Sample Essay Sample Essay

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TERRA COG CASE ANALYSIS

Problem Essay:

Position Statement:

A lack of clear leadership in TerraCog’s decision making

team is leading to inconsistent goals amongst its team members.

TerraCog’s executive teams are at crossroads at the pre-launch meetingof Project Aerial, its satellite imagery enabled GPS. This is due to a distinctmismatch in the price estimated by the production department and the desiredprice, set by the sales department. The gridlock has happened at TerraCogbecause of its ineffective and unclear leadership and hence, a lack of cross-departmental cohesive vision amongst its team members to address the marketneeds.

TerraCog, being already behind its competitor “BirdsI” by about two years,

needs competitive pricing and superior quality to regain its market share.President, Richard Fiero was aware that the project has a lot of visibility evenamongst the board members and a failure here would spell disasters for thegroup as a whole. Yet, he was not present during the pre-launch meetingdiscussion where crucial pricing decisions were finalized. Harold Whistler, whoinitially used to take such decisions along with Fiero, was also not too keenbecause of his impending retirement. Emma had just been promoted to theexecutive team and therefore was yet to prove her metal in the new role.Because of no clear leadership, the discussions were not moving towards anyconsensus.

At the meeting, there was a clear lack of effective communication amongstthe team members. Ed initially mentioned about the performance not being thekey aspect for the product launch but later brought that out as a major hindrancefor the product to be priced higher than its competitors. Cory Wu had a verymicroscopic view of the problem and kept interfering in the discussions. All thishappened because there was no moderator in the meetings to control thediscussions.

Each group in the discussion viewed the problem in its own silos ratherthan taking the organizational goal in mind. Ed was concerned for his bonuses asit was linked to the product sales. He, therefore, pushed only for strategies that

would make the product sell faster. Allen wanted to lead a new product line thatwould help him reach the next level faster and Becky was only concerned for theproduct margins. Tony was not ready to take cuts on the cost estimates and

jeopardize the production process because of his failure last time.



Decision Essay:

Position Statement: Emma should take the lead in the group and devise an action plan to regain the lost market share by means of an inclusive growth process.

EnsuringProduct Quality Reducing Time-to-market Risk Aversion

Option 1 Good Average Good

Option 2 Good Bad Good

Option 3 Bad Good Bad

Evaluating the impact of decision on its business, on its ability to meetcustomer needs and on its customer relations, it is recommended that TerraCoglaunches its high performance GPS (Aerial) after 3 months. For it to happen,Emma should take lead and work one-on-one with each Team Lead to addressthe team’s agenda. By addressing the team members concerns and following a

participative decision making process, Emma can motivate the team to deliverthe product at the high standards that its customers associate it with. In the re-design process, there is a high likelihood that price might also get adjusted asper the wishes of the Sales team. Hence, all its stakeholders will get benefited.

Product quality has always been the forte of TerraCog. It has enjoyed asignificant customer loyalty in spite of not being the first to market always. Thishas been possible only because of its superior quality technology innovation.From the case, it is evident that the product has some major performancebottlenecks and without a re-design these issues cannot be resolved. Hence, it isof paramount importance for TerraCog to deliver the product of high quality and

ensure customer satisfaction once it reaches the target segment.

As per the criteria of time-to-market, the product launch will be inevitablydelayed by a few months. But keeping in mind that, the new product fromTerraCog is anyway lagging behind by almost 2 years; this delay should not besignificant. On the other hand, the positive side of this move will be that thedesign and production teams will get some more time to re-look at the processes.The teams can use this period to come out with a better product at a lesser cost.

The recommended decision will also avert the risk factor to a greatextent. Emma can define critical check points in the project and ensure periodic

tracking and proactive risk management. In addition, an entire re-look at theproduction and design process will have a higher probability of leading to a betterproduct quality. It will reduce the chances of a possible retail and financialembarrassment, if Aerial launch is a flop.

In the Project Aerial, TerraCog has several alternatives to go with. Onesuch alternative is to create two cross-departmental teams to research andrecommend cost savings or value added options. This approach has an inherent



advantage of a possibility of having a combination of subject matter experts ineach department optimize outcomes. This approach will score as high as therecommended approach on the criteria of product quality and risk aversion.However, the time-to-market will increase substantially and might becomeperilous for the Aerial project. For this reason, this approach is discarded.

Another alternative that TerraCog may consider is to launch the project at$475 with the current feature set that it has. This alternative has a huge riskfactor associated with it. If the customers do not perceive it to be of the qualitythat they associate to TerraCog, it will lead to the product being totally discardedby them. The time-to-market is reduced but the disadvantage of following thisapproach is that it can lead to TerraCog completely losing out in this segment.Hence, this alternative is also discarded.

Action Plan:

Emma has been tasked to improve the cross-departmental cooperation bythe President himself. So she has the authority, right from the top, to assume aleadership role in the group. Once she starts meeting the team leaders,understanding their issues and aligning their purpose with the overallorganizational goal, the team will start feeling more inclusive in the entireprocess. An organizational strategy based on inclusive growth becomes anecessity in the success of such projects. Also, an understanding of teamleader’s positions will provide a basis for quick consensus.

As a leader of the project, Emma can call for weekly status meetings inorder to track the progress of the project at various departments. She should alsoensure crisp and relevant participation from the group at these status meetings.She should circulate the status updates from each meeting to all thestakeholders so that everyone is well informed about the proceedings.

She can seek guidance from some of the more experienced teammembers, such as Harold Whistler, and refine the action plan as and when it isneeded.

Conclusion

The recommended solution is to delay the project by approximately 3months. Although a delay in launch will lead to a holiday season being missed, itwill provide an opportunity for TerraCog to build a superior product for itscustomers and at the lowest production cost possible. The strategy is chosenover the other alternatives because it best addresses the customer’s needs andensure customer loyalty even in the long run. However, the implementation planwill have to be periodically tracked at all levels so that there are no furtherslippages. A slippage beyond 3 months can prove to be disastrous for thecompany.

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