Focus Magazine - Summer 2013 - 18

COVERSTORY
looked at both those things we don’t
control and we do control and decided
where we could focus our efforts,”
Wetzel said. “We knew we had
opportunity to improve our connection
to the business, not solely defined by
the client satisfaction survey, but as we

Global Commercial Learning team members
sharing best practices critical to the success
of their transformation.
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Sue Taylor, Pam Dunlap,
Jill Palazzo, Cindy Minster, and Jen Fuchs.

went out and talked to our business
partners in the markets. They either
didn’t use our services or didn’t have a
clear understanding of what we did.”
That was about to change.

World-Class Promise
Facing and addressing perceptions
like being too United States-centric, the
team developed a vision to guide the
transformation and growth.
“Our vision was transforming
Global Commercial Learning into an
organization that provides world-class
learning solutions that prepare business
partners to demonstrate customer
value and drive business growth
around the world,” Wetzel said.
With that vision came a pair of

MIKE FULGINITI
Director, Global
Marketing Learning
Merck HQ,
United States
Leads development and execution of
learning solutions in support of Merck’s
Global Brand Strategy Development
Methodology, across multiple therapeutic
categories, for the US, Europe and Asia.

18

promises. The learning team built these
promises aimed at business partnership
and high impact learning solutions. In
a nutshell, the promises involved
learning taking a stronger stake in
partnering with Merck’s Global Human
Health business areas, and sharing
accountability for outcomes.
Innovation in learning was also a key
element in the transformative
promises, as the team recognized the
need to design global training with
local perspectives.
“Our goal here was to win
confidence with tailored solutions,”
Wetzel said. “We had to recognize that
not one size fits all. The U.S. solutions
were not the right solutions for Korea
or China to implement as is, so it wasn’t
realistic for us to offer U.S. solutions to
other markets around the world. It was
important to us to create global assets
that could be adapted locally.”
The proposed transformation plans
aligned themselves behind a single,
telling tagline: Anticipate, Innovate and
Transform. That tagline was well
aligned with Merck’s strategy and
enables Merck professionals to target
the capabilities of today with an eye on
the needs of tomorrow. Their
transformation brought with it big
promises.
“We realized our tagline could mean
a lot of different things to different
people,” Wetzel said. “It was really
important for us to help our team
understand what good looked like.”

What Good Looks Like
Wetzel and her team of learning
professionals were often asked how
they define high impact learning
services and solutions. Wetzel said she’d

MARGARITA
LUCAS
Associate Director,
US Commercial
Curriculum
Merck HQ,
United States

Leads learning team in execution of
solutions in support of Merck’s US
Vaccines business and builds learning
capabilities in support of Medical
Account Executives.

respond with four attributes that define
world-class organizations:
• Focus on business outcomes, not
training as an activity.
• Shared accountability with business
areas for the outcomes.
• Measure success of the
contributions to business
performance and results.
• Align and prioritize resources to
critical business opportunities.
Wetzel noted, “External data shows
that organizations that do these things
perform better in the marketplace.”

Looking Up
The Global Commercial Learning
team definitely performed better after
the transformation took shape … very
shortly after. At the end of 2012,
another satisfaction survey showed
significant improvement, particularly
in the previously troubling area of not
being seen as a trusted business
partner. The 4.4 out of 7 score jumped
to 5.8. “That was a very clear signal to
our team that we were heading down
the right path in our journey,” Iannetta
said. “We had positive momentum and
results within just six months into our
transformation.”
That’s not surprising given the
actions taken to achieve that forward
motion. The learning team created
partnership contracts that defined – in
writing – the global learning solutions
and services that would be provided to
the local regions and countries. The
contracts initially focused on Merck’s
top 14 markets around the world, and
started their transformation process
with a needs assessment that directly
led to delivery.

MYLA
MALONEY
Associate Director,
Global Brand
Curriculum

JONATHAN
MURRAY
Associate Director,
Learning
Effectiveness

Merck HQ,
United States

Merck HQ,
United States

In collaboration with business partners,
drives needs assessment and execution
of learning solutions aligned to the
business objectives for life cycle of
brands across multiple therapeutic areas.

Leads Global Learning team’s
communications, talent development
and portfolio management, driving
operations through innovation and
transformation.

FOCUS | SUMMER 2013 | www.spbt.org
http://www.spbt.org
Focus Magazine - Summer 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Focus Magazine - Summer 2013
