The Quest to Save ABC Manufacturing: Volume 2

1. Fast Times at ABC Manufacturing

It was Friday morning, the last workday of my second week in the USA. Bill and I were getting ready to meet with my boss, Irene. I connected to the meeting from my office and Bill from his. Irene was the host. At the start of the meeting, Irene said good morning to me. I said good afternoon to her and immediately introduced her to Bill:

Irene: Irene, I'd like you to meet Bill, the new Business Unit President in the US. Irene: Hi, Bill. It is a pleasure to finally meet you. Bill: The pleasure is all mine, Irene. I hope that we'll be able to meet personally in the near future. Irene: Me, too. How have your first couple of weeks at ABC Manufacturing been? Bill: Eventful. Definitely more positive than negative, and they went by very fast, but they were eventful. That's for sure. Irene: Of that, I have no doubt, but you are already starting to make waves at Group HQ and that is something that I very much like to see. Bill: Waves, huh? I would be surprised if more than a few people at Group even know that I exist. Irene: Oh, they know alright, Bill. You've got supporters and detractors, but on the whole, you're doing everything you need to do to ensure that the US BU remains viable. Heck, you're already doing a lot more than that. Great job! Bill: Well, thank you very much. You'll be my boss soon and that's a good way to kick off our working relationship. Irene: Indeed, it is. If you don't mind, Bill, I'm going to ask Buddy for an overview and then we can talk about each of the issues, point by point. Bill: That's fine with me. Me: If it's alright with you, Irene, I would like to work backwards from today. Irene: I don't mind. Whatever suits your fancy is fine with me. Me: Thank you. Yesterday, we had our meeting with Henry. Irene: The Product Portfolio Manager for the Americas, right? Me: Exactly. Irene: How was the meeting? Me: I thinkBill would agree that it could hardly have gone any better for us. Bill: I do agree with that assessment. It turned out better than I ever could have imagined. Irene: Well, fill me in on the details if you would, please. Me: First of all, Henry agreed with all our points, which was very good, but the next thing was that Angela muscled her way into the meeting. Apparently, she had forced Henry to provide her with the meeting link. He tried to warn us, but she showed up on the call before he could complete the sentence. Irene: That woman is power hungry. You're going to have to dig deep into your bag of tricks to stay ahead of her. Me: The funny thing is that she seems open to making some adjustments to the standardized marketing program. Irene: That's hard to believe. Be careful that she isn't just trying to get in good with you, so she can destroy your progress from the inside. Bill: I don't know her, yet, but I don't think that is what's going on here. What seemed to have convinced her was that Sam is also seriously entertaining a proposal from Megan Brown and the rest of us here. Irene: Do you mean, Sam, the Head of Technical Service? Bill: Yes, I do. Irene: That makes sense then. They are good friends. The proposal to Sam is about revamping the C&I process if I'm not mistaken, right? Bill: Yes, that's right. Irene: How did Sam react to it anyway? Bill: We don't have a final answer from her yet, but she's been very positive and supportive, so far. I fully expect the new C&I process to go into a pilot phase within a couple of short weeks. Irene: That's remarkable. That should make a big difference in your customer satisfaction ratings very quickly. Bill: We have every reason to believe that it will do just that and even more. At the very least, it should put a few million extra dollars into our pockets every year, and that's nothing to sneeze at. Irene: Not bad. What was the focus of your pitch to Henry? Me: Improving the customer experience mainly. We're still in the preliminary planning stages, but we talked about making customer experience, CX for short, our focus of effort going forward. Irene: Very good. Me: There's something else you need to know, Irene. Another thing we accomplished this week was to start talking about how the Sales Department could be restructured to get far better outcomes. Irene: How did Gerald react to that? Me: He was very supportive. Gerald is like a new man. And I'm not joking about that. Bill: In case you haven't heard yet, Irene, Gerald is now my Acting COO. Irene: (Silent for a moment) . There are a couple of things that trouble me about that decision: First, there is no COO position at the BU level, and even if there were, . why Gerald? He hasn't exactly been a team player over the years, and he certainly hasn't been very successful. I'm not sure about that move, even if we could pull it off organizationally, I'm just not sure how I feel about it. Me: Irene, if it helps, I fully agree with Bill's decision on this. You wouldn't believe how much Gerald has changed his tune. He also possesses a wealth of valuable information. Bill: For the time being, he's just Acting COO, and the position doesn't come with a raise or any more perks, at least not until he's proven himself. Irene: I'll need some time to digest that one, but who's going to lead the Sales Department if Gerald is off doing something else? Bill: Buddy is going to lead it temporarily, for the next several weeks anyway. Irene: Buddy is a Project Manager, not a Head of Sales. Bill: It's only temporary until we get the Sales Department reorganized and find the right person to replace Gerald. As I see it, Buddy is unparalleled at effecting change. Irene: I guess that's true. Look, I don't have time to get into the details of the Sales Department reorganization right now, could you just give me the highlights? Me: The long and short of it is that only two out of six Key Account Managers are generating any significant revenue right now. We're looking at firing the four worst performers and using the money that unlocks to start building up an inside sales force. Irene: I actually like that idea, but it is going to mean more white-collar turn-over. As sure as I'm sitting here, your enemies at HQ will try to use that against you. Be ready for it because it's going to happen. Me: We'll be ready. Irene: What are you going to do about the contract sales organizations? We could save huge sums of money there. Me: Nothing has been decided yet, but we're talking about building up 3-person inside sales teams: One person, the Team Lead, would be responsible for quotes and coordination. One person would be the Technical Sales Rep.; this person would come from Megan's department. And the other one would be a Lead Generator, based in the relevant region. Once the Lead Generator is up and running, we hope to start phasing out the contract sales organizations in that region. Irene: That sounds like a feasible plan. Is there anything standing in your way? Me: Well, now that you mention it, there is. As we were discussing how the Sales Department could be restructured, Gerald alerted...