Pharma Veterans

Recognition Gap Between Developed and Developing Economies – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1134 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1134 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Artem Podrez Credit: Edmond Dantés Preamble In the evolving world of work, talent is the engine of innovation, performance, and progress. While developed countries often champion a culture of meritocracy—where skills, ideas, and contributions are openly rewarded—developing countries frequently fall short in offering the same level of respect, recognition, and dignity to their workforce, especially their mid-tier talent. The consequences are visible: brain drain, employee disengagement, reduced productivity, and an underutilized human capital base. While a commonly cited reason is the lack of employment opportunities—whic...

The Middle Management is Squeezed and Struggling – Why and What Should be Done – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1132 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1132 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: cottonbro studio Credit: Mikhail Nilov Preamble In the corporate hierarchy, middle managers have traditionally been the bridge between strategy and execution, vision and action, senior leaders and frontline teams. They are the interpreters, implementers, buffers, and stabilizers. But today, middle managers find themselves in an uncomfortable, often unsustainable position. With mounting responsibilities, increasing ambiguity, and little recognition, they are the most squeezed layer in modern organizations—and many are burning out.  What’s changed in the role of middle managers? Why the pressure is...

Gen Z in Leadership – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1130 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1130 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Mikhail Nilov Credit: Pavel Danilyuk Preamble It is July. Time in Pakistan for promotions in pharma industry. Every day I see beaming faces announcing their upgrading to various senior positions, such as general manager, business unit head, business manager, group product manager, and the list ends. We can understand that an even larger number would have been promoted as district managers but those announcement are not seen. I am curious why. Is it so that they are not really happy with promotion? Is it so that the role does not appeal to them?  Even otherwise, talk to any Genzer and she/he will most likely say they would like to do something of their ow...

Thoughts on Flatter Corporate Hierarchy – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1037 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1037 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing our contributions here. Credit: Alena Darmel Credit: Cedric Fauntleroy Credit: Pavel Danilyuk Preamble In recent years, tech-based companies like Google, Meta, and Netflix are experimenting with doing away with the traditional hierarchical model and redistributing authority more evenly and horizontally. Bayer, the crop sciences giant and a well-known pharma company, last year went for radical decentralization. The jury is still out on how beneficial it is because more time is needed to analyze its pros and cons. This post is in continuation of previous discourse on the subject and invites open discussion. What Does It mean? Two models have been experimented with decentralizatio...

Reviewing the Standard Corporate Hierarchy – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1036 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1036 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing our contributions here. Credit: Kampus Production Credit: Mikhail Nilov Credit: Yan Krukau Preamble Layer upon layer is the standard team structure that has been around for decades or even centuries. As far as I have been able to understand, the hierarchy was established centuries ago as the communities and tribes formed. Someone was appointed Tribal Chief whose job was to command everyone else. More senior positions like Tribal Elders were created to accommodate more aspiring candidates. Then spiritual leaders and Shamans claimed to be among the seniors and were accepted. The same sense of hierarchy has been prevailing ever since, in every corporate.  Organizations are ...

Evolving Role of Middle Managers – More Coaching – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #998 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #998 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Credit: Annushka Ahuja Credit: Antoni Shkraba Credit: Kampus Production This blogpost is inspired by HBS Working Knowledge article by Ben Rand, which is based on research by Letian Zhang, Assistant Professor of Business Administration. Most content is my own. Link to the article at the end. Hierarchies have become inflated and multilayered, and it has become difficult to identify if someone is a senior manager or a middle manager. When I joined pharma industry, the line management was a two-tier structure. There were the first line managers, and the national managers. The regional managers had different titles, district manager, zonal manager, re...

Bayer Hierarchy Structure Shakeup – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #943 Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #943 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here. Bayer CEO - Bill Anderson Brief History of Bayer Bayer is a German chemical and pharmaceutical company which was founded in 1863 by Friedrich Bayer, who was a chemical salesman, and Johann Friedrich, who owned a dye company. The company enjoyed rapid growth, and it was transformed into a joint stock company in 1881. Between 1881 and 1914, Bayer developed into a company with international operations. By 1913, over 80 percent revenues came from exports. Pharmaceutical department and more production sites were added. And then World War I started causing major disruption in exports. After WWI ended, German companies could not regain their previous markets and there...