Crystel Benchmarking

CrysTel is a telecommunications company that faces many internal and external transitions due to the intensity and evolution of relevant technologies. With a rapidly changing environment, CrysTel will have to make many administrative and technological changes to keep up with the growth. Benchmarking other world class organizations will assist CrysTel in achieving the culture needed to stay functional as a relevant service provider. Other industry leaders such as Circuit City, Eckerd's, Walgreens, Sears, Charles Schwab, and UPS have demonstrated robust leadership qualities that CrysTel can expound upon. Using different approaches like situational leadership styles will help them overcome challenges that face the executive team and their misalignments and lack of quality communication.

CrysTel faces an obstacle in taking their private firm public, because a lack of strong internal infrastructure. Like CrysTel, Walgreens and Eckerds wanted to grow beyond their current status, and reach a point where they could move from being a good company to be considered a great company. The only problem they both had was that they lacked the necessary infrastructure to expand. Cork Walgreen developed a bench of associates who were ready to step into positions of leadership in the company when called upon. Walgreen's strong, newly established executive team was now prepared to handle any challenges necessary to take the business to the next level and drive a profitable business. Jack Eckerd, CEO of Eckard's faced similar problems, as they were overwhelmed by the changes that were rapidly being forced upon them. J.C. Penny eventually bought out Eckerd's company, because they chose to push forward with expansion, without the necessary means and infrastructure in place to handle the additional growth.

Another issue facing CrysTel is a lack of good communication. Sears Roebuck faced similar problems when faced with transformation. Disdain between senior level executives lead to negative press releases that ultimately created a downward spiral of poor communication within the company. Poor communication along with distrust between senior leaders, eventually lead to whitewater for Sears. In 1992, Arthur Martinez led a transformation that would create a better business model to achieve companywide successes. Martinez took a lot of short-term measures to enhance service, such as emphasizing training, putting the best people in the stores during evenings and weekends when the best customers were shopping, offering Sunday deliveries, and similar steps" (Pfeffer, Sutton p. 171). Under Martinez' direction, Sears developed what they call the 3 C's, also known as the three compellings. The idea was to have a compelling place to shop, to work, and compelling place to invest. Each of these objectives was measured differently. "A compelling place to shop was measured by overall customer satisfaction and customer retention. A compelling place to work was measured by attitudes about the job and the company. And a compelling place to invest was measured by revenue growth, operating margins, asset utilization, and indicators of productivity improvement. Sears' measurement practices were based on the desire to develop leading, not lagging, indicators of performance" (Pfeffer, Sutton p. 171-172).

If CrysTel adopt philosophies from the afore mention companies, then they could easily make the appropriate decisions on what is best for CrysTel. Like, UPS and Circuit City, analyzing their competitive advantages and technologies, realizing their true infrastructure requirements, and developing common goals within the company, will provide them with a solid footing to start with. They can embrace their learnings and decide if a public offering is the right thing for not only them, but all stakeholders involved. Good communication is a must when taking an organization through white water and transformation. CrysTel need to communicate their ideas, goals, and plans internally and come to an agreement.

Company Synopsis

Sears Roebuck & Company and Charles Schwab

Sears Roebuck & Company

Issues Identified

There were many actions that caused the problems for Sears during the early and late 90's For one, there was a lack of positive communication between higher up officers within the company. For instance it was the first time that a top executive had openly criticized a colleague. Like CrysTel I think that the CEO decided to make an executive descision without consulting the team about it, now everyone is not happy about the new implementation. According to The Big Book , "Witness these words from Jack Kincannon, outgoing vice chairman and chief financial officer: 'It's absolutely essential that future chairmen come on stream with a broad basis of exposure and experiences other than just knowing how to open and close a store. If you don't know anything except how to open and close a store, how does that qualify you to run a $25 billion complex?'" (Katz, p. 212). This shot was in reference to Ed Telling, who at the time was revamping the upper executive positions within Sear, Roebuck and Co. The Big Book goes on to say, "The shot at Telling was shocking in that during all of its ninety three years a CEO at Sears had never been criticized publicly by a family member" (Katz, p. 213). We have to look at this in a perspective of the consumers. If you were a customer with Sears at this time (Late 70's) and read this in the paper what kind of reaction would you have? This kind of criticism coming from within the family (organization) can alert a society in to how unstable a business might actually be, therefore, creating a disinterest in investing, as well as shopping within the stores. With press releases, as such, going out the top executives were only being detrimental to themselves and the reputation that Sears, Roebuck and Co. had worked so hard to create for almost a century. The lack of communication between top executives, as well as, the changing of top officials and many problems within customer service all attributed to the down spiral of Sears, Roebuck and Co.

Response to the Issue

Top executives realized that there was a problem and realized that something had to be done, and done fast. "Arthur Martinez arrived in the fall of 1992 and led a remarkable transformation at Sears that drove up both operating results and its stock price. Martinez took a lot of short-term measures to enhance service, such as emphasizing training, putting the best people in the stores