Strategic Cultural Change
You are the Assistant Vice President of Carpetbagger’s Chemicals, a sixty-year-old company that provides chemicals used to create and install indoor and outdoor carpet. Your company has thrived on a “good old boy” network based on relationship selling and personal delivery using a fleet of company-owned, light-utility trucks driven by members of your sales force.
Recently, your competition is threatening from several directions. Other chemical companies, using national and regional transportation carriers and Internet sales, are offering faster turn-around and lower prices. In addition, carpet made in Asia and Australia is gaining in popularity in the United States. Sales have been down for three years, and costs continue to rise.
The board of directors of Carpetbagger’s Chemicals recently hired a new president to help turn the company around. He has determined that it is necessary to create radical change to make Carpetbagger’s Chemicals profitable again. These changes will ultimately affect the very culture of your organization. There are three (3) top priorities for the new president.
- Retool the sales force to be more aggressive.
- Move delivery of products from the sales force to independent national transportation carriers (which will negate the need for the fleet of light utility trucks for the sales force).
- Create a new, international sales division to explore marketing Carpetbagger’s Chemicals to carpet makers in other countries.
Develop a plan to support this new strategy through human resources.
20-slide MS PowerPoint presentation are required for the combination of Parts A, B, C, and D.)
Part A Write a report detailing how each of the following will support the change.
- HR Strategy
- Recruiting
- Compensation and Benefits
- Training and Development
- Employee Relations
- Global HR
Part B Create a new organizational chart for the company. (Both MS PowerPoint and
MS Excel have functions that allow users to create organizational charts. You may also download organizational chart templates from http://www.office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/)
Part C Since this initiative is new and not within scope of the current budget, you will need to provide a detailed proposal highlighting additional human resource department costs for communication, new staff (if necessary), training (design and delivery), employee relations, pilot programs, consultant fees, etc. By the way, the new Company President is a tightwad, so keep your costs low.
Part D Prepare a 20-slide MS PowerPoint presentation to communicate your plans to the board of directors.