Managing White Space

Running head: MANAGING WHITE SPACE

Managing White Space at Superior Widget Company

Managing White Space at Superior Widget Company

Superior Widget Company (SWC) had made a change in the Customer Service Department (CSD) from regional CSDs to a centralized CSD. The SWC's CEO decided to unfreeze the CSD's status, when he or she wanted to change the centralized CSD's policies and procedures, and then refreeze the department with a new status quo. This will cause regional cross functional departments that interact with CSD to change their way of doing business. Through SWC unfreezing the process of CSD, it will disconfirm the present department manager's behaviors; the changing of polices and procedures will cause department managers and employees to learn new concepts of CSD, and refreezing will cause department personnel to exhibit new behaviors (Schein, 2002-2006). While the organizational structure is unfrozen, the organization will select a 'change status quo' team; it will consist of department heads to change the status quo.

Organizations, like SWC, will usually select a team with the profile of any stakeholders' manager that has cross functional interaction with CSD. These managers will collaboratively set a new status quo for the department, while it is in an unfrozen state. The department's managers that should be involved in the change may be Finance, Inventory Control, Transportation, General Warehouses, Regional Sales, and etc. When companies, such as SWC, make changes within the organizational structure, it creates conflicts between the organizations cross functional lines. This will cause management to view the areas of conflicts, the way to approach the situation, and the commitment and availability from upper management.

Areas of Conflicts

When an organization makes internal structural changes, there are two areas of conflicts that will arise. One, Individualist conflict arise because people think of themselves by nature due to their society norm, and fear a disruption on satisfying their own agenda of achieving wants and needs. Case in point, the Regional Sales managers and the Sales representatives fear the new guidelines for servicing their accounts; it may cause some decrease in stores revenues, and it will intern lower their potential earnings. Second, personnel resists change in the workplace because it may create power struggles, a climate of mistrust, loss of status/or job security, and individual's inclination towards change (Managing, June 4-5, p.3-5). For instance, Inventory Control manager feels, he or she, is losing the 'invisible' say, "Where the products are shipped." Therefore, the 'change' team must understand the conflicts, and it will need to analyze and select the most appropriate strategy to approach the situation (Hoban, n.d., p.2). The way to approach the situation is utilizing different modes of communication and different computer generated reports to assist in an equitable strategy for the change in the CSD's policies and procedures.

The Way to Approach the Situation

First, one is going to address: the different ways the team will communicate. Second, one will address: the reporting system the team will use to strategize CSD's new policies and procedures. Finally, one will receive the commitment and availability of upper management.

Communication.

The team's coordinator will put together a weekly agenda for meetings to be email four days in advance. The weekly agenda will encompass the date and time of video conference meetings, who will be attending the meetings, detail of discussions, and any action items (access to generated computer reports) "...the date .... Joel Ginsburg (personal communication, January 10, 2006) discussed..." Another form of communication will be Email. Emails will be use to convey and to obtain computer generated text and documents, and any discussion of action items. It is prefer that all emails are filed by participants, so there will be no misapprehension of email messages. The final form of communication is Multipoint Videoconferencing. This will connect calls from several sources; also the Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) can accept calls from all participants, as well as make calls to participants (Wikipedia, 2007, p.3). The MCU will have a video archive feature, so participants can review previous meetings. Now, the team's communication system has been established, the discussion will lean towards the reporting system.

Reporting System.

The team decided to use computer generated facts about clients to assist in setting new policies and procedures for CSD. This avenue will dissolve the conflict issues in SWC, and it will formulate the new CSD status quo. The team of department heads has arrived at a final decision of the best practice to service SWC's clients. The team will use these best practices to form new guidelines for CSD.

Best Practice. The team decided to use business algorithm software to create a spread sheet that conveyed certain information about the clients in each region. On the spreadsheet, the clients are categorized into three categories:

1) Category 1 - credit risk score of 90-100, net worth greater than 5M., annual purchase receipt is greater than $250K, and account receivable turnovers every 30 days.

2) Category 2- credit risk score of 80- 89, net worth is $1M-$4.99M., annual purchase receipt is greater than $175K, and account receivable turnovers every 35 days.

3) Category 3- credit score of 70-79, net worth is less than $1M.., annual purchase receipt is greater than $100K, and account receivable turnovers every 40 days.

The team's resolution was based also on other factors as well, such as market conditions, economic conditions, and SWC's interest rates on loans. The team determines to only allow the Category 1 clients to have a credit line up to $ 100K at any time, based on account receivable turnover and annual purchase receipts. Category 2 customers will be allow to have a credit line up to $75K, due to these clients average being five days late in turning over account receivable.