Case Study Elektra Products

PROBLEM:
1. Company Sales – The Company has been declining over the years due to multiple reasons such as market competition and Lack of Product Innovation. 2. Employee Problems – Internal Conflicts within departments, low employee engagement which leads to some employees seeking other jobs. 3. The Management – Resists changes proposed by the problem solving teams. OBJECTIVE:

1. The Company – Provide new and innovative electronic products to consumers. 2. The Management – Come up with new innovative products for consumers, Management employee engagement to make sure that they are comfortable with the working environment. 3. The Employees – Create the products and ensure that the company is only producing quality products for consumers. 4. Consumers – Buy products from the companies

ANALYSIS OF RELEVANT FACTS:
Strengths
1. The Company is well known by the consumers since it has been around for 80 years.
2. There are still a lot of loyal employees who believe that the company can still be successful. Weaknesses

1. Low Employee Morale
2. Low Employee engagement to voice out their ideas in improving the company Opportunities
1. The new CEO who was an external hire can bring new ideas and goals for the company Threats

1. Employees that ignore the new management goal and think that it wouldn’t work like previous managements did.
2. Department heads rejects the proposal of the problem solving team even without thinking it thoroughly and its possible benefit to the company in the long term.
3. Competition from the current leading manufacturing company.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
1. The new CEO should set new goals for the company that for sure the loyal employees will follow and help the management to succeed with its goal.

2. The Company has been around for 80 years so the CEO can leverage that by re-marketing the company and make it sound that it has been rebuilt. 1. The new CEO should find a way for those employees which have lost hope with the company to believe again in the new management so that these employees can help them in achieving the new goal. 2. The New CEO can set a new program for the employees to voice out their suggestions or opinions with the current management so that the middle managers and top level managers would have a place to get ideas for improvement in the company.

Strengths
Weaknesses
Threats

1. The Company is still around even after 80 years and people still know them but faces competition from other companies which offers better products.
2. There would be conflicts between people who are pushing for improvement and supports the new management versus people who would think otherwise and drag the company down. 3. Some of the management heads are resisting the changes proposed which are supposed to be good for the company’s future.

1. Employees with low morale are brought down even more because of the resistance put up by the management to changes which would improve employee engagement.
2. The New ideas might lead to opportunities for exploitation by corrupt employees and make profit out of these new informations.

CORE CONCEPTS
1. Empowering Leadership Style – The new CEO upon taking sit on the role immediately setup the management style by first focusing on the current status of the company by guiding them first on what is their new goal and giving the employees the power to make the difference in the company to increase their morale.
2. Management Type – The New CEO being the top level manager has created the goal for the company then he appointed the Middle Managers to find the ideas to achieve the company’s goal then the it is the Middle Managers’ role to explain the new ideas to the first level managers then implement the ideas proposed to them by the middle managers.
3. Four Management Functions – The four management functions are already present in the current Elektra Company and they are still using it to ensure that their process are always in place to avoid errors, conflicts, and other problems that may arise when they are introducing new products.

ALTERNATIVES
1. Push through with the proposed ideas and ignore the concerns of the Department heads. PROS
CONS
1. The company will be able to push through with the changes that the new CEO wants to increase employee engagement and visibility with the management 1. The warning given by the department heads are most likely to happen which can be a big risk/issue in the company and will cause the company to lose money.

2. There will be conflicts between with the middle managers and the first level managers since their thoughts on the ideas were ignored.

2. Rethink about the ideas and consider the feedback provided by the Department heads. PROS
CONS
1. All Parties will be happy since everyone’s ideas were considered in making the plan. 1. This will be a long process and might take a long time to create and implement the ideas since a lot of parties are involved with the planning, and a lot of thoughts are needed to be considered. 2. There will be no risks/issues that company will encounter since the first level managers would be able to bring it up immediately since they are the ones
handling the process directly.

3. Reject the ideas and stick with current process.
PROS
CONS
1. There will be no change with the process and the first level managers wouldn’t need to create or adjust to a new process which would need time to adjust and might cause more problems. 1. The New CEO’s goal is not met and the company ‘s status will remain as is and eventually shut down.

RECOMMENDATION
The recommendation is that for the Middle Management to come up with plans to meet the new CEO’s goal and share with the First Level Management and come up with ideas the both parties will agree on. This will ensure that all possible scenarios are considered by the management for all of the ideas proposed and avoid any problems that the company would possibly encounter and avoid unnecessary lost to the company. This would also meet the goal of the Top Level Management to increase employee engagement to express their ideas by giving them the power to make changes within the company.