Assignment 1 Case Study: Reach for the Stars BMGT 464
Assignment 1 Case Study: Reach for the Stars BMGT 464 Case Study 1, BMGT 464 Reach for the Stars—Developing Salespeople, Achieving Organizational Success As he read the email from his company’s CEO, Ravi Verghese rolls his eyes and whispers to himself, “Oh boy, here we go again….”: To celebrate PRME’s fortieth year in business, and our successful customer expansion from “seniors” to all ages served by a burgeoning sports and active lifestyle market through our new PRMESport line, I invite you, our invincible, “takecharge” marketing and sales units, to REACH FOR THE STARS! The goal is to increase PRMESport sales by 10% by the end of this year…. Ravi, sales director at New Jerseybased Providence Rehabilitation and Medical Equipment (PRME, or “Prime” as employees liked to say) remembers all too well the challenges he and his coworkers weathered 18 months ago when PRME expanded its product line from agingrelated to sports injuryrelated medical supplies and equipment. The new products are branded PRMESport, developed to grab a share of a fastgrowing medical and rehabilitation supply and equipment market segment. To achieve this, PRME bought a small, thriving manufacturing enterprise created by a couple of sports orthopedic surgeons—however no salespeople came with the acquisition. PRME executives decided to upskill and retrain its existing sales force—”no sales associate will jobs will be lost because of PRMESport,” they reassured—rather than recruit additional people. Ravi, whose stellar sales performance caught the attention of company executives, was promoted to director of the sales unit, a group of twentyfive people. Task one, executives said, is to reorganize the unit, establishing selfmanaged teams to penetrate the new market segment rapidly, efficiently, and effectively. In spite of Ravi’s initial eyerolling reaction to the CEO’s email, he rereads the message with an open mind and restored positive attitude. We can do this, Ravi acclaims. Bottom line, he is grateful that at age 35—young for a PRME senior manager—he has the opportunity to hone new management skills, focus more on his interest in strengthening PRME’s human/intellectual capital, solve harder problems, and do his part to make his organization a top competitor. He was proud to work for PRME. The company’s ragstoriches founder, James Cleavon Jefferson, who started the business in a run down New Jersey warehouse with Chapter 8 support in 1974 and grew it into today’s wellrespected, successful global supplier, serves on the board as a conscience to the new owner, a multinational company. Ravi’s own hard working parents, immigrated from southern India to the US, opening a familyrun restaurant in Trenton—also with Chapter 8 help—that flourished in their diverse community. While he loses no time moving forward with a strategy to reorganize into selfmanaged teams, he’s determined…