Main plans to turn Motorola around - Essay Example

As set forth by Crockett and Reinhardt, the first element of his plan was to bolster management, by reviewing performance and then firing the bottom 10% of managers. He then targeted the product line for new development within the mobile phone and semiconductor departments. When Zafirovski came to the company, Motorola had a wide variety of products distributed among its six businesses. His third move was to reassess the portfolio with the objective of determining whether the company should retain all of the businesses or reposition the mix.

With those operational and product strategies moving forward, he turned to fiscal concerns. In an obvious move for a company with financial troubles, he sought to cut costs. By reducing the workforce, shutting down some factories, and trimming the number of cell phone platforms, he increase the cash flow of the organization. Finally, he targeted the company's long-term debt for reduction (58). By employing these five broad strategies, Zafirovski was able to increase performance and product lines, focus his team on what was working, and increase the cash-flow and gross profit margins of the organization.

As a member of the board of Motorola, the first question is how I would approach the hiring of a successor. With Zafirovski's duties being transferred to the CEO for the moment (Haley 1), it is important that the board move swiftly to replace the operations officer. That said, however, succession planning is an "ongoing and complex endeavor that is necessarily broad in scope. It therefore presents significant barriers to both implementation and long-term maintenance" (Bowley, 6). The board cannot afford to rush the process and take the chance of putting the wrong person in such a key position.

Zafirovski's well-planned moves put Motorola into a state of good transition, and the right candidate must be able to consolidate the internal an external relationships of the company. Using key industry contacts and networking with other members of the business community, I would conduct research into finding a pool of qualified candidates. Once I had identified five or six qualified and available people, I would arrange in-depth interviews with them to determine their compatibility with the CEO, mid-level management, and all strategic partners of Motorola.

I would also ascertain the candidates' management philosophy and style, as well as ask their opinions of Zafirovski's strategies. I would request that they confirm whether they would maintain the focus set by Zafirovski or, if not, what their strategies might be. Predicated upon the answers I received, I would vote to hire the candidate that presented the best mix of strengths within the parameters I had set. As to keeping Zafirovski's reforms, my answer is an unqualified yes. In two years, his strategies had turned the company around from losses to profits, and positioned Motorola ahead of some of its key competitors, Lucent Technologies and LM Ericsson (Crockett and Reinhardt, 58).

The shareholders of the company have to be happy with that