Management Crisis and Business Revolution - Assignment Example

? An Individual vs. Team-Case Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………………………………3 Decision Making literature Review……………………………………………………………….4 Strategies employed in Organization under Dire Consequences………………………………….5 Management Styles…………………………………………………………………………….....7 Marketing Strategies………………………………………………………………………………9 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….10 References………………………………………………………………………………………..11 Appendixes’.…………………………………………………………………………..…………12 Abstract Financial analyst plays a key role in an organization. This is because it is they who analyze the market niche of a particular product and come up with the recommendations on the course of action to be taken. For instance, it is the financial analyst who studies the market situation of company’s products, establishes the competitors and strategies they adopt and recommend what the company needs to do in order to remain competitive. This position is also well paying in terms of remuneration individuals of this cadre gets. However, it is said that change is like rest and every employee would not want to stay at one role every time and again. In this case, they always tend to crave for a more demanding role as a way of growing in their career. This tends to prompt them to seek for promotion as a motivating factor. This is what may prompt a financial analyst to seek for promotion to the level of an operation manager of a company that has a more challenging role a part from the fact that it is also well paying. Nevertheless, before an employee is promoted to a higher cadre, company presidents tend to look at certain qualities in an individual before rushing to giving such promotions. In most case, the presidents may opt to put an employee on probation to establish whether the employee would be up for the challenge in the new role. This is the case regarding the situation before us. Decision Making Successful organizations highly depend on competitive products and services to succeed in the marketplace. Wang (2011) notes that, internally, quality management decision making is vital to establish and sustain this success. Managers face a number of challenges on a daily basis, and their ability to make decisions determines how successful and their individual careers can be in the long run. Quality decision making is, therefore, a competence that every manager who is responsible must acquire and a discipline that should be practiced. All responsible managers and leaders should always be willing and able to share how they make decisions (Wang, 2011). However, the team leader is he decision maker and has to bear the final responsibility for any decision made. Nevertheless, he or she is at liberty to choose who to invite in the final decision-making process and how to guide the process in order to maximize the quality and executability regarding the final decision made. It is, however, worth noting that managerial decision making is part of a continuous journey and not a one-time event. The three critical steps that make up this journey are: observe, think and experiment. Moreover, the overall outcome of managerial decisions can be optimized through continuous improvement. It is a matter of fact that taking up a new role is something challenging – one that requires good leadership qualities and styles. This is particularly challenging in a situation where the company is operating during a “shut down.” Therefore, to bring a turnaround on the company, proper strategies need to be employed, coupled with proper decision-makings to accomplish goals. In this regard, I will employ a number of strategies enumerated hereunder: Strategic and Operational Decisions to Save Organizations under Dire consequences Good leaders do not rush into making decisions. Instead, they first analyze the problem and to establish the cause before establishing the right course of action to take. For instance, when sent by the President to organizations that are under dire consequences, it is imperative that I establish the cause of the problem for me to be able to formulate the right strategy to employ in order to remedy the situation. Wang (2011) argues that quality decisions are only made by individuals who are willing to make quality decisions and know how to make such decisions. This means that one must know the right strategy to use in order to correct a problem In case this is not done, then the strategy employed may prove futile. Therefore to turn around such organizations under dire consequences, the following strategies will be employed after thorough scrutiny of the causes of the downfall. Divestment Since the company has downsized its scope of the business activities, retrenchment strategy will suffice. This will involve elimination of certain portions of the business (Pride, Hughes and Kapoor, 2011). In this regard, I will select business units that are not profitable to the organization or unmanageable and do away with them. This strategy will help in cutting down the cost and leave only those segments that are profitable to the organization. This is mainly because, the aim and mission of the organization is to make a profit and remain competitive in the market. Why have a segment that only incurs a lot of cost but contribute very little to the organization’s overall performance? This is the question that any person concerned about the well being of an organization may ask himself or herself. However, it is worth noting that divestment will not act as my first choice. But since demand for products keeps changing and firms altering their strategies, these segments not performing to my expectation will just have to be eliminated. This I believe will leave an organization in a stronger position that is competitive. Product and service diversification As I seek to divest the operations of the company, I will also consider looking at other opportunities in the market. This strategy will ensure that the company not only depend on a single product or service but also diversify in other products. For instance, it is a fact that the world is moving very fast due to globalization and advancement in technology. It is, therefore, vital that, as a manager, I look at the impacts of globalization and technological advancement and position the company toward the eminent changes. As a result, I will consider new products and services that the company can start dealing in. This strategy will ensure that the company remains relevant and not rendered redundant due to technological changes. Employee Evaluation, Hiring and Firing Some organizations fail due to issues that are administrative in nature (Pride, Hughes and Kapoor, 2011). Some of the issues may be corruption or unethical behaviors and lack of experience among management and employees. In this regard, since I am given the authority to hire and terminate services of employees by the President, I will first of all carry out an evaluation of the entire staff of organizations using the tool shown in appendix 1. This will give me the opportunity to establish whether the organization’s downfall is occasioned by lack of experience among members of the staff or not. Once the evaluation is done, those employees who does not meet the requisite knowledge and expertise needed would be dismissed on summery. In case vacancies come as a result of the termination of employees who do not have the requisite qualifications and skills, I will liaise with the President to chat a way forward on how the vacancies can be filled. This will ensure that these organizations get qualified members of the staff that can effectively run them to bring a turn around. It is also a matter of fact that some employees may be under security of tenure and firing them would not be easy. However, to ensure that these are done in a proper manner, I will seek guidance of the organizations attorney regarding the consequences so that the company is not sued unduly. Eliminations of under performing employees and managers will help in turning around the company’s performance (Pride, Hughes and Kapoor, 2011). Management Styles Managers perform many tasks in an organization and how they perform various tasks depend on their management styles (Adeniyi, 2007). As such, it is essential that an appropriate management style be adopted that suits the underlying situation. Therefore, as a manager, I will focus on management styles that would also help in developing employees. This I belief is key to improving performance thus bringing about a turnaround in the organization. I will employ situational leadership, mainly focusing on coaching and pacesetting. Coaching This is a leadership style that aims at developing employees, demonstrating to employees how to advance their performance, and helping to match their goals with those of the company (Harte, 1997). This strategy works best with employees who are initiative and need more professional development. In this case, I will identify those employees who are willing to develop their career and engage them in discussing what is required in order to improve the company’s performance. Those who are willing to be provided with training opportunities would be given. The support will also involve giving sponsorship to employees who show a high level of performance as a motivating factor. The educational scholarships will help in developing the skills of these employees which they will use to bring about turnaround of the company's performance. Pacesetting In order to introduce the culture of performance in an organization, it is crucial that the manager acts as an example to the rest (Harte, 1997). This has been the case with most of well performing organizations across the globe. Therefore, as a leader, I will act as an example to the organization by being the pace setter by setting high standards of performance. In this case, I will act as an example to the staff under me by doing things better and faster, then asking everyone to emulate. This is because it is easy for employees to copy what their managers do than being commanded to do something without setting example (Adeniyi, 2007). Pacesetting in this case will also cover other areas such as those of ethics. In this regard, I will show my team the importance of being ethical in an organization. This involves elimination of corruption and other antisocial behaviors which might drive away organization’s customers and other stakeholders. For instance, many under performing companies and industries in one way or the other are associated with unethical behaviors. This involves corruption and embezzlement of organization’s fund either by top management or employees. It is, therefore, imperative that all decisions that I make ensures the organization's management team remains ethical at all times. This will help restore the confidence of the company’s customers, creditors, government, sponsors and society at large. The restoration of the confidence through proper decisions and strategies will help initiate a turnaround and the company will start seeing many customers getting drawn to it. The company’s shares will also begin to rise as shareholders will begin to speculate better performance of the company, thus getting it back to its feet. This will in turn lead to an increase in the overall profits of the company. Marketing Strategies Marketing failure may lead to organizational down fall (Harte, 1997). It is, therefore, critical that proper making strategy decisions be established to help bring these organizations back to operation. It is a mater of fact that different organizations use different strategies aimed at countering their competitors. This is exactly the strategy that I will employ. In the beginning, I will gather all relevant information regarding the company’s competitors with the help of other staff members. One this is done, I will develop a strategy that will help counter those of organization’s competitors in the market. The marketing strategies that I will consider using are discussed hereunder: Product Differentiation The product differentiation strategy would entail distinguishing the organizations products to the maximum by developing unique features that match a customer’s needs. This will help in driving customers towards the company’s products. Price Reduction In order for the company to remain competitive, it is in order that prices charged are not high above those charged by competitors (Harte, 1997). This is because, depending on the elasticity of the product in question, customers will tend to buy those that are cheaper. Therefore, I will make sure that company’s prices are in line and remain cheaper compared with those of competitors in the short run. My main aim at this point is only to ensure that the company is break-even after covering all the costs. This strategy will help draw more customers, and in the long rung, the company will be able to make profits and even super profits as it would have many customers. Conclusion Top leaders are charged with the responsibility of making strategic decisions, which impacts on the overall performance of an organization. Strategic decisions entail choosing the right vector to run on. Some of the decisions mad are operational in nature which involve running well on the vector chosen according to Wang (2011). It can also be described as selecting a target and implementing that target. Strategic and operations decisions go hand in had and cannot be separated in order to achieve sustained success. The actions taken may differ and at the same time involve different people for the two types of decisions. However, the decision maker must handle them as two points on a continuum in the process of making such decisions. A good strategic decision is made to be executed successfully; good operational decisions, on the other hand, are made in order to achieve the target of the strategic decisions (Harte, 1997). Therefore, every decision-maker who is responsible should take his or her strategic decisions and its execution as one thing in decision making thought process. This will result in successful management of an organization which in turn will bring about turn around in collapsing companies as has been seen in the case described. References Adeniyi, M. A. (2007). Effective Leadership management: An Integration of Styles, Skills & Character for Today’s CEOs. Bloomington: AuthorHouse. Harte, J. (1997). Management Crisis & Business Revolution. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. Pride, W. M., Hughes, R. J., & Kapoor, J. R. (2011). Business. New York: Cengage Learning. Wang, C. (2011). Managerial decision making leadership: The essential pocket strategy book. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Appendix 1: Employee Evaluation Employee Name: Title: Department: Supervisor: Title: Evaluation for the period: evaluation Goals and objectives accomplishments, responsibilities, Achievements Evaluation Strengths and areas for development Weaknesses RAnking Employee Signature Supervisor Signature Name: Date: Name: Date: Appendix 2: Pace setting model Appendix 3: Willing & Able Unwilling but able Willing but unable Unwilling and unable Read More