Case Study
400+ employees trained
4+ years of education
2023 ASCM Award of Excellence Winner
The greatest asset of any supply chain is its people. Although Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. has always valued its employees, various events of the 2020s — including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Resignation — underscored just how imperative it is to invest in employees.
During the Great Resignation, knowledgeable and experienced professionals voluntarily changed their careers — taking their skills and tacit knowledge with them.
The supply chain academy provides a platform for employees to develop their skills and knowledge, enhance their career growth, and contribute to the organization's success. The initiative aims to create a pipeline of talented and skilled supply chain experts who can lead Teva's supply chain into the future.
Investing in professional development also would help the multinational pharmaceutical company with some of its business challenges. For example, while the company was refreshing its China strategy, Ebert and Mar Gimeno, vice president of global planning, concluded that Teva needed to invest in people’s capabilities to reach its business goals in the region. In addition, after the major supply chain disruptions following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Teva needed to bolster its agility, flexibility and supply chain resilience. Giving people the skills to address disruptions would be a key competitive advantage.
Within the supply chain academy, one of the key strategy streams is People’s Capabilities. The development of employees is paramount.
To specifically enhance employees’ supply chain capabilities, Teva leaders leaned on the APICS body of knowledge as a global standard for basic supply chain knowledge. This foundation ensures that Teva employees across the organization have a consistent understanding of supply chain concepts and practices.
Initially, Teva trialed the APICS Certified in Planning and Inventory Management and APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional classes, with a goal of training 100 supply chain employees in either of these in the first year. After enthusiastic feedback from participants, the program leaders decided to make the programs a permanent part of the supply chain academy, again with a goal of training 100 more people each year. To date, more than 400 professionals from various departments and sites have participated in the APICS training, with many of them taking the exams and becoming certified. Employees are excited to participate in the program, enhance their supply chain capabilities and contribute to Teva’s success.
Earning the APICS CPIM program demonstrates that you know how to help improve productivity and profitability by optimizing production and inventory management within the organization's supply chain. This program focuses on sales and operations planning, demand management, scheduling, distribution and continuous improvement.
With the APICS CSCP program, you'll learn how to streamline operations and cut costs by strategically looking outside internal operations and throughout the entire supply chain – from suppliers to customers and back again. Content covers all areas of supply chain, including forecasting, global supply chain networks, risk management, supplier and customer relationships, sustainability and more.
The APICS learning and development program has become a fundamental element in the onboarding of newcomers as well as for career development and growth opportunities for all. Top management also has set program participation as a key goal and objective for team leads.
Each month participation data is reported to the steering committee. Company leaders are excited to still be seeing an increase in requests to participate in the training — and interestingly from employees outside the supply chain field, such as employees in information technology and finance.
Teva is thrilled to be able to offer such an enriching program to its employees, and it continues to value its partnership with ASCM to make it happen.
Teva Pharmaceuticals earned the 2023 ASCM Award of Excellence — Learning and Development, which recognizes an organization's commitment to productivity and advancement based on the ongoing application of educational concepts, competencies and best practices from ASCM performance-driven team training and the APICS body of knowledge. To learn more about the ASCM Awards of Excellence, visit ascm.org/awards.
