Over the past three months, department sales have declined an average of 15% versus the same three months last year. The purpose of this memo is to recommend a process for the company to implement in order reverse the sales decline.
Evaluation Process
To solve the problem of declining sales, three basic questions must first be answered. Yarborough defined these as “knowing where you are, where you are going and how you are going to get there” (Yarborough, 1994, p. 13). The appropriate process to solve a problem must define the current state of the issue, find the core cause(s) of the problem and chart a viable course for correction. Additionally, proper instructions and action steps of how the solution will achieved must be part of the process.
Collaboration and teamwork is required in generating an appropriate solution(s) to fix the declining sales challenge. When evaluating a problem it is easy rely on an individual’s perspective for solutions. It can be helpful though to evaluate multiple opinions and proposal when attempting to find the appropriate solution to a problem. The following recommendation is a team oriented problem-solving process that includes multiple perspectives in order to generate the correct course of action to reverse the sales decline.
Recommendation of Problem-Solving Process:
Company ABC needs to adopt the following problem-solving process in order to engage the declining sales and turn performance around in the forthcoming six-month period.
1. State the challenge
2. Discover the core cause(s) of the problem
3. Present multiple solutions
4. Debate proposals for validity
5. Create a solution plan
6. Define action steps and set timelines
7. Execution and Review
Justification
State the challeng...
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... Hicks pointed out that a process should be in place “to evaluate implementation and performance” (Hicks, 2000). Performance should be reevaluated on a periodic basis to evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions executed. If performance is within the acceptable area of the defined benchmarks then the solutions executed should continue. If performance is below the acceptable benchmarks the solutions plan should be reevaluated and adapted as needed.
Conclusion
It is imperative that company management address current sales decline in an open, inclusive and constructive manner. In order to do this, it is critical that the company adopt the recommended problem solving strategy. This will assist management in clearly defining the problem, getting a broad source of productive solutions, create a plan to implement the remedy and evaluation process to ensure success.
As for Intermediate: Build Booths so customers can rate satisfaction on scale from 1-10, build complaint boxes for employees in staff room, take note of sales values, and implement changes to organizational structure. For the Short term: plot result, extrapolate, and gather information if negative results. For the Long term, if results maintain positive relation, the strategy has been successful.
The author states that is the new solution-selling strategy, and the companies that choose to ignore this new method could be at risk at losing sales to companies who use this method (Ettenson, Conrado, & Knowles, 2013).
Processes for this phase will include, implementing improvements that were identified in the check phase
5. The chemicals department must become more profitable. Until this can happen, the 2 other departments (electronics, plastics) should acquire their materials from a source that is the lowest cost to the company. If the above recommendations fail to improve the profitability of the chemicals division, it should consider changing management or even selling off this division.
To identify the issues and problems that the company is facing and how the company incorporates into its business strategy the major trends that concerns air delivery business.
However, the biggest problem was to figure a way to resolve its failure towards meeting their target volume/sales by reconstructing their distribution channel to successfully push Coracle in the residential market to end consumers.
The major issues facing the company comprises of there being multiple businesses with different demands. There are separate levels of performance and success as well as growth chances for each of the sector and the firm needs to tackle with issues in each of these divisions (Dube, J.P., 2004).
In asking the consulting firm for assistance, President Paul Willard stated that the main issue within the organization was a “power struggle between people and departments.” This is precisely where the issues in both the sales and production departments are stemming from. After analyzing the situation, several issues can be pointed out in the sales department, the first being the leadership style of sales executive vice-president Ernie Lane, the second being the dramatic shift in the work force, and the third being the lack of motivation and compensation to maintain morale, satisfaction, and productivity. Most importantly, all the problems are
...termine if they are higher or lower than those that have been set. If sales are lower, than set corrective action would be taken to re-evaluate the marketing plan and current advertising efforts. Furthermore, if sales are higher than the goal amount exploiting a positive deviation action would be taken to invest more money into the current marketing strategies.
Analyze the problem - identify the root causes of the problem and use charts and diagrams as needed.
The article raises the issue of revenue growth stalls that affect even the most successful companies. The article focuses on four major causes of the crisis. The first cause is the premium-position captivity that is”the inability of a firm to respond effectively to new, low-cost competitive challenge or to a significant shift in customer valuation of product features” (p.54). The second reason is the innovation management breakdown that is”some chronic problem in managing the internal business process for updating existing product and services and creating new one” (p.56). Third reason is the premature core abandonment that means “the failure to fully exploit growth opportunities in the existing core business” and “acquisitions of growth initiatives in areas relatively distant from existing customers, products, and channels”(p.56). Finally, the fourth cause is the talent bench shortfall that is “a lack of leaders and staff with the skills and capabilities required for strategy execution” (p.58). Authors emphasize that these causes are mainly within management control since they result from “a choice about strategy or organizational design” (p.54).
Adizes, I. (2004, Mar/Apr). Embrace One Problem After Another. Industrial Management, 46(2), pp. 18; pp.7.
Problem-solving approaches presented by Takahashi, Adler et al. and Ruffolo et al. have six similar steps. They all include steps of identifying the problem, analyzing the problem, coming up with some solutions, evaluating the solutions, implementing the solution in action, and evaluating the outcome of the solution. Three approaches all give a useful procedure to solve a problem in group.
As a consultant for Toys, Inc., I have been called in for my advice by the company’s president, Marybeth Corbella; on which of the two proposed options would be best for the company and for the customers as well. Toys, Inc. is a 20-year-old company that produces toys and board games, our company has a reputation built on quality and innovation. Although we have been the market leader in our field, the sales have become stagnant in recent years, and sales have begun to decline when comparing them to the sales in the past. With the company’s managers attributing the decline of sales on the economy, the company was forced to reduce production costs and layoffs in the design and product development departments; this action will hopefully increase
In conclusion, each segment of the performance management process holds a vital link to the next. Not unlike knocking over one domino in a series, it has an effect on the next domino. If one portion in the process is dysfunctional, the next may be identical in its dysfunction – and on and on.