Gene One Generic Benchmarking

Introduction

Gene One is a biotech company that is struggling to effectively deal with the challenges related to the company's growth and its upcoming initial public offering (IPO). In order to find possible solutions to the challenges faced by Gene One we have studied 8 different companies that have faced similar challenges to the ones currently being experienced by Gene One. In each individual analysis we have identified the problems and issues faced by each company, how each company responded to the issues, and the outcome of the strategies the companies utilized. This information was then analyzed, comparing and contrasting the practices of each company in relation to key concepts discussed in this class. The companies analyzed are: Food Innovations, Google, Hewlett Packard, Insight Enterprises, Levi Strauss, Miller Brewing, Starbucks, and Unica Corporation.

Overall Analysis

Identifying good team players

Good team players have the right knowledge, skills, and abilities or KSA's (Krietner & Kinicki, 2003, p. 455). According to Michael J. Stevens and Michael A. Campion, these KSA's are necessary for a team to function effectively. The KSA's that are necessary for an effective team are conflict Resolution, collaborative problem solving, communication, goal setting, performance management, and planning and task coordination (Krietner & Kinicki, 2003, p. 454).

The first three KSA's are interpersonal and have to do with the interaction between team members. Conflict resolution involves the recognition of sources of conflict. Once identified it is encouraging desirable conflict and discouraging conflict which is undesirable. Collaborative problem solving is the identification of situations that require group problem solving and encouraging the group to work together on a solution. Communication involves not only verbal messages between team members but also nonverbal as well.

The final two KSA's are involved with self-management. Goal setting and performance management involves setting team goals that are challenging and giving feedback to team members as they work to achieve these goals. Planning and task coordination involves the coordination of tasks between team members and giving individual task assignments as well.

Without the proper team players teams run the risk of having problems and ultimately failing. Among the problems that could result is too much emphasis on results and not enough on team processes and group dynamics. Insight and Gene One are two companies that both went through a time when their teams were not made up of the correct individuals. The make up of players they had at the time was not one that was conducive to achieving the goals that were being set out by the company.

At Gene One Don Ruiz, the CEO, did not have the correct team in place to take his company through an IPO. His Chief Marketing Officer, Charles Jones was inexperienced with IPO's and was not up to the task of designing an infrastructure to support the IPO (Gene One, 2007).

At Insight they faced a similar challenge. In 2002 they had purchased Comark, a services company with offices across the US (Business Wire, 2002). Their goal was to build a services organization that could supply IT services as a compliment to their already strong hardware and software business. Even though they now had the services infrastructure in place they did not have the correct team players to coordinate their efforts or continue to build the organization.

In answer to the issue that Insight faced, they hired Steve Kedzior as their Senior Manager of Service Sales. He came to them with 23 years of experience in the field of IT services. (Business Wire, 2005) Bringing on Kedzior added the necessary KSA's to their team structure and gave them the appropriate team player to lead their services organization.

Organization Subcultures

Every organization is comprised of subcultures. These are subcultures are spread throughout the organization by regions and groups. They are part of the dominant culture and contain parallel assumptions, values, and beliefs or countercultures which go against the core values of the organization (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004, p. 478).

These countercultures can create conflict within the organization. This can lead to problems with the employees, but they can also be beneficial. They help maintain the organizations performance standards and ethics and encourage constructive conflict and creative thinking (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004, p. 478)

At Gene One, they faced an issue with subcultures within their organization. Don Ruiz, the CEO, had a conversation with Greg Thoman, Chief Human Resources Officer. In their conversation the culture of the company was brought up. Greg stated that the culture that existed was one of a startup company. He went on to say that this mindset would not work on Wall Street. (Gene One, 2007) Greg suggested that they think about the culture of the company before taking any further action in moving forward with the IPO. While the dominant culture of Gene One was to move forward with the IPO, they had a subculture that still felt that their company was better off as a small startup.

Food Innovations faced a similar issue. They had been working to integrate their IT processes with those of their customers and specifically their largest customer. (Reuters, 2007) Sam Klepfish, the company's CEO did not think that he or his current team had the capability to lead them through this process. The dominant culture of their company was focused on supplying specialty foods; they had little interest in IT systems. Working to align the IT processes to those of their customers went against the culture of the company.

Food Innovations took care of their cultural issue by hiring John McDonald as its CIO, a new position took advantage of John's skills to handle the task of integrating their IT processes with those of their customers. (Reuters, 2007) With their current culture not being one that was IT minded, the CEO (Sam) brought in someone who had a counter culture to theirs. The CEO and the rest of the management team are now more confident that they can accomplish the task that has been set out.

The following two organizations, Levi Strauss and Miller Brewing Company, are similar to Gene One in many ways. Both are strong competitors seeking growth and profit, and both have created a product that some consumers find unique from other similar products. Like Gene One, both organizations were started by entrepreneurs with a vision of success build on filling a need. All three organizations face a continuous learning process and work in team

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