a very attractive position for a buyout. You have just lost you #1 product so the value of Forest goes down. But with a pretty rich pipeline, companies that have really gotten killed recently with losing drug approvals and have empty coffers for future products will look at Forest for that reason to acquire. If an acquisition occurs, then probably the entire sales force gets laid off to the tune of what happened to Wyeth then they were bought out by Pfizer.
Forest will probably keep the new sales division they are hiring. Those reps most likely will have lower salaries because they will have low Forest Tenure. They will be handpicked for a specific purpose and Forest will see this as a plus instead of trying to take an existing Forest rep that is set in their ways and limited in their experience (as far as not matching the new focus of Forest like COPD, GI, antipsychotic, etc) and teach them new tricks.
However there is no need for a specialty rep and 2 x 4 reps plus the additional sales force. At least half of the "Pod" structure will be cut. Why do you think there was a reorganization? I am going to assume that you bought the line about more accountability where 1 manager has 2 reps in a Pod and only having 2 managers leading a pod instead of the 4 manager structure that was in place a few years back? They got you hook, line, and sinker. Well the reason they did the reorganization is so that they can slice off 1/2 the sales force and 1/2 of the managers. This will make a clean cut. Honestly, I am not sure how they are going to do it. Are they going to just say Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare are no longer needed nor are their associated managers and therefore they are gone? Or are they going to say we have 1 manager spot and 2 rep spots, go at it and the best rep/manager wins. Either way the result is the same; a layoff.
Forest has had consulting companies looking at this for a few years now. If there is something Forest does well is managing their marketing, meaning understanding what they need to do with what the future has in store. So what Forest is doing is preparing for a future that is all positive. That is why you are seeing hiring. Of course they are going to continue to go through with their plans. They should unless something happens otherwise. However, let me tell you that when something does go wrong, like the non-approval of Daxis or the approval of Daxis for Exacerbations of COPD only instead of the entire disease state, they will put the brakes on.
The one thing you cannot argue is that $2.3 billion in revenue is going away in about a year. Forest has total revenue of approx. $4 billion. This is an estimation taking 2009 revenue and adding in Bystolic and Savella. Lexapro is a $2.3 billion product or 58% of the revenue. When that goes away the overhead will be way to high to keep the earnings per share where they need to be. If they let things go too long, then investor confidence will waver and a big sell off will happen. I can see Forest Stock hitting $5 - $10 a share. Now if you lay off 1/2 the sales force and their corresponding corporate support employees, then overhead goes down. Investors are happy.
I deal in hard fact to help understand what may happen in the future. Not wishy washy philosophy or slap happy ignorant blind faith in the company. If you are loyal to any company (more specifically a publicly traded company) you need a serious reality check or a slap in the face to wake you up...or at least have you sterilized so you cannot contaminate the rest of the human species...better yet let’s just go with the slap and sterilize and get maximum effect. The loyalty never goes the other way. You are a number to them and once you affect the bottom line like you will in a year, it is adios amigos!
Lastly, the reason many reps complain on this site is because the Forest culture has take a trun so far into the depths of hell, that people have nowhere else to vent. This is what happens when you have a managerial hiring process like the one at Forest. The internal managerial training program at forest is a joke if it exists at all. Most of the time there is an opening because the manager left the company or got fired and they pick the last person standing in the room despite their qualifications. OK that is an exaggeration but the assessment center and the interview process are a joke. You cannot have the RD, the AMT and other managerial yahoo's doing the assessing. You need to have an objective outside company with no "dog in the race" doing the assessment. At other companies there are training programs that take a year to prepare for just to start the program, then 2 - 3 years of various classes/seminars and assignments and working with your current manager. And to check progress and make sure you are the right person to continue the program, you are assessed periodically throughout the process by an outside company who rates you and recommends where you are in your training despite the time put in.
So what ends up happening at Forest is that you get these managers that may have been good sales reps, or may be able to spit out a corporate bullshit line, but have no idea how to manage people. I love the managers who say, “stop complaining” or “its not personal its business” and “ all it comes down to are the numbers”. Well those are the managers that drive good reps away. If you need to explain to a sales person that it is about the numbers then either that rep is not the right person for the job or the manager is a complete idiot with very little social intelligence. I think the latter is the case, at least from my personal experience. It is because Forest hires/promotes these managers who are not right for the job.
Let me let you in an a few secrets. The best sales reps don't necessarily make the best managers and in most cases are not the right people for that type of a job. Secondly, from a managerial standpoint it is not about the numbers. IT IS ABOUT THE PEOPLE! And because of this it is personal. It is very personal. You can make sure that you separate personal from professional but it all comes down to how you treat the reps, how you handle adversity, how you motivate, how you filter the shit from the top, and most importantly how you instill trust in your team. This is where most Forest managers go wrong and it is such a simple concept and so important. Thirdly, negative motivation, like threatening ones job, is never the correct route to take. While it may be productive in the short run, it never pans out in the long run and in fact it eventually completely counters any initial positive results. If you manager the person correctly, then the numbers will take care of themselves. Now that is oversimplified, but you get the picture. Lastly, the culture at Forest is very unprofessional. The sales force is not treated like adults or professionals. I cannot believe a company that will look for negative behaviors at training and report it back to their DM. If you want to treat someone like an adult, you bring the issue up to the person and let them address it first.
But hell, i come to expect nothing less at Forest. Just know that there are a lot of opportunities out there. Find the Job that is the right fit for you. Do it soon though because the layoffs ARE coming!!
As for the above Poster, if you are happy where you are, then good for you. We should all be so lucky. I am actually happy for you. I did something about it. I am not going to be around for layoffs even if there are severance packages...but to each his/her own.
Good luck!
EconomicsTeacher101
