The Quest to Save ABC Manufacturing: Volume 2 E-Book

Daniel Donahey

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: The Quest to Save ABC Manufacturing
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 508

Beschreibung

The Quest to Save ABC Manufacturing: Volume 2 is a business novel that continues the story of William (Buddy), a dedicated Senior International Project Manager, from a German parent company. Buddy is on a quest to help save his company's struggling US subsidiary. To succeed, Buddy must first convince a group of talented managers to help him introduce and implement true organizational change. Together, they learn how to successfully meet US customer and colleague expectations in a German-American business environment. Very quickly, Buddy learns how Americans think and talk about business, how they work, lead and expect to be led, including how they use over 900 AMERICAN BUSINESS EXPRESSIONS AND WORDS, many of which are virtually unknown outside of North America. Buddy is so successful in the USA that he is next asked to produce the same results for ABC Manufacturing's entire international organization. This book is highly realistic, very exciting, and a perfect example of edutainment.

Leseprobe

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

1. Fast Times at ABC Manufacturing

2. Right and Tight!

3. Getting on the Same Page

4. The Brain Trust Expands

5. The Trouble with Cynthia

6. Engineering the New Sales Department

7. Things Finally Start to Fall into Place

8. The Dominoes Fall and So Does Bill

9. Under New Management

10. The Showdown with Oskar

11. From Corporate Silos to Competence Centers

12. The New and Improved Task List

13. Results of the Strategy Pivot

14. Building a Successful International Division

15. Putting Down the Foundations

16. Casting the International Division’s Organizational Form

17. Where to Base the Competence Hubs

18. Where’s the Value?

19. To Go It Alone or Remain Within Group?

20. Out of the Blue: New and Unexpected Hurdles

21. Dealing with the Worst Performers

22. Epilogue

Introduction

In Volume 1, you were able to shadow Buddy, an International Senior Project Manager from Germany, in his quest to save the struggling US subsidiary of a German widget manufacturing company. In just two short weeks, he was able to build, or better said, help align a group of managers into a powerful self-organizing team called, “the brain trust”. This group had the primary task of supporting the new BU President, Bill Smith in turning around and saving ABC Manufacturing, Inc., (aka. the US BU).

In Volume 1, the brain trust consisted of Mary, a powerful business mentor; Megan, Head of Service at the US BU; Gerald, Head of Sales at the US BU; Deb, an IT and marketing expert who primarily assisted Mary; Bill, the new President of the US BU; Henry, the Product Portfolio Manager for the Americas; and Irene, Buddy’s boss, Head of the Project Office, and the later COO at Group. Other key players in the story were Cynthia, the US BU’s HR Manager; Oskar, the US BU’s CFO; and several managers from Group HQ including Samantha, Head of Technical Service, Angela, Worldwide Marketing Manager; Kurt, the CSO; and Vanessa Bauer, CFO.

Although the story continues in Volume 2 exactly where it left off in Volume 1, you, the reader, are in for some unexpected twists and very big surprises. In Volume 2, new players emerge, and you will finally discover whether the US BU even survives. If so, does it go on to thrive? You will also learn how things turn out for all the main characters. Who wins, who loses, and who has to go? All these things, and many more, will be revealed in Volume 2.

As with Volume 1, “The Quest to Save ABC Manufacturing: Volume 2” is intended to be a compelling stand-alone book, a good read that inspires and teaches. It is also an integral part of the American Business Culture Specialist training program, a program that teaches students how to do business successfully with American counterparts. To learn more on becoming an American Business Culture Specialist by completing the American Business Culture course and test, please visit us TODAY at: www.american-business-culture.com.

1. Fast Times at ABC Manufacturing

It was Friday morning, the last workday of my second week in the USA. Bill and I were getting ready to meet with my boss, Irene. I connected to the meeting from my office and Bill from his. Irene was the host. At the start of the meeting, Irene said good morning to me. I said good afternoon to her and immediately introduced her to Bill:

Irene:

Irene, I’d like you to meet Bill, the new Business Unit President in the US.

Irene:

Hi, Bill. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.

Bill:

The pleasure is all mine, Irene. I hope that we’ll be able to meet personally in the near future.

Irene:

Me, too. How have your first couple of weeks at ABC Manufacturing been?

Bill:

Eventful. Definitely more positive than negative, and they went by very fast, but they were eventful. That’s for sure.

Irene:

Of that, I have no doubt, but you are already starting to make waves at Group HQ and that is something that I very much like to see.

Bill:

Waves, huh? I would be surprised if more than a few people at Group even know that I exist.

Irene:

Oh, they know alright, Bill. You’ve got supporters and detractors, but on the whole, you’re doing everything you need to do to ensure that the US BU remains viable. Heck, you’re already doing a lot more than that. Great job!

Bill:

Well, thank you very much. You’ll be my boss soon and that’s a good way to kick off our working relationship.

Irene:

Indeed, it is. If you don’t mind, Bill, I’m going to ask Buddy for an overview and then we can talk about each of the issues, point by point.

Bill:

That’s fine with me.

Me:

If it’s alright with you, Irene, I would like to work backwards from today.

Irene:

I don’t mind.

Whatever suits your fancy

is fine with me.

Me:

Thank you. Yesterday, we had our meeting with Henry.

Irene:

The Product Portfolio Manager for the Americas, right?

Me:

Exactly.

Irene:

How was the meeting?

Me:

I thinkBill would agree that it could hardly have gone any better for us.

Bill:

I do agree with that assessment. It turned out better than I ever could have imagined.

Irene:

Well, fill me in on the details if you would, please.

Me:

First of all, Henry agreed with all our points, which was very good, but the next thing was that Angela

muscled her way

into the meeting. Apparently, she had forced Henry to provide her with the meeting link. He tried to warn us, but she showed up on the call before he could complete the sentence.

Irene:

That woman is power hungry. You’re going to have to

dig deep into your bag of tricks

to stay ahead of her.

Me:

The funny thing is that she seems open to making some adjustments to the standardized marketing program.

Irene:

That’s hard to believe. Be careful that she isn’t just trying to get in good with you, so she can destroy your progress from the inside.

Bill:

I don’t know her, yet, but I don’t think that is what’s going on here. What seemed to have convinced her was that Sam is also seriously entertaining a proposal from Megan Brown and the rest of us here.

Irene:

Do you mean, Sam, the Head of Technical Service?

Bill:

Yes, I do.

Irene:

That makes sense then. They are good friends. The proposal to Sam is about revamping the C&I process if I’m not mistaken, right?

Bill:

Yes, that’s right.

Irene:

How did Sam react to it anyway?

Bill:

We don’t have a final answer from her yet, but she’s been very positive and supportive, so far. I fully expect the new C&I process to go into a pilot phase within a couple of short weeks.

Irene:

That’s remarkable. That should make a big difference in your customer satisfaction ratings very quickly.

Bill:

We have every reason to believe that it will do just that and even more. At the very least, it should put a few million extra dollars into our pockets every year, and

that’s nothing to sneeze

at.

Irene:

Not bad. What was the focus of your pitch to Henry?

Me:

Improving the customer experience mainly. We’re still in the preliminary planning stages, but we talked about making customer experience, CX for short, our focus of effort going forward.

Irene:

Very good.

Me:

There’s something else you need to know, Irene. Another thing we accomplished this week was to start talking about how the Sales Department could be restructured to get far better outcomes.

Irene:

How did Gerald react to that?

Me:

He was very supportive. Gerald is like a new man. And I’m not joking about that.

Bill:

In case you haven’t heard yet, Irene, Gerald is now my Acting COO.

Irene:

(Silent for a moment) … There are a couple of things that trouble me about that decision: First, there is no COO position at the BU level, and even if there were, … why Gerald? He hasn’t exactly been a team player over the years, and he certainly hasn’t been very successful. I’m not sure about that move, even if we could pull it off organizationally, I’m just not sure how I feel about it.

Me:

Irene, if it helps, I fully agree with Bill’s decision on this. You wouldn’t believe how much Gerald has changed his tune. He also possesses a

wealth of

valuable

information

.

Bill:

For the time being, he’s just Acting COO, and the position doesn’t come with a raise or any more perks, at least not

until he’s proven himself.

Irene:

I’ll need some time to digest that one, but who’s going to lead the Sales Department if Gerald is off doing something else?

Bill:

Buddy is going to lead it temporarily, for the next several weeks anyway.

Irene:

Buddy is a Project Manager, not a Head of Sales.

Bill:

It’s only temporary until we get the Sales Department reorganized and find the right person to replace Gerald. As I see it, Buddy is unparalleled at effecting change.

Irene:

I guess that’s true. Look, I don’t have time to get into the details of the Sales Department reorganization right now, could you just give me the highlights?

Me:

The long and short of it is that only two out of six Key Account Managers are generating any significant revenue right now. We’re looking at firing the four worst performers and using the money that unlocks to start building up an inside sales force.

Irene:

I actually like that idea, but it is going to mean more white-collar turn-over. As sure as I’m sitting here, your enemies at HQ will try to use that against you. Be ready for it because it’s going to happen.

Me:

We’ll be ready.

Irene:

What are you going to do about the contract sales organizations? We could save huge sums of money there.

Me:

Nothing has been decided yet, but we’re talking about

building up 3-person inside sales teams: One person, the Team Lead, would be responsible for quotes and coordination. One person would be the Technical Sales Rep.; this person would come from Megan’s department. And the other one would be a Lead Generator, based in the relevant region. Once the Lead Generator is up and running, we hope to start phasing out the contract sales organizations in that region.

Irene:

That sounds like a feasible plan. Is there anything standing in your way?

Me:

Well, now that you mention it, there is. As we were discussing how the Sales Department could be restructured, Gerald alerted us to a discrepancy with the website traffic. He said that we close two to three hundred deals per year, but hardly have any inquiries or other website traffic. He said that there must be far more traffic coming in and that it must be going somewhere. So, we took a look… As it turns out, all the orders go straight to Group’s C&I team, and everything else lands in a Marketing Department account, usually, never to be seen or heard from again.

Irene:

You’re kidding me.

Me:

No, I’m not.

Irene:

How did you find that out?

Me:

One of our people is a computer expert. We had that individual look into it for us.

Irene:

If I were you, I would keep that little

tidbit

to myself. There is no doubt that Angela would use that kind of thing against you.

Me:

We intend to. Actually, we’re hoping to make some progress on the website traffic issue by including it in our proposal to Angela next week.

Irene:

Good but be careful. If you need me to get involved, just let me know.

Me:

If we need your support, we won’t be shy about asking. You can be certain of that.

Irene:

Fair enough. What else is going on?

Me:

We’re making huge progress on the white-collar issues. Mary is going to start offering a training program next Friday and we expect it to be a huge success.

Irene:

If that program makes a noticeable difference, we could offer a comparable training program at Group HQ.

Bill:

That would be game changing, no doubt about it.

Irene:

Alright guys, I have to get going soon. I’m quite pleased with what I’m hearing. I’ve got to give some more thought to this Gerald thing, but I guess I can live with it for now if you can. It was very nice to meet you, Bill. I hope that we’ll see each other regularly from now on.

Bill:

Me, too, Irene… Me, too. But there is one more thing before you go.

Irene:

What’s that?

Bill:

I would like to keep Buddy here for another 10 weeks. We need him desperately and eight weeks just isn’t enough.

Irene:

I don’t know, he’s needed here, too, just as desperately.

Bill:

I understand, but his support is mission critical. I’m not sure how successful we can be without his guidance in putting us on get a track that HQ can live with.

Irene:

OK. Ten weeks and not a day longer guys. During those extra weeks, the Project Office will be without a Head. I’ll cover it for that long, but that’s it. I mean it.

Bill:

Thank you, Irene. You have no idea what this means to all of us here.

Irene:

Don’t worry about it. I’m staking a lot on the success of the US BU, and I need it to work, too. Just don’t screw it up.

Me:

We won’t. Talk to you next week, Irene. Have a great weekend.

Irene:

You, too, Buddy. And, Bill, ten weeks… That’s it.

Bill:

Understood. And thanks again. I really mean that.

Irene:

Thank you, too. You guys are doing a great job.

After we finished the call, Bill called me and asked me to come over to his office. I told him that I would be there in a few minutes. I headed out immediately. When I got to his office, he waved me in and motioned me to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk:

Bill:

What was your impression of the call?

Me:

It was very good.

Bill:

I think so, too, but a couple of things came out in the meeting that I hadn’t been briefed on, yet.

Me:

Yeah. Sorry about that, Bill. Everything is happening so

fast, I just didn’t have time to get around to it.

Bill:

If Irene had asked me about the Sales Department restructuring plan, the website traffic issue or Mary’s training program, I would have been

caught with my pants down

. How do you think that would have made me look? How would you feel if it happened to you?

Me:

I understand, Bill. But take my word for it, nothing has been decided, yet. Every important move we make will require your decision. I get that I should have briefed you before the call, but

I dropped the ball

on this one. It won’t happen again.

Bill:

Alright. Your word is all I need. So much for that. What’s on the radar next?

Me:

The most pressing piece of business is the meeting with Angela on Tuesday. We need to finish a first-rate proposal for her by then.

Bill:

Are you missing anything that you need to complete that proposal?

Me:

Not really, but I want to wait until we get a GO from Sam, which I expect either today or Monday. If Sam accepts her proposal, I think that Angela will accept hers, too, as long as they look very similar and do very similar things.

Bill:

Of course, the most important thing is that the proposal is well suited to get the job done. This standardized marketing mess is really costing us heavily. What else do I need to know?

Me:

We’re going to present you with two draft proposals today: One is the Sales Department restructuring proposal,

and the other is a catalogue of measures designed to improve the white-collar situation. The second one includes Mary’s new Cultural Adaptation Course.

Bill:

The Sales Department restructuring is one thing, but before we get too far on the white-collar situation, we will need to get the HR Manager involved.

Me:

I agree. I also think that Oskar, the CFO, needs to be part of the conversation.

Bill:

Why’s that?

Me:

Some of the proposals have important budget implications.

Bill:

If you’re planning on proposing things that cost a lot of money, you can pretty much forget it for now. Until we start

putting up better numbers

, we’re not going to be able to spend any more money.

Me:

I don’t think we need to spend more, at least not until our results improve, but it might be necessary to spend differently.

Bill:

Look, I’m seriously concerned about getting spread too thin. I want you and Mary to focus for a while on doing the things that we can afford to do right now, without having to get the CFO involved.

Me:

You heard what I told Irene about the Sales Department restructuring plan. Can we really move money around like that without Oskar’s approval?

Bill:

Let that be my concern for now. I need some wins before I can go to him with any

big ask

.

Me:

It’s your call, Bill, but you need to understand that he won’t respond the same way as an American CFO would. If he feels like he wasn’t in the information loop, or that he got blindsided by what you want to do, he’ll

slam on the brakes

and keep his foot on them until he believes that you have understood the importance of transparency.

Bill:

I didn’t want to get you into this because, next to me, he is the most senior manager at this BU. It’s not proper to discuss these issues with subordinates.

Me:

I’m not technically a subordinate to either of you. I work for Irene, but I am 100% committed to being the best advisor I can be to you.

Bill:

True. How well do you know Oskar anyway?

Me:

I don’t know him personally at all. Of course, I’ve heard of him, and I know his type pretty well. I also know that he is very well regarded at Group, but that’s about it.

Bill:

I see. Well, simply put, the problem is that I’m supposed to be leading this BU, but he can veto anything I want to do if it costs more than a token sum of money. And he doesn’t report to me either. He reports to the CFO at Group. Basically, he’s been fighting me every step of the way since the moment I got here.

Me:

I’m sure that he has been put here to protect Group’s interests, and guard against any undue liability exposure in the USA, but he can be reached.

Bill:

Based on my recent experience with him, I find that hard to believe, but who knows? By the way, do you know what the CFO at Group thinks about this BU? I mean, does she want to destroy us, like Kurt seems to, or what?

Me:

I’ll find out what I can from Irene, but I really don’t think so. For these finance people, it’s usually just about the numbers, either they work, or they don’t.

Bill:

Good. Find out anything you can, but please hold back on making any costly proposals until we know where Oskar and the CFO at Group stand in all of this.

Me:

I can give you a tip that will help right away if you’re interested.

Bill:

Of course, I’m interested. In fact, I’m very interested.

Me:

When you talk to Oskar, don’t waste any time trying to explain the benefits and advantages of what you want to do. It’s a complete waste of time.

Bill:

Well, what the hell should I do instead?

Me:

Argue the costs and disadvantages of not doing those things. Put your arguments into writing, and back them up with as much written evidence for your claims as you can find.

Bill:

Are you implying that my problems with Oskar are of a cultural nature?

Me:

I am sure that most of them probably are.

Bill:

Shit! Even though we’ve been talking about cultural differences since you got here,

it never dawned on me

that they might be contributing to my difficulties with Oskar. Thanks for the tip, Buddy. I’ll give it a try. What have I got to lose?

Me:

Just a lot of frustration and standstill, nothing else.

Bill:

Nonetheless, please try not to spend any extra money for a while.

Me:

Understood. Let me see what I can find out from Irene. Is there anything else you need right now, Bill?

Bill:

No, that’s it. Thanks for the tip. I’ll talk to you later.

Me:

Alright. Talk to you later.

I went back to my office and wrote an email to Irene. I knew that I wouldn’t receive an answer anymore today, but I wanted to get it off my TO DO list before the weekend. I didn’t know what Irene could tell me, but I was relatively sure that Bill and Oskar had fallen prey to the same cultural difficulties that the brain trust is now trying to deal with on a larger scale, the exact same issues that I was sent here to help put an end to: Respect vs. Security, Alignment vs. Efficiency, Time Horizon, etc.

Hello Irene,

It was very nice to speak with you this morning. Please allow me to follow up with a question from Bill. He wants to know what the CFO at Group thinks of the US BU. In other words, does she want to see it destroyed, or is she bullish on it, or does she stand somewhere in between? As you know, Bill is having trouble getting along with Oskar and he is trying to find out if there is more to the headaches than just the normal cultural difficulties. Anything you can tell us will be useful in deciding how to proceed. Thanks very much for your support. Have a great weekend.

Regards, Buddy

After I finished writing the email, I started thinking about the highest priorities for the rest of the day. It seemed to me that the proposal to Angela was the most pressing thing. Of course, that was closely tied to the Sales Department reorganization plan, and every new interaction told me to keep my focus on the white-collar issues. Bill and Oskar’s troubled relationship was a perfect case in point regarding the importance of that one. Concerning Angela’s proposal, I figured that we should probably start by clarifying what exactly we wanted from a change in the standardized marketing program. That outcome would tie in directly with our sales and CX goals. Since we had already decided that Customer Experience would be our Focus of Effort, everything we would do moving forward had to be considered through that lens.

I thought that I had better connect with Mary before I go much further. So, I picked up the phone and called her:

Mary:

Hi Buddy, I’ve been waiting for your call. How was your meeting with Irene?

Me:

Hi Mary. It was very good, but I didn’t have a chance to brief Bill on all the new developments before the meeting, so,

he ripped me a new one

after the meeting.

Mary:

I hate to say it, but you deserved it.

Me:

I knowI did. I won’t let that happen again.

Mary:

Did you learn anything new from Irene?

Me:

Well, I can stay for ten weeks, but not a day longer and,

just between you and me

, she was very skeptical about Gerald’s promotion.

Mary:

I can understand that, but he’ll prove that Bill made the right call. I’m sure about that in the meantime.

Me:

Mary, do you have time to meet before lunch? I would like to do some work on Angela’s proposal. It feeds into everything else we’re trying to do here, and the time is really starting to get short.

Mary:

Of course. I assumed that we would be meeting today. The tight schedule we’re fighting to keep simply demands it.

Me:

Excellent. Can you get Deb to join us? And I’ll see if I can get Gerald to come, too.

Mary:

They’re both sitting in my office right now, and they expect to spend the day here. We were all pretty much just waiting for you to finish the meeting with Irene and Bill. We’re ready to go. So, when are you coming over?

Me:

Should I ask Megan to come or is she already there, too?

Mary:

She’s on the way. She also expects to spend most of the day with us. We know that Bill can’t make it, so you’re the only

wildcard

at the moment.

Me:

I’ll be there in five minutes.

Mary:

Alright, see you then.

2. Right and Tight!

I hung up the phone, packed up my stuff, and headed over to Mary’s office. On the way over there, I bumped into Megan. We said hello and walked the rest of the way together. When we got to Mary’s office, everyone greeted each other, Megan and I grabbed some coffee, and we sat down at Mary’s conference table. Gerald spoke first:

Gerald:

Welcome everyone. As you know, we’ve been making enormous progress over the past week or so. In my whole career, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s truly amazing. Give yourselves a hand … (we all applauded each other). Now, the thing to be careful of when so much is happening at once is to not lose focus. We have a lot of open items and deliverables coming our way very quickly, but not all of them require the attention of the whole brain trust. However, I think that three things most certainly do: The Sales Department restructuring plan, the proposal for changes to the standardized marketing program and the catalogue of white-collar initiatives. These items are interrelated at a deep level, so we have to consider them in concert, not as individual initiatives. Would anyone like to suggest a starting point for today’s meeting?

Me:

I would. I think that we should start by identifying what we want and need to do marketing-wise. That will certainly affect the Sales Department’s restructuring plan, and we absolutely need to have a proposal ready to present by Tuesday.

Mary:

That seems logical to me. Maybe we can consider the marketing and sales restructuring simultaneously and finish up with the white-collar initiatives. What do you guys think about that?

Megan:

Sounds like a plan to me.

Deb:

Same here.

Gerald:

Alright. There you have it, democracy in action. Since it was your idea, Buddy, why don’t you begin? What do you have for us?

Megan:

Actually, Buddy, before you start with that, why don’t you tell us what’s new on the Irene front? I mean, as long as that’s alright with you, Gerald.

Gerald:

Absolutely.

Me:

Well, in short, I can stay for ten weeks, and she really likes Bill. She also likes the direction we’re heading in. She told us to be careful about Angela. She’s afraid that Angela might be trying to get in good with us, so she can destroy our initiatives from the inside.

Gerald:

She probably said the same thing about me.

Me:

No, she didn’t. Of course, she was concerned that there is no official COO position at the BU level, and that I’m not qualified to be the Acting Head of Sales, but she’s taking a fair and open-minded,

wait and see attitude

. I think we got everything that we could have hoped for out of the meeting with Irene. Bill couldn’t be happier.

Gerald:

Smooth answer, Buddy. You would have made a fine diplomat.

Megan:

Thanks, Buddy. That was the briefing I was hoping to get.

Me:

As long as we’re at it. There’s another thing that concerns me. It appears that Bill and Oskar are not getting along very well. Oskar seems to be keeping his foot on the money brakes, so Bill has asked me to avoid doing

anything that would result in spending more money.

Mary:

Well, that may influence some of what we can do on the white-collar initiatives, but there is a lot we can do without spending any additional money. I’m more concerned about our Sales Department restructuring efforts. We won’t have to spend any more money, but we will have to spend that money differently. Oskar could really mess things up if we’re not careful. Do you know him, Buddy?

Me:

Not personally, but I do know of him. I’ve already sent Irene an email to get some more intel on him, but I probably won’t hear back from her before Monday.

Deb:

Do you think the problems that they’re having stem from cultural differences, like so many of our other white-collar issues do?

Mary:

Great question, Deb. I was just wondering the same thing.

Me:

No doubt. I already gave Bill a couple of tips that should help him get along better with Oskar. He seemed really surprised to find out that he is also directly and personally affected by the same cultural differences that make it so hard for people at this BU to work with their counterparts at Group. It’s a

mind-bending experience

and

a wake-up call

. And it could easily happen to any of us.

Gerald:

If we handle things correctly, maybe we can help Oskar adjust, too. We really need him to be on our side.

Mary:

Recruiting Oskar for the brain trust might really be a worthwhile objective. What do you think about that, Buddy?

Me:

It might be, but I don’t really know what to think, yet. Let

me hold off on giving you an answer until I hear back from Irene, would that be alright with you, Mary?

Mary:

You’ve got it.

Gerald:

So, what is your thinking on changing the standardized marketing program, Buddy?

Me:

Let me start this way… Mary, right now, you and Deb post a little bit on social media, right?

Mary:

Yes, minimally, just enough to keep our name out there.

Me:

And, Gerald, when I first met Bill about two weeks ago, he was in a meeting with the Sales Department. Were you also involved in that meeting?

Gerald:

I listened in to hear what was going on, but I didn’t really participate. I’m going to be honest with you, Buddy. A few of my Key Account Managers joined and told Bill what he wanted to hear, but they were just

blowing smoke

. Those were the guys who don’t do anything, anyway. They just wanted to

keep him off their backs

, but nothing more substantial than that happened in that first meeting. That’s unfortunate but it is the truth concerning that meeting.

Me:

So, essentially, other than Mary and Deb posting occasionally on social media, we’re not doing anything on the marketing front, right?

Gerald:

That’s right. There isn’t much we can do at the moment. We don’t have a marketing manager. Not to mention, we don’t have any budget for marketing. And you’ve already met Angela. So, you know that she doesn’t want anybody but her own people working on anything marketing related. And if she catches somebody doing it

against her will, she’s more than happy to ruin that person’s day.

Me:

OK, but hopefully, that’s going to change starting next Tuesday.

Gerald:

I hope you’re right, but we shouldn’t underestimate what we’re up against here, Buddy.

Me:

I get it, Gerald. Well, what would help us the most marketing-wise?

Mary:

If you ask me, it would be the ability to take advantage of one-offs, and to be able to react to things that we don’t know are coming a year or more in advance, things like a new government tax credit. You know, stuff like that.

Deb:

Amen, Mary. That’s it. I also think that being able to combine our sales communication with direct marketing communication would do a lot of good.

Megan:

It sounds like someone has been putting some serious thought into this. Please tell us what you’re thinking, Deb.

Gerald:

Yes, please do. We would all very much appreciate your perspective. In fact, we desperately need it.

Mary:

Yeah, Deb, please go on…

Deb:

I agree with Mary about how we need to react to things faster. We miss all the government goodies and giveaways, all the unexpected events, and all the last minute opportunities that our competitors consistently take advantage of. We’re neither agile, nor customer focused, and the market has made it abundantly clear to us that they don’t appreciate our selfishness.

Gerald:

I couldn’t agree more.

Deb:

To change that, we must start by deciding how we want to change. Then, we must immediately inform our potential customers of

what we’re up to

.

Mary:

I doubt if they’ll believe us, but I do like where you’re headed with this.

Deb:

I don’t think that they’ll believe us at first, either, but some percentage of the widget manufacturing universe in the USA will have to work with us to gain the technical advantages that nobody else can offer them. We will prove by how we treat them that we have genuinely

turned over a new leaf

. That will give us a chance to start rebuilding our reputation one customer at a time from there on.

Mary:

I love it.

Megan:

Deb, do you know how many potential customers there might be for us in the USA? For some reason, I suspect that you do.

Deb:

I kind of know. It seems to be somewhere around 1500, maybe a few more.

Megan:

What is it exactly, Deb?

Deb:

According to my research, it’s 1,541.

Megan:

I had no doubt that you would know the answer. And that helps us a lot.

Me:

It certainly does. That means, we can rule out broader advertising and focus all our resources on direct sales and marketing communication.

Gerald:

I believe that’s generally a good way to go in B2B.

Mary:

Fair enough, but what needs to happen before we can take advantage of the many short-term opportunities that come and go?

Gerald:

If you ask me, the website is what’s killing us. We have to get our potential customers off that over generalized, self-absorbed, glacially slow website, and move them over to something that expresses who we really are in the USA… today... Do you have any ideas on how we could make that happen, Deb?

Deb:

We could do it by localizing, instead of just translating the existing pages. We would have to go through the website page by page, until it said what we really wanted it to say, and/or we could set up some landing pages, which can be constantly monitored and updated, etc. I’m for landing pages, myself.

Me:

I think that we probably need to pursue both avenues. Localization would be an important mid-to long-term project, important but not urgent. Landing pages would be a good short-term, ongoing project, urgent and important.

Gerald:

What are landing pages exactly? I’ve heard the term, but I don’t really know what they are.

Deb:

It’s just a page, like any other page in a website or on the internet, but it has a very specific focus. For example, let’s say that you set up a time limited marketing campaign, like running a sale in a specific store for a few days. You can send your customers an email or a nice-looking piece of snail mail, and include a QR code or a simplified link in it. If the customer scans the QR code or uses the link, it transports him directly to that page.

Mary:

If I’m not mistaken, those pages could be repurposed again and again.

Deb:

Absolutely. They could change or stay the same depending on what we need.

Me:

I wonder how many landing pages we would need to solve the bulk of our problems?

Deb:

I think 20 pages

ought to do the trick

.

Mary:

How would we use them?

Deb:

We would need one overview page, two pages for the core modules that we are able to sell in the USA, twelve pages for the main accessories, and five pages for promotions or other needs we are unaware of at the moment.

Gerald:

I think we should have a couple of pages for e-mobility, too.

Deb:

You’re right. And come to think of it, we should add a couple of pages for aftermarket, as well. We’ll probably need them at some point.

Megan:

And at least one for the Service Department.

Deb:

Alright, then, 25 pages should be enough.

Mary:

All we have to do now is wrestle them away from Angela. But that may be harder than it looks.

Me:

Let’s figure that out right now. She became interested when she heard that Sam might be doing something similar. So, the proposal to Angela should probably look a lot like Sam’s proposal.

Megan:

Yeah, for sure. Hey, wait a minute. The email from Sam came in a little while ago. I didn’t want to open it until we were sitting together. But I guess that now is as good a time as any. (Megan grabs her phone and calls up the email.) … Sam writes that she really likes our proposal but that she wants to wait until she sees the proposal to Angela before making a final decision. She thanks us and says that we are definitely on the right track.

Gerald:

It looks like Angela got us again, doesn’t it?

Me:

Yes, it does.

The stakes just got a lot higher

. If we succeed on Tuesday, we’ll have two major pieces positioned perfectly on the board. If we fail, neither of them will be positioned right, and we’ll probably fail as a BU. I’m pretty sure that the meeting with Angela on Tuesday will decide the fate of this BU.

Mary:

That sounds extreme but I’m afraid that you might be right.

Megan:

Oh, he’s right, Mary, but

don’t fret

because we won’t fail. If Sam didn’t like her proposal, she would have told me so. I think she was trying to let us know that Angela is watching, just to make sure that our proposal is

right and tight

, and it will be.

Deb:

How does a mid-level marketing manager amass enough power to destroy an entire business unit? As far as I can tell, she’s not even successful at her job. Have they all lost their

frigging

minds at HQ, or what am I missing?

Me:

Here’s the thing: Group is strongly home-market focused. And, apparently, Angela has done a good job in the home market. Her initiatives have worked quite well there. At least, she’s been able to maintain their market share.

Deb:

Do her strategies work in any of the international BUs?

Me:

I don’t know for sure, but I do know that all the BUs together make up less than 35% of ABC Manufacturing Group’s yearly revenue. The other 65% still comes from the home market. Irene is hoping to balance that out.

Deb:

Hmm… Unless most of the BUs are doing much better than we are, ABC Manufacturing Group cannot be very profitable. They might even be losing money. Just think about it, they have to subsidize us, and probably several other BUs. That hits the bottom line very hard.

Me:

You’re right. We have to keep that in mind. By the way, I don’t think that Angela is as powerful as she seems to be. She’s certainly not seen as one of the main people at HQ. I’ve never even met her officially, and I had no idea of how much damage she’s been doing to the international BUs. I doubt if anybody at Group understands that point.

Megan:

Enough about Angela’s derogatory effect on the other BUs. We cannot do anything about that for now, but we can definitely do something right here and now to break free of her chokehold on this BU. If you ask me, now always beats later.

Gerald:

Well said, Megan. Let’s get to it, guys. What are the main selling points in our proposal to Sam?

Mary:

I think the big things are that she would maintain ownership and control over the process. She would probably end up with better results. If not, she wouldn’t get the blame for any bad results, and she could free up her people to work on higher priority tasks. In other words, the benefits that we would offer to Angela are essentially identical to those that we’re offering to Sam.

Me:

That’s helpful. Now, how do we make it a reality?

Deb:

We need to get our hands on the website traffic that’s meant for us. That’s got to be the starting point.

Me:

You’re right. How soon would we be in a position to field that traffic personally and professionally?

Deb:

Officially, I would say that we can field it as soon as we have the first Inside Sales team built, but unofficially, I would say that we can start handling that traffic within a week or two.

Gerald:

We were talking about going live with the first Inside Sales team in the Midwest region in 8 weeks, or better said, 8 weeks after the decision has been made to do it.

Me:

Why do you believe that we can handle the traffic so soon, Deb?

Deb:

I’m already here to help and so are Mary and Gerald. And the future Tech Sales Rep, arguably the most important person of all is also here. We could start planning and training almost immediately. If we did, I think that we could be handling website traffic in less than two weeks.

Me:

What do you think, Megan? The Tech Sales Rep would come from your department. Could we redeploy one of your people so soon?

Megan:

We could do it as soon as Bill

green-lights

the plan. I have the right candidate. He’s very eager to take on the new challenge and he is very good.

Mary:

We have plenty of extra space in the Sales Department. We could co-locate the first Inside Sales team without any

difficulty at all. And I really think that we should co-locate them, especially in the early stages.

Me:

Sounds good to me. It looks like we’re

off to the races

.

Once we realized that we could start handling our own website traffic within a couple of weeks, the character of the meeting changed. It became obvious that the things we were discussing were really going to happen. We were involved in shaping the future of the US BU and maybe even the future of the entire international organization. The scope of it all became a bit too much for a moment, but only for a moment. Excitement prevailed.

To succeed, we would have to make a few things happen very quickly: We would have to get Bill’s approval on three proposals today: 1. The suggested changes to the standardized marketing program, (Angela’s proposal). 2. The white-collar catalogue of measures (including Mary’s training program). 3. The Sales Department restructuring plan.

As soon as Bill approves, we’ll have to do a few more things immediately: Fire the non-performing KAMs, hire the first Inside Sales Team Lead, and hire a Lead Generator for the Midwestern region. Soon after that, we’ll have to hire another Lead Generator. However, I firmly believe that before we start firing, hiring, or doing anything else that has significant budget implications, Bill will have to come to terms with Oskar. Unfortunately, if Oskar wants to, he can shut us down in nothing flat.

Me:

Hey guys, I think we should ask Bill to join us in the afternoon. We will need his approval on all three proposals, so he just as well participate in the final drafting sessions. What do you think?

Gerald:

He said that he couldn’t take on any more meetings this week. We should probably just

leave him be

.

Me:

I think he’ll take this one because he has to approve the plans anyway. It shouldn’t make much difference whether

he does that here with us or in his own office.

Gerald:

That’s true. I’ll ask him if he can come over. What time would you like him to join us?

Me:

What do you guys think, 3:00 or 4:00 o’clock?

Mary:

Let’s make it 4:00 o’clock. We don’t want to waste his time.

Megan:

It might end up being a long day, but I agree with Mary, we certainly don’t want to waste Bill’s time. Yeah, let’s just go with 4:00 o’clock.

Me:

You heard the ladies, Gerald. We’re going with 4:00 PM.

Gerald:

OK. I’ll give him a call… I’ll be right back. (Gerald stepped out of Mary’s office. He returned less than two minutes later.) … He wants to come at three.

Me:

Sounds good to me. We’ll be ready for him.

Mary:

So, we must be able to field the website traffic, while Angela continues to maintain ownership over the process. How do we make that happen? Forwarding?

Deb:

Yes. It’s a very simple adjustment. Traffic that comes in over the US pages would still go to the same Marketing account, but it could also be forwarded to us. We can make that adjustment on each of the US contact forms. It would take less than an hour of work and I could do it myself if authorized.

Mary:

That would allow Angela or someone on her team to perform spot checks or to even maintain total control if she really wanted to.

Deb:

If she switched to spot checks, that would free up a lot of time and capacity among her team members.

Megan:

What if we’re not doing our jobs, what remedies would be available to her? She’ll want to know that.

Deb:

I mean, we could always change things back to the way they were before. Again, it would be less than an hour of work if I did the work myself.

Gerald:

That’s all good, but I think Angela is going to want more. I think that she’ll want monthly reports and probably a reporting meeting. Yeah, … she will… I’m pretty sure of it.

Deb:

What a ridiculous waste of time and effort!

Mary:

We have to look at it as the cost of

breaking

her

stranglehold

on this BU.

Deb:

I understand, but we’re not really free of her stranglehold as long as we have to report to her every month. That could go wrong in so many different ways that I don’t even want to think about it.

Me:

I have to agree with Gerald on this one, reporting would probably

seal the deal

for us, but I don’t think that we should offer it up front. We should let her believe that she squeezed it out of us. That would probably make her feel like she

got one over on us

and make it a whole lot easier for her to accept the recommended changes.

Deb:

I guess, but I still don’t like it.

Megan:

Neither do I, but I sincerely believe that it is only temporary. Once we’ve proven that we’re up to the task, we can renegotiate the reporting aspect.

Mary:

You’re right, Megan, but don’t think for a moment that Angela will give up real power easily. I’m sure that we’ll have to fight to regain our freedom.

Gerald:

You’re right. We probably will, but soon, we’ll be in a lot better position to win that fight.

Mary:

You’re absolutely right, Gerald. Very soon, we will indeed be in a lot stronger position

vis-à-vis

Angela.

Megan:

Of course, if we agree to report to Angela, we may end up having to offer the same courtesy to Sam.

Gerald:

We might, but that doesn’t worry me as much because you and Sam get along very well. I guess

we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it

.

Me:

So, if we’re reporting to Angela on marketing matters, she can probably require remedial action from us, right?

Gerald:

I assume so.

That kind of goes with the territory

.

Me:

I’m just wondering what’s to stop her from dumping work on us that her team should be doing themselves, but are too incompetent or too over-scheduled to handle. She could treat us like her

direct reports

and cause us to divert our precious time and resources away from the US BU’s priorities to helping her reach hers. That would leave us worse off than we are right now.

Deb:

My God. I never even thought about that. I would leave the company before having to answer to a boss like Angela.

Megan:

You won’t have to leave the company, Deb. We can manage that risk with a simple

Scope of Work agreement

,

one that Irene can

umpire

, if you think that she would be willing to do that for us, Buddy.

Me:

I’m sure that she would. That kind of thing

is right up her alley

.

Megan:

Well, there you go, even if she gains some power over us, it will only be temporary, and we can limit it with a

SoW agreement

. If you ask me, the short-term pain is worth it, as long as it gets us closer to reaching our goals and helps us free ourselves from Angela’s negative influence over the long-term.

Deb:

I know that you’re right, Megan. And I guess I’m on board, even if it is with a

heavy heart.

Mary:

Same here.

Me:

I also think that this is the right way forward. So, let’s just

bite the bullet

and get it done. Why don’t we take Sam’s proposal and use it as a template to simplify and speed up the preparation of Angela’s proposal?

Megan:

Sounds good. It has been modified slightly to reflect the feedback from our last meeting. Otherwise, it has barely changed from the original draft. I’ll just project it onto the wall so everyone can see it.

Mary:

You know what, Megan, why don’t we take a quick break before you show us the document? I know I’m ready for one and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m not alone it in that.

Deb:

You’re not. I need a break, too.

Gerald:

Good. Then, let’s take a quick break and reconvene in 15 minutes. Sound good? (Everyone enthusiastically agreed.)

3. Getting on the Same Page

After the break, we all felt refreshed and more optimistic. Megan projected Sam’s proposal onto the wall. She said, “here it is, you guys”:

WORKFLOW:

1.

All US transactions are sent immediately to a Triage Specialist.

2.

Transactions are coded for urgency and directed to the accountable party.

3.

Technical questions are answered by qualified Service Techs within two days.

4.

Support requests to HQ’s C&I team are answered within two days.

5.

Inquiries are answered by a qualified member of the Sales Department within two days. (The case number assigned during triage allows for proper control.)

6.

Orders are processed for customization as follows: Move from email to online meetings (previous escalations show that this is a cultural necessity).

Meeting

1: Find out how equipment will be used and discover preliminary technical data.

Meeting

2: Determine operator situation and training needs, as well as the next level of relevant technical details.

Meeting

3: Discuss sample quote and clarify any open questions.

After online meetings,

make an official quote.

GOALS:

The goals of this modernization pilot project are to improve response times, improve customer satisfaction ratings, avoid costly escalations and lost business, and to relieve the C&I team at HQ of tasks that don’t require such a high level of expertise. These changes will free up their time to work on more important and urgent tasks.

HIGHLIGHTS:

1.

The C&I process team at HQ will retain ownership of

the C&I process, unless it decides to transfer it to the US BU. 2. The C&I process team will simply delegate customer-facing process steps to the US BU. 3. Due to the fact that HQ’s C&I process team will still place the build order with the Production Department, it will continue to maintain full control over the outcome. It will simply not place the order until/unless the customization questionnaire has been answered completely. 4. The C&I process team at HQ will support the US BU if needed. However, US BU employees will deal directly with the US customers.

BENEFITS:

Performance will improve. Benchmarks will be met. Customer satisfaction and efficiency will both improve. Savings will be generated by reducing escalations and removing redundancies. Lost sales can be avoided. The C&I process team will maintain control but will be freed up to work on tasks more

befitting

of their higher skill level. This change should eliminate or at least minimize most of the cultural mismatches currently faced.

Gerald:

Outstanding. We can easily modify this proposal for Angela. That will save us a lot of time. Let’s start with the workflow.

Megan:

Should we change, “All US transactions will be sent immediately to a Triage Specialist” to, “All US website traffic will be forwarded to the US BU’s Sales Department”?

Mary:

Hold on, Megan. Won’t that become unnecessarily complicated? Why don’t we just send everything through the Triage Specialist? That would be simpler and work equally well. I worry about adding extra process steps because they usually lead to unintended consequences and unnecessary complications.

Megan:

I certainly agree with you in principle, but I don’t know if one Triage Specialist will be able to manage the job and I can’t afford to spare two on a daily basis. I’m already giving up one good Service Tech to the Sales Department.

Mary:

And we cannot afford to end up with response times that are just as poor as those from HQ either.

Megan:

Absolutely not.

That would defeat the

whole

purpose.

And regardless of what we do, it’s my job to make sure that the Service Department continues to reach its goals. I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t ensure that.

Deb:

Why don’t we just train several Triage Specialists at the same time? One of them could and should be the Tech Sales Rep. As long as all relevant incoming traffic gets a Triage Ticket Number, what difference does it make whether the Triage Specialist sits in Service or Sales? The only thing that counts is that the interaction gets handled quickly and correctly.

Megan:

You’re right. By doing it that way, we could assign two or even three Triage Specialists to handle the traffic at really busy times. Our response times and CX ratings could well become the best in the industry. That sounds fantastic!

Me:

It really does. That would also offer us some very big advantages in terms of flexibility and overall productivity. I love it.

Megan:

Me, too. By the way, we’re going to need additional training from HQ to close some of our skill gaps anyway. By training several Service Techs at the same time, we could raise our skill level across the board, wean ourselves off of HQ’s support quicker, and increase our pool of potential Triage Specialists and Tech Sales Reps. It’s a win

everywhere you look.

Deb:

So, we only modify the first point very slightly? We can make it something like, “All US website traffic is forwarded to a qualified Triage Specialist.”

That should do the trick.

Megan:

Yeah. That works for me.

Mary:

What about the next points?

Me:

I think that points 2-5 can all stay the same, can’t they?

Megan:

Not quite. We should drop points 3 and 4. Service requests are none of Angela’s business and that shouldn’t change.

Gerald:

Yep. I completely agree with that.

Deb:

Me, too.

Mary:

Awesome. Well, that part was easy enough, but now it gets a bit trickier. We have to accomplish two things: Get Angela to assign us 25 landing pages. And get her to authorize the complete localization of the website.

Deb:

I guess the landing pages would become point 5 and the full-scale localization effort should be point 6.

Mary:

Yes, but how do we want to phrase each one?

Megan:

Something like, “To capitalize on short-term direct selling opportunities and one-offs that are impossible to predict or plan for in advance, we propose dedicating 25 landing pages for rapid response activities. Hold on, let me get my notes from earlier … (Megan looks for her notepad) … Oh yeah, here we go: The 25 pages would be used as follows:

One overview page, two pages for the core modules that are sellable in the USA, twelve pages for the main accessories that sell well in the USA, five pages for promotions or other needs that we are currently unaware of, two or three pages for e-mobility and one or two pages for the Service Department.

Mary:

This formulation lets her off the hook for the opportunities missed in the past. I’m sure that she’ll like that.

Gerald:

No doubt, but I think that it’s still too vague. We need to be precise about our needs. We simply have to do better than to give numbers like 1 or 2 pages here, 2 or 3 pages there, or 5 pages for needs that we are currently unaware of. Angela will never go for inputs like those.

Me:

Yep, you’re right, Gerald. Not only that, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if 25 pages isn’t

overkill