You have finally landed your dream job! You’ve been hired to run AutoSensors; a $250M technology-manufacturing company that is owned by Centennial Inc., a $6B conglomerate headquartered in Chicago. AutoSensors is one of nine technology companies owned by Centennial. Your new title is President/CEO and you report directly to the President/CEO of Centennial, Carl Schmidt. The Trumante brothers, Dale and Bob, founded AutoSensors in 1983. Dale acted as the President/CEO and Bob was the CTO. The company develops and manufactures electronic sensors for the automotive industry. The Trumante brothers started the company with their own savings and have successfully managed the company through the challenges of the start-up to become the market leader in the automotive sensor industry. Centennial, Inc. acquired AutoSensors in 2009 after an unbelievable period of growth. Both the Trumante brothers stayed with the company following the acquisition and because of their past success, Centennial has given them the freedom to manage the company with very little intervention from corporate. The Trumante brothers ran AutoSensors with a very paternalistic style of management. The company maintained its small company feel in spite of its rapid growth. The company maintained a “no lay off” policy and as a result employees were extremely loyal to the company and employee turnover has historically been remarkably low. One of the highlights of the year for employees at AutoSensors was the paid time off that they were given at Thanksgiving where by they could distribute food to those in need in the community. Every employee received a Thanksgiving turkey courtesy of the Trumante brothers. However, there are storm clouds gathering on the horizon. AutoSensors has been steadily losing market share over the past three years in one of its key market segments because of new competition that has been able to get to market with new technology that is better, faster and cheaper than AutoSensors product technology. AutoSensors seems to have been surprised by this development and has been slow to respond. The company has lost money the past three years with declining revenues and increasing costs. This has certainly captured the attention of Centennial’s management team. The result is that corporate has successfully encouraged Dale Trumante to retire and you have been hired to replace him to bring the company back to a profitable market leadership position. The management at Centennial has made it perfectly clear to you that losing money is no longer acceptable as they hope to sell the company in 5 years and they want to get the maximum value for the company. For your efforts, you will be compensated with a 1.5% share of the proceeds from the sale. Bob Trumnate is still with the company as CTO and the President of Centennial has made it clear that his future is entirely up to you. In addition you have inherited a management team consisting of: a Vice President of Finance, Vice President for Human Resources, Vice President of Research and Development, Vice President of Sales/Business Development and a Vice President of Product Technology and Marketing. The company employs over 1000 people in three locations; the headquarters and the R&D/Technology Center are both located in San Diego, and a manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China. You and Carl Schmidt have agreed that you will need 90 days to perform an in depth organizational assessment and to develop and align the organization with a successful strategic plan to get the business back on track and profitable. Today is your first day and the clock is ticking.
Using your newly acquired knowledge of Organizations and how they behave, describe the process that you will undertake to develop a detailed Organizational assessment and plan for your boss and the management team at Centennial. What are your strategic goals and objectives? What are your organizational goals? What are the steps that you will take to assess the organization and its people processes? What is the rationale for these steps? Describe your implementation and action plan, including a time line for its execution.
Give the rationale for each step in your action plan. What are the key elements for your success? What are the risks that you see and what are your plans to mitigate the risks?