Managing Talent at Lupin Limited

he HR President and the Head of Learning and Development of Lupin, were looking with satisfaction at the latest attrition figures of the company. The

annualized attrition rate for managers had been showing a steady decline, and was pegged at 12 per cent for the first quarter of 2010-77, much lower than the .1 industry rate of 30-35 per cent1. It had been a long, arduous journey and figures .':, were looking decent for now. Flowever, the HR President knew that this was just ,'.,' tne beginning. With competition intensifying in the industrl, the war for talent was :,:1 going to heat up further. He wondered how they were going to manage talent in an j industry which was fast-growing, insular, and obsessed with domain knowledge.

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PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY
The pharmaceutical industry in India had experienced phenomenal growth, especially since 2005. The industry had grown at arate of 14 per cent in 2005-201'0, which was a significant increase over the 9 per cent growth witnessed between 2000 and 2005. Global management consultants, McKinsey & Co. had predicted that the Indian pharmaceutical market would grow to $55 billion in20202 (from $21.6 billion in 2009). According to Palash Mitra, Partner at McKinsey & Company, and leader of the Pharmaceuticals & Medical Products Practice in India,3 "The scale and complexity of the market is increasing as India is moving towards the global top tier in the

l,;. i, :l'., ji '.i:. pharmaceutical industrY."

The pharmaceutical market in India was highly competitive and fragmented with the top 10 players accounting for 36.1. per cent of the total sales in 2008. Tier-l marketsa, which constituted 60 per cent of the total market, had been growing at 74-75 per cent throughout 2005-2010. This trend was expected to continue. Rural markets, on the other hand, were predicted to account for 25 per cent by 2020, up from 20 per cent in 2010.

An increased patient pool due to increased urbanization and lifestyle changes, increased accessibility to drugs, greater acceptance of new medicines, greater
Dhotre, A. (201 0). Attrition in pharmaceutical industry: Human resource management's role and strategy. I nternational Research Journal, 1 (1 1), 87 -89. McKinsey & Co. (201 0). India pharma 2020: Propelling access and acceptance, realizing true potential.

ibid
Following McKinsey & Co.'s classification, Tier

'l

markets are defined as metros (population 1 million),

Classltowns(0.5milliontol million),andClasslAtowns(0.1 millionto0.5million).Tier2marketsare

the remaining urban markets (Class ll, lll, and lVtowns) and rural areas.

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