The experiment began in 1997, when SmithKline saw sales grow by a clipping 28 per cent -- it claims to be one of the fastest growing multinationals in the country -- breasting a turnover of Rs 259 crore. The company realised that to harness growth and bring focus to its sales effort, it needed to create a new line of managers -- zonal business managers.

Structurally, the new post fell between branch managers who look after sales in two to three states at a time, and the seven to eight regional managers under each branch manager. Currently, the company has eight branch managers who are responsible for all SmithKline Pharma sales across the country. Now, in addition to regional managers, the zonal business managers would also reportdirectly to branch managers.

The difference? Under the new structure, while regional managers would directly be responsible for SmithKline's cadre of sales representatives, zonal business managers would coach, motivate and supervise sales executives, who form SmithKline's allied sales staff.

Pointing out that typically, a branch manager controlled more than 50 people spread across a wide geographical area, senior manager, HRD, Ravi C Dasgupta says, "We wanted to develop a second line to our branch managers and reduce their span of control, simplify the transition between regional managers and branch managers, increase promotional opportunities in our sales team to match performance, and provide a focus to our new business strategies."

Then came the crunch: SmithKline was determined to fill the nine new positions internally, from the existing team of 44 regional managers. Says Dasgupta, "Since this was a new position and we had a profile for it, we wanted the right fit for this. The best way to arrive atthis was by using a reliable instrument more than rely solely on managerial feedback and discretion."

There was another compulsion for psychometric testing: with SmithKline determined to identify the best possible internal candidate to fill the newly created position, there was no guarantee that the aspirants' current performance in existing positions reflected their ability to perform in the new role. A good regional manager could be a lousy zonal business manager and vice versa.

Still psychometric testing for promotions was a brave decision -- given that most corporates in the country have so far used such tools mainly to assist while hiring at the entry-level. It raised other issues as well.

Consider R Kumar, who recently took over as zonal business manager in Delhi, but has worked for SmithKline since February 1981. SmithKline Beecham is known to have one of the best performance management and development systems in the world. So did Kumar really need to undergo a further psychometric test tovalidate 17 years of internal evaluation processes?

Yes, says Bernard Martyris, vice-president, HRD, EIH Ltd, who has extensively used psyhcometric testing at the entry level for the Oberoi Group of Hotels. "Sometimes, it does help when you are looking for a specific quality. Or when there is a distinctive change of role involved, such tests do make a lot of sense." That the zonal business manager would need special skills was already quite clear. Especially as the managers responsibilities ranged from filling in for an absent branch manager, and coordinating with touchy regional managers and sales training officers, to leading a pack of aggressive, possibly hostile, sales executives, who hitherto were not used to any direct reporting relationship.

In November 1997, SmithKline hired Delhi-based consultancy, NIS-Sparta was given a firm brief: interact with our sales management team and identify the desired competencies required from zonal business managers and subsequently develop and evaluate aninstrument to assess applicants versus these competencies. Caught in the grip of a psychological thriller, SmithKline's manhunt had begun.

(To be concluded)