The Wallace Group

Introduction

In the case study The Wallace Group, Stybel (2006) describe Harold Wallace as the chairman and president of the company. The company deals in manufacture and of technical products and systems. The company has three operational groups which are electronics, plastics and chemicals. (Stybel, 2006) The company started out as an electronics company but then later expanded to plastics and chemicals. The company adopted the other companies because the plastic company was up for sale so Wallace got investor to help in buying the company. He then acquisition the chemicals company because the owner was in bankruptcy.

The electronics and the plastics were the most profitable, the chemicals was not has profitable. Most of their profit came form the governmental and automotive markets. (Stybel, 2006) The companies was facing a lot of problem which was affecting their success and meeting their objectives. The employees at Wallace group were not satisfied with the President managerial skills. Wallace asked Rampar who the president of Rampar associates to do some consulting. She questioned some of the employees to find out the problem and then she had to come up with an action plan to solve the problems.

Problems

The problem was that there were too many problems. Wallace had problems with both the company success and with the employees. Because the company was expanding there were new position opened. But this caused problems as a result of the responsibilities and relationship between corporate and groups position. They did not have enough employees to fill the vacancies. (Stybel, 2006) The salary was too not enough for the position and applicants were turn down for engineering position because they didn't have enough qualification. The company was lack growth in profit and markets. (Stybel, 2006)The company was lacking in managing people which show that management lack morale. Almost everyone wanted a new president because Wallace had an autocratic management style.

They had problem with negligent training for the new position they had; they were promoting technical employees to managerial position. Even though the company was combined with three different groups they were isolated from each other. They didn't know how to work as a team to have a smooth operation. Turnover was going to be a major problem for them because key people were resigning and employees were deciding to leave. They lack proper communication skills with each other. They needed new information technology system which will cause a lot of employees to loose there job. (Stybel, 2006);

Recommendation

The Wallace Group, Inc. problem all started with management. They have an autocratic leadership style. For a company to be successful it has to know how to deal with changes. According to Wheelen & Hunger, 2006 they must go through the following phases of strategic management. The four phases includes phase-I basic financial planning, phase-II forecasted-based planning, phase-III Externally oriented (strategic) planning and phase IV strategic management. Wallace needs an intervention on management skills. Because he owned the electronics company first he did not adjust to the changing environment