Universal Products Company Business - Assignment Example

Running Head: Case Study Assessment of A Case From Havard Business Review University Name: Question One Universal Products Company (UPC) is currently facing crisis and its management team are divided on the course of action to be taken. These is due to their varied opinions and ideas on which they are yet to come into a conclusion, this in itself is threatening to divide the company even with its new leadership. The board of directors appears to be the key sources of all those differed opinions concerning the steps to be taken in re-organizing UPC. This has been so because three out of the five divisions of UPC have been performing badly especially Wire and Cable, on the other hand two divisions (Connectors and Switch gear) have been making profits with exemplary business activities. The fact that some divisions were making loses made the board of directors to convene a meeting so as to discuss the way forward. It appears that they did not have confidence with the then CEO and chairman sir Randolph Charteris a thing that saw his resignation and was replaced by the incumbent Mr. Charles Rampart. The current low rating of universal product company Ltd in the common stock as a result of falling stock prices, the slow and almost stagnant growth in the company, continued defection of key personnel and management employees and the realization of losses for the last three years adds to the sources of the current perception distortion and bias at UPC. (Kelvin, 1998) The new idea by Charles Rampart of the downsizing strategy has brought mixed reactions from the management team mostly from Connectors division, which is the most profitable. The team feels that retrenchment strategies should not be applied in their division since it is doing well and what it needs is actually additional resources. Samuel Godwyn who is the division’s VP for marketing and sales is totally against that move proposed by the new CEO he feels that the number of employees should not be cut at connectors since they do not have any problem with operations and are realizing considerable revenues. Mary Wyatt the V.P for finance at connectors appears to agree with the measurers taken by the new CEO. She says this will be good for the entire company in the long run since the new chairman is initiating this in good faith. She adds that supporting him will bring the management team together thus benefiting the entire company. The division’s (Connectors) general manager Andrew Jordan appears to be ambivalent on the decisions to take, he largely depends with his VP for sales & marketing and the VP for finance who appears to have very divergent views, with one of them supporting the move while the other opposes the same. This in itself might complicate things for Jordan since he values decisions from both of them thus making it had for him to appear as though he is opposing one of them. He would be forced to conduct wide and thorough consultations with the company’s top management team so as to come up with a viable conclusion. The possible effects of all these perceptual distortion and bias will be internal conflicts since the various managerial and professionals at UPC will differ particularly those at Connectors thus stirring misunderstanding in the company. Failing to agree will call for continued crisis meetings, which will further injure the company’s growth this is because with the continued meeting the management team will not be working in their respective divisions thus stagnating growth in the entire UPC. This is likely to split the various divisions since those at Connectors will fill that they are working hard for the unprofitable Wire and Cable. This is likely to give the new CEO hard time in his work a thing that can lend to his resignation and later followed by those who are loyal to him. If agreed upon the program will lead to the loss of jobs for many people in all the management levels. This will have a direct effect to their living standards and those of their immediate family members due to the withdrawn sources of income. Downsizing will automatically lead to decreased production making it hard for the company to meet the market demands a thing that will injure the company in the short run. This will also interpret into further low sales volumes. Workers especially those from Connectors and Switchgear will be demoralized the leading to reduced output and low production targets. However, Charles rampart will be a happy man if the program of downsizing goes through and he might even come up with more strategies designed to develop the company in the long run. (Storehouse and Pordie, 2000) Question Two The influential stakeholders on determining the outcomes of this decisions includes Andrew Jordan who is the Connectors division general manager, Charles Rampart the new CEO at UPC, Mary Wyatt the VP for finance at Connectors and Samuel Godwyn who is the VP for marketing and sales and marketing at Connectors division. Samuel Godwyn is a very influential person, being the one in charge of sales and marketing at Connectors the man is very resourceful for the company major decisions and the general manager is likely to take his ideas and decisions very seriously. Sales department is believed to take a centre stage in every company in marketing the already produced goods thus earning the company some revenue. For Samuel he is very much against the new CEO move of downsizing the employees he says this will not only be harmful to their division but to the entire company’s long-term growth strategies. He fails to understand why uniformity should be applied in retrenching employees whereas the performance is quite different. He argues that initiating staff cut at Connectors will adversary affect its sales volume and the quality of its. He says that this will de-motivate the workers and the situation will be worse to the company than what it is at the current. He argues that a meeting should be convened to discuss the possible outcomes with Charles himself. Mary Wyatt who is the VP for finance is another person to watch, his docket is very important to the Connectors performance and it is the same docket that evaluates whether the company is generating revenues or not. Her opinions can therefore not be ignored, however, she supports the downsizing move from the new CEO where she argues that the program will bear fruits in the long-term. She says that decision should not be restricted to the Connectors performance but should be made for the good of the entire company. Moreover she says all the management staff in all the divisions should give the necessary support to the CEO so that he can overturn the company’s performance. She views Charles as the man holding the future of UPC, which is uncertain at the moment. She is warning that disagreement amongst the management team will lead to inter-functional and inter-divisional enmity, which will threaten the UPC’S revival efforts. She has the strong feelings that Charles is in the right track and what he needs at the moment is undivided support to accomplish his duties. The Connectors general manager Jordan is another man to watch. Though he hasn’t settled on his decisions regarding the program his take is likely to be influential and to affect the efforts made by Charles. Mr. Charles should convince him that downsizing is not likely to bring more harm-than good to his division in particular. The new CEO relies upon his decisions, which is evident at the letter directed to him from the CEO desk. Agreeing to co-operate with Charles will be great achievement to the UPC in general since as teamwork they will manage to make progress appropriately. However, if they differ with Charles things might even get worse impacting negatively to the general operations of the entire company. His decision is therefore very crucial to the smooth running of Connectors and the entire company in general. Charles is also an influential figure, being the CEO the man can mobilize all other personnel from the four divisions to support his move although this is going to be hard considering that the resultant effect will be joblessness to some. Tom Llewellyn is also another person whose opinions cannot be ignored. Being in charge of corporate strategy Tom’s opinions are very important and Jordan is likely to go by his advice following his experiences in the field of corporate strategy. (Storehouse and Pordie, 2000) Question Three As Andrew Jordan, I would gather more opinions through phone calls from the management team in all the other branches but dwell heavenly on my division. I will brainstorm on this idea with my managers to try and come up with agreeable solutions. My take will be to convince my boss Mr. Charles on the importance of treating each division differently based on its overall performance. This will be after harmonizing opinions with my managers so that we can remain united as a division. I would make clear suggestions to my boss on the need of applying growth strategies, stability strategies and retrenchment strategies to our different divisions. For the Connectors and Switchgear growth strategies ought to be applied where additional resources and work force should be directed to these divisions so as to meet its capacity in building sales and service improvement. This will help them gain competitive advantage thus increasing profits and widening their customer base. Pumping more resources on these companies will definitely boost growth at Universal Products Company. (Kelvin, 1998) Stability strategies can be applied to the Diversified products and ElectroTek divisions since they are not doing badly while retrenchment strategies should be applied to Wire and Cable this may mean putting the company under liquidation at the same time diverging its resources to the profitable divisions. Merger and acquisition can be applied where Connectors may merge with Wire and Cable and start producing those products initially produced at Wire and Cable. Adopting this strategy, the company might realize some progress since the poor performance at Wire and Cable could be associated with management problems. For the unproductive employees they should be sent home as one of the restructuring strategy. I will emphasize on the importance of applying the above strategies to my managers and my boss which will involve quoting other companies that had similar problems and were successful after applying my proposed strategies. (Storehouse and Pordie, 2000) Applying the above restructuring approach will actually bring a positive change to the united products company within the shortest time possible. Meanwhile I will be very observant to avoid a situation where I might be viewed as if I am out to oppose my boss. This I will do by convincing each and every manager on the need for the above strategies application as the right course of action. However, if I happen to get more opposition regarding my course of action I will drop my suggestions and side with the course of action from the boss. “After all the boss is always right”. (Kelvin, 1998) Question Four Samuel Godwyn is likely to support my course of action of trying to implement the three suggested strategies. This is because Samuel is very much aware of the efforts made towards making Connectors a profitable venture and the proposed strategies will even empower its performance based on increasing productivity and widened sales volumes as a result of the injected labour force and resources from merger and acquisition. He is likely to be with me in my efforts designed to safeguard Connectors division and the entire universal products company. He cannot buy the idea from Charles of applying the retrenchment evenly since he views it as a misplaced notion. He believes that true competency in the management field is evidenced through actions and not papers alone. He has a feeling that treating the divisions equally on the restructuring strategies proposed by the new CEO will further injure the declining performance of Universal Products Company. Charles Rampart is likely to oppose my suggestions. This is partially because being new in the company he want everyone to realize that he is the boss and his opinion should be applied in all divisions of the company with his presence being felt by every one. Attempting to shoot down his opinions could mean that he is not the right person for the job a thing that he will defiantly oppose. Since he wants the company to remain united the CEO might decide to allocate more time for the conclusion of this vital decision. He is most likely to keep persuading on the need of going by his decisions by citing his wide range of experience. Mary Wyatt will definitely oppose my course of action. The major reason for her opposing will be because she want the company to remain united she might like my suggestion but would rather prefer we give Charles a chance to exercise his opinions and see how he will manage the company. She greatly values unity amongst the various divisional heads and believes the\at without the said union things might even get worse for the whole company. She therefore believes that unity can only be achieved through showing undivided co-operation to the newly appointed CEO. She views Charles as the right person to decide on the fate of UPC future and would support his restructuring efforts whole-heartedly. She would oppose any internal uprising since this will bring negative consequences to the company and its future survival, which appears uncertain. She views the downsizing decision as the future’s internal investment and would rather stand by the new CEO opinions for a healthier future of the company. Reference Kelvin, J. (1998): Decision Making: Proven Method For Better Decisions, maiden, McGraw-Hill. Storehouse, G. and Pordie, T. (2000): Global And Transnational Business: Strategy And Management, New York, McGraw-Hill. Read More