Sandcore Instrument Situational Analysis

Situational Analysis:

Sandcore Instruments is a company based in Taiwan, Asia, and was a world leader in specialized medical devices and lab equipment, with earnings of about $500 million in the 2008 fiscal period. Sandcore's Canadian headquarters is based in Brampton, Ontario, and caters to four main customer groups: post-secondary schools, hospital labs, medical clinics, and industrial labs. The company has a specific group of sales agents and supporting staff all over Canada in order to sell and service its products to its customer groups.

On July 22nd, 2009, the company's vice president of Human Resources, Mr. Daniel Wolf, sat in his office thinking about the necessary action he should take against a 17-year long sales employee, Mr. Steve Gordo. Steve has been a long-time employee; however, over the past two years, his sales performance has been poor. The Vice-president will now review the case and make his recommendations to the President before the week ends, which will have great effect on the future of Mr. Gordo.

After a switch in positions for Gordo from sales rep to technology specialist, and back to a sales rep, Gordo had strong sales all the way up to 2007. During that year however, his sales performance results began to slip, which caused him to falsely blame it on a lack of demand for the companies' products. After conducing market research, this was determined to be a misleading excuse by Gordo that caused the Vice-president to give him a verbal warning, and if his behaviour has not improved, write him up within 5 months.

Despite this verbal warning, Gordo's sales results had still not improved, and he also decided to take a paternity leave for six months to care for his new child. While Gordo was away, his team covered his sales region and helped him out immensely. When he came back, he failed to acknowledge co-workers and thank them for covering his territory, which caused tension in the sales force between employees and Gordo. After that, his sales began to slip again. Now a written warning was issued to Gordo, which did not make him happy at all. He wrote back to the company with a written list of denials, claiming invalid company support.

By February 2009, Gordo had met the proper minimum requirements of the warning and continued to improve sales figures. But suddenly in June, they began to drop again. This caused Wolf to seriously sit down and figure out what to do with Gordo, and re-evaluate Gordo's future at Sandcore to determine a course of action.

Assumptions:

1. We are assuming the vice president, Mr. Daniel Wolf, is the only person in the Human Resources Department, according to the sales divisional organizational structure.

2. We are assuming the Vice-President of Human Resources, Mr. Daniel Wolf, is responsible in overseeing all internal conflicts within the company, because of his stated situational responsibility.

3. We are assuming the organization does not follow a regular Canadian employment structure, by it originating and achieving success in its headquarters, Taiwan, Asia.

4. We are assuming the company is not fully up to date on current Canadian labour laws, because of their questioning of the situational outcome.

5. We are assuming there is no union because there is no mention that the company has a union.

Problem Statement:

What change can the executive team at Sandcore implement, in order to eliminate low employee performance immediately, while facilitating employee behaviour and stabilizing workplace productivity in the long term?

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths:

* Companies in the medical device and technology industry that are involved in the industry for a long time, become more respected, established, and successful as time goes on, which can lead to increased profits and market share.

An example of this would be Sandcore Instruments who reportedly earned a net income of approximately $500 million at the end of the 2008 fiscal year. Sandcore has become a world leader in specialized medical devices and has been involved in the industry for over 30 years. This involvement is a strength, because if Sandcore can continue to leverage their knowledge and experience to gain more clients in the industry, they will further continue to take over and control the market share of the medical device industry. With more market share, means more profits (business and stock) and strong investor value. Sandcore's leverage would enable them to continue to be the most dominant supplier in the industry.

* Management in the medical device industry that maintain an "open-door policy" with other employees/consumers have a good communication structure that allows for a better business working environment, which helps increase employee job satisfaction and sales success.

An example of this would be Sandcore's monthly staff meetings and quarterly town hall meetings. Having these meetings is a strength, because maintaining increased management visibility and communication helps improve employees and consumer clients alike, trust in head office decisions that are made, thus resulting in better employee job satisfaction. This in turn can help boost business productivity results and lead to increased sales and revenue.

* Companies in the medical device industry that have well trained support staff and sales representatives, have higher employee job satisfaction and are more likely to succeed in the industry.

An example of this would be Sandcore who uses self-motivated employees, and trains them on how to sale, install, repair, and trouble shoot all the machines/products they sell. This is a strength, because having one person that can handle all the necessary accountabilities will streamline the workload and get the job done faster. As well, employees that get trained on new products will feel more excited, confident and important (than they would without), and this as a result helps improve employee job satisfaction, which can lead to increased productivity and therefore more sales and revenue.

Weaknesses:

* Companies in the medical device industry that don't confront or follow through with effective coaching or disciplinary actions regarding negative aspects of employee performance, allow for behavioral issues to persist, which could have negative effects business productivity and lead to less sales.

An example of this is when Sandcore's management team dismissed concerns regarding