Management Control Systems: UCB Pharma Inflammation Business Unit Evaluation - Essay Example

The contention of this research is to discover if employee's compensation is in direct line with the performance appraisals. Gaps were found to exist between the medical staff's performance appraisal system and their actual job role. The final recommendation is to develop and implement specific management control systems based on the medical staff's functional role rather than the numerical objectives of the sales department. UCB Pharma is a leading global biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the research, development and commercialization of innovative pharmaceutical and biotechnology products in the fields of central nervous system disorders, allergy/respiratory diseases, immune and inflammatory disorders and oncology.

UCB focuses on securing a leading position in these severe disease categories. UCB is originally a Belgian company with headquarters in Brussels and subsidiaries worldwide including the Americas, Asia, Africa, Middle East, Oceania and Europe. The European subsidiaries are responsible for marketing, medical information and distribution of pharmaceuticals originating from UCB's research and developments in the above mentioned therapeutic areas. The research activities are organized into three Centers of Excellence around Europe; Braine-l'Alleud (Belgium) is focused on the central nervous system, Cambridge (UK) on inflammation, and Slough (UK) on antibodies and oncology.

The company has changed dramatically in the last decade from a classical chemical company (e.g. production of plastics) with some focus on the pharmaceutical market into a dynamic biopharmaceutical company. The chemical branch was sold several years ago and replaced in 2003 by the biotech company Celltech. This year, UCB announced the proposed acquisition of Schwartz Pharma for cash and shares valuing Schwartz at 4.4 billion Euro. The recent acquisitions are in line with UCB's vision to build a global biopharmaceutical leader, bringing to specialists new medicines to treat patients suffering from severe diseases.

Resulting from the expansion of UCB, a new business unit (BU) focusing on inflammatory diseases has recently been established in most subsidiaries. The majority of subsidiaries now have 4 business units; a "primary care products" BU, one "central nervous system diseases" BU, a "special products" BU and thus the new BU "inflammation". As is the case in most pharmaceutical marketing/sales organizations, two additional departments; HR/Finance and the Medical department support the business units in the UCB subsidiaries.

The UCB-office in the Netherlands is located in Breda and organized in a similar fashion as described above (see also Figure 1). Thus the Dutch subsidiary exists of four business units, a HR/Finance department and a Medical department. So called General Franchise Managers (GFM) are responsible for their respective business units. The HR/Finance depart