Problem Solution: Intersect Investment Services Corporation
Intersect Investment Services needs to make an internal sales transformation to add value to customers, employees, products and services. Intersect provides a broad set of products and services to individual consumers and small businesses. In the past Intersect made quick sales calls, this technique was based around numbers. The more potential customers they contact the more sales possibilities. This technique provided no room for personalization or trust. Therefore, CEO Frank Jeffers identified a new vision, “Provide a broad set of products and services to consumer and small business customers using a model of customer intimacy that will build long term relationships based on trust and value to the customer.” This vision clashes with the current standards within the company and will be resisted by some employees.
Frank Jeffers, Intersects CEO was forced to let go of Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing because he did not support the new philosophy and failed to lead his organization with the new vision. Frank expects this new vision to springboard their company to success, by giving customers what they deserve. Intersect will improve brand image and begin to establish long-term relationships with clients. In addition, this should prove to Wall Street that Intersect Investment Services ethical behavior will never need to be questioned in the future. However, there is tension within the workplace. Employees are not convinced the new vision is effective.
However, how can all this be accomplished and still be successful? To begin Frank hired Janet Angelo, the new Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales. She has years of experience developing “customer intimacy” models for companies. However, none of these companies were quite an investment firm. One was a bank, and others were in the technology industry. Another change implemented was the training of the internal sales force. However, they are resistant to change due to past years of success with the existing organizational strategy. The issue also resides with the management not trusting the new vision. This is misleading employees and building mistrust with managerial decisions. The overall culture within the sales organization is lost in space. The sales format is following previous sales techniques while attempting to incorporate the new vision without proper guidance because the managers are also mislead and not convinced that the new vision will be successful.
This book is important to business students because it shows that even the most seasoned executive runs into unexpected challenges and can find themselves in uncharted territory. Jim Barton’s experiences and lessons can be lessons for anyone. Any employee, whether they are support staff or a top executive, should always maintain an open mind and be ready to learn from a situation or the people around them at any time.
Leading Change was named the top management book of the year by Management General. There are three major sections in this book. The first section is ¡§the change of problem and its solution¡¨ ; which discusses why firms fail. The second one is ¡§the eight-stage process¡¨ that deals with methods of performing changes. Lastly, ¡§implications for the twenty-first century¡¨ is discussed as the conclusion. The eight stages of process are as followed: (1) Establishing a sense of urgency. (2) Creating the guiding coalition. (3) Developing a vision and a strategy. (4) Communicating the change of vision. (5) Empowering employees for broad-based action. (6) Generating short-term wins. (7) Consolidating gains and producing more changes. (8) Anchoring new approaches in the culture.
In light of an evolving market, faced with new competitors, and after a careful analysis of their current customers, the Vanguard Group (hereinafter referred to as “Vanguard”) realizes it must rethink its entire marketing strategy. However, in order to protect and leverage their competitive advantage, which is their low management fees, and to optimize the loyalty that their customers continuously demonstrate toward their organization, they must now target the most profitable segment for them, and develop the best way to serve and delight these customers.
Before being cultivated with cocaine and hookers as the key to success in Wall Street, Jordan Belfort demonstrated the incontrovertible advantages of positive business communications. One of which pertains to the effectiveness of corresponding with customers over the telephone. Especially for stockbrokers, having a conversation over the phone is pivotal when trying to sell a stock to a potential investor. Jordan Belfort began his process with a potential client by stating his name, where he was from, and what he had to offer. This was a method of gaining the trust of a customer that he did not know. Furthermore, he engaged the customer with an optimistic attitude and stated how the stock could affect him or her in the best way possible. Jordan coul...
In today’s ever changing world people must adapt to change. If an organization wants to be successful or remain successful they must embrace change. This book helps us identify why people succeed and or fail at large scale change. A lot of companies have a problem with integrating change, The Heart of Change, outlines ways a company can integrate change. The text book Ivanceich’s Organizational Behavior and Kotter and Cohen’s The Heart of Change outlines how change can be a good thing within an organization. The Heart of Change introduces its readers to eight steps the authors feel are important in introducing a large scale organizational change. Today’s organizations have to deal with leadership change, change in the economy,
“Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail” is an article written by John P. Kotter in the Harvard Business Review, which outlines eight critical factors to help leaders successfully transform a business. Since leading requires the ability to influence other people to reach a goal, the leadership needs to take steps to cope with a new, more challenging global market environment. Kotter emphasizes the mistakes corporations make when implementing change and why those efforts create failure; therefore, it is essential that leaders learn to apply change effectively in order for it to be beneficial in the long-term (Kotter).
This assignment is concerned with your understanding of the key issues relative to portfolio analysis and investment. In completing this assignment you are to limit your scope to the US stock markets only. Use the Cybrary, the Internet, and course resources to write a 2-page essay which you will use with new clients of your financial planning business which addresses the following issues and/or practices:
Kotter, J. P. (2007). ‘Leading change: Why transformation efforts fail’. Harvard Business Review, January: 96-103.
The challenge was to overcome the overall resistance to change and find a way to get the organization behind ArcTech Flooring, the new specialty product. A culture of customer disengagement and communication problems among divisions along with past norms held by key senior managers made initiating radical innovation difficult. These norms made up the division's mechanistic organizational structure, incentives that are based on overall sector performance, operational competencies, and low risk culture, all of which hindered innovation. This paper explores the leadership challenges involved in managing strategic change in a highly mature Arctic Timber Engineered Woods Division.
Step2: Make Short-Term Wins. Nothing persuades more than achievement. Inside of a brief time frame outline this could be a month or a year, contingent upon the sort of progress, that need to have some fast wins for the staff can see. Make fleeting targets not only one long haul objective. Change group may need to work hard to think of these objectives, yet every win that create can further inspire the whole
Wiersema, M. T. a. F., 1993. Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines. Harvard Business Review, p. 92.
Under CEO Philip Purcell’s management, Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure and systems did not grow with the needs of employees and customers, nor did it apply future technologies to their current systems, it’s focus was reducing overheads to maximize profits in the short term. Many brokers resigned, taking with them valuable portfolios and profits. In June 2005 Purcell resigned, and John Mack provided new leadership. The firm then began to change its information systems and provide better services for clients, which saw stronger ethos and integrity within the employees.
Provide the customer orientation that is the key function of the master plan. We needed the those steps of our customer to close their need.
Boone, L. E., & Kurtz, D. L. (2009). Contemporary Business (13 ed.). New York, NY: Wiley.
Before being cultivated with cocaine and hookers as the key to success in Wall Street, Jordan Belfort demonstrated the incontrovertible advantages of positive business communications. One of which pertains to the effectiveness of corresponding with customers over the telephone. Especially for stockbrokers, having a conversation over the phone is pivotal when trying to sell a stock to a potential investor. Jordan Belfort begins his process with a potential client by stating his name, where he was from, and what he had to offer. This is a method of gaining the trust of a customer that he does not know. Furthermore, he engaged the customer with an optimistic attitude and stated how the stock could affect him or her in the best way possible. By providing the customer with onl...