Principles of management assignment

1. 1
Introduction
I am a newly hired as retail operationmanager in O&O Company operating in
the FurnitureManufacturing, and retailing field, it has a great potentials
however in the currenttime this company is facing severalproblems, as it has
been noticed that there is stable sales Volume, Sales Revenue, and
consequently the Marketshareof this company. Meanwhile other competitors
started to generate higher sales volume.
My main aim is to investigate the reasons behind the drawback in performance
and reverseit so we can expand locally, and globally.
Fromthe firstday, I have started to understand our position, wherewe stand,
and wherewe want to be and I started to send these findings to our top
management team to implement these recommendations.

2. 2
Situation analysis:
Strengths Weaknesses
 Our company has a great reputation in
delivering high quality products.
 We have an excellent credit history.
 The company has its own production line.
 We have a great Goodwill.
 Potential for economies of scale in the
industry.
 Great retail space that offers flexibility with
a positive and attractive atmosphere.
 Good referral relationships with
complementary vendors, local realtors, and
some designers.
 Strong relationships with suppliers that offer
credit arrangements, flexibility, and
response to special product requirements.
 Challenges of the seasonality of the
business.
 Outdated market research data.
 Ability to keep up with demand for the
products.
 Insufficient investment in technology,
design, skills, and supply chain results in
limited availability of industry-specific
skills and low levels of productivity
 Poor Showrooms locations “located in a
remote locations “.
 Several customers reported a poor
knowledge, and inconsistent attitude, and
process.
 Poor products variety “we only produce
the high tier products for households “.
 Outdated online website and catalog.
 No organizational culture.
 Demotivated team.
Opportunities Threats
 The Political situation is stable, and the
legislations encourages the investment.
 Renewal of industry structure, technology
and firms.
 Continuing opportunity through strategic
alliances for referrals and marketing
activities.
 Products similar to yours in the market are
expensive or of poor quality.
 Internet marketing and sales.
 Customers’ increasing knowledge about
what they want.
 There are many leading technology provider,
who can provide business solutions
technological packages.
 There is an availability to use new recycled
materials rather than wood, like using
Metal, plastic bamboo, MDF.
 As there is a liquidity issue in the
economy, the competitors started to
accept installments payment to encourage
the customers to buy from them.
 The Government and the environmental
pressure groups are promoting for green
industries, recycling, and for the
sustainability of the natural resources.
 The Banks are increasing the loans
conditions, due to the liquidity problems.
 Inability to improve and expand
availability of local inputs results in an
increasing dependency on imports
 A slump in the economy, which will
decrease people's discretionary income.
 Many competitors in the market with
similar products.
 A new advertising campaign launched by
competitors.

3. 3
Organization culture:
• The corporate culture reflects our values , believes , and behaviors there
for we will cultivate it ,and make surethat all the staff act and live by
this way , to encouragethis we will link 40% of the KPIs to our corporate
culture as the direct manager for every team/department will assess
how the subordinates adhereto the main pillars of our culture
• Our proposed cultureis encourages the innovation, Customer
experience, employee development, employee collaboration, Equality,
Speed, simplicity and trust.
• Our Premises needs to be comfortable for the employee so they can
performwell and fell well , we can provideFacilities like Gym , Vending
Machines , Restaurant Fun Rooms Equipped with gaming consoles tennis
table ,and light games so the employees from different department can
meet ,and get to know each other on their breaks .
• All employees are treated equally, and with respect, wedo not usetitles
e.g. Mr., Mrs., etc.
• Accepting diversity as it’s a sourceof competitive advantage
• Promotions arebased on Competent , assessmentcenters
• On a global scale, our proposed cultureis a Geocentric Culture, which
means any competent member can be located or promoted to any
foreign subsidiary as long as they are qualified.
Every year we will make a Global survey whereeach team or department will
submit his/its results anonymously, aboutthe below:
1. The Employee Net promoter Score“ENPS”.
2. The how well the organization act with the culture.
3. People’s engagement.
4. Operation Excellence.
5. Diversity.
6. Code of conduct“the extent to which your manager/team membersact
by the code “.
7. Retention “are you willing to work for usfor another 3 years “.

4. 4
8. Is our organization socially responsible?
9. How comfortable the work place/conditions is?
10. Safety of work environment.
Heroes /Legends program:
Every year all employees will participate with their best customer experience
case to a competition, its main aim is to create Legends, and Examples to
motivate.
Our Maincultural pillars are “each manager willscore the subordinates
according to the below “:
1. Customer centricity: wearepassionateabout exceeding our customer’s
expectations. We work hard to understand the customer, and take
personalownership of his case.
2. InnovationSeekers: wecreate, and deliver new products, services to
delight our customers; wealways look for improvement, and better
ways to do things.
3. Ambitious andCompetitive: webring energy and passion to our work,
and aiming to beat the competitors. We deliver the bestin our field. We
review our performanceand improve it.
4. Corporate culture: wework across departments, and valueour
differences to achieve the best outcome for our customers.
5. Swiftness: wework with speed to spotissues, analysis fast, and execute
faster.
6. Simplicity: wemakethings simple for our Customers, partners, and
colleagues; we challenge complexity, and stop ineffective or inefficient
activities.
7. Trust: We are reliable and transparent, wedo what wesay, and we trust
others to deliver. We supportdecisions oncemade.
8. Be a Respectedleader: Leasers areEmpathetic, and inspiring. Build
diverseand high performing team.

5. 5
Code of ethics:
“Being an admired company is not justabout our performanceand
achievements, it’s also about acting in a responsible, ethical and lawfulway.”
• What is the Code of Ethics? The Code of Conductis our central policy
document, outlining the requirements that every single person working
for and with our organization must comply with, regardless of location.
We may also have additional policies you need to adhere to that are
specific in our foreign subsidiaries.
• Whom is the Code of Conduct for? Our Code of Conduct is for everyone
working for and with us: employees, contractors, Government, joint
ventures and suppliers. Weexpect our suppliers and business partners
to uphold the samestandards and to abide by our Code of Ethical
Purchasing.
• What are the consequences of not complying? There are very serious
consequences for not complying with our Code of Conduct. We may take
disciplinary action and even dismiss people where necessary.
• We will create Compliance officer’s team“to reportany breach for our
ethical conductthatmight seems illegal or unethical“.
• An Ethical training will be provided to all the employees, ethical quizzes
with situations, and after finishing the training, each employee should
sign a statement that they attended that training, and that they will
adhere to it.
Mainpillars of our code of ethics:
1. Gifts or hospitality “Financialintegrity “.
2. Charitable donations “Financialintegrity “.
3. Bribes andimproper payments “Financialintegrity “.
4. Informationsecurity andloss of a device “mobile phones, laptops,
complexpasswords, clear desk “.
5. Conflict of interest “outside relationships/investments, political
involvements, Relatives and friendsas coworkers“.
6. Meeting competition.

6. 6
7. Healthand safety concerns “safety of work place, safety during travel,
etc.”
8. Social environment consideration “sustainability of the natural
resources, supporting localcommunities, charitable support“.
9. Communication “not to speak on behalf of the organization on the
media or social media “.
10. Confidentiality of the Customer’s Data” Data protection act“.
11. Compliance withthe law “as we work internationally we willmake sure
that we will apply the hardeston our entire forging subsidiary “.
12. Drugs and alcohols “We will not tolerate anyone being “under the
influence of alcohol or illegal drugs in the workplace”.

7. 7
Corporate Social Responsibility:
Our mission is to be admired as a diverseethical company operating
responsibly and providing products and services that enable a more
sustainablesociety for our customers.
We will demonstrateresponsible, ethical and honest behavior, promoting a
greener environmentandeco-efficiency, contributing to our community
development with a focus on children’s well-being, youthdevelopment, and
developing sustainableproducts and services for customers withspecial
needs.
We will create a foundation that will focus on:
• Charitable support.
• Schooling campaigns.
• We are committedtoprotecting the environment.
1. We will adherer to relevant environmental laws, regulations and
policies.
2. Reduce your waste wherever possible. “E.g. paperlessenvironment”.
3. Use recycling facilities wherever possible.
4. Avoid unnecessary travel“use conference callfacilities or video-
conferencing where possible”.
5. Walk or use public transportwherewe can.
6. Always consider the environmentwhen making any decisions.
7. Use less energy.

8. 8
International direction:
To deliver a very strong messageabout the superiority of our products we will
acquire ISO 9001 Certification, which shalldeliver a very good messageto our
customers, and employees.
The benefits of this international standard will be Cost Saving:
 Enhance customer satisfaction.
 Access new markets.
 Increasethe marketshare.
 Reduction of the negative impact on environment.
 The Market entry
• We are planning to grow out of Egypt, as we want to exploit the
opportunity of operating globally as we will have an access to different
markets.
• We are paling to startoperating in the Arabic peninsula area, and as we
are aiming to achieve the highest profitability, we will establish foreign
Retail subsidiaries in this area.
• The direct investment also will allow us a higher level of ownership, and
control of the foreign operations.
• Our company is a geocentric cultural company “asit’s more productive,
and intelligent “which means that our culture, values, and beliefs are the
same no matter wherewe operate.
• Staffing, and promoting in our company depends on the competency,
and the inclusiveness to different genders, cultures, and ethnicity.
 The international manager has to havea very good knowledgeof the
country wherehe operates in terms of the following:
1. The Culture context.
2. Space.
3. Time orientation.
4. Hofstede’s Dimensions of national culture.

9. 9
5. Accepting diversity “Gender, age, nationality, religion, etc. “
6. Awareof regional and international developments.
7. Prepared to be mobile.

10. 10
The business plan:
As we are trying to change the traditional useless way that we used to work
with, wehave decided to define our new objectives.
Some of these objectives we defined based on our previous history in sales
,and production "sales revenue of the High tier products” , the other new
objectives were planned based on a qualitative and quantitative forecast
“Sales revenue for the low tier ,and custom products “ ,and lastly the NPS was
based on Benchmarking with “Istekbal Furniture “.
Our organizationalobjectives are covering several areas:
 Produce50 new designs along this year.
 Entering new market segment by providing new low tier products , and
the mass customizedfurniture for corporates
 Achieve $ 5m Revenue from high tier products this year.
 Achieve $ 2m Revenue from low tier products this year.
 Achieve $ 2m Revenue from costumed furniture this year.
 Achieve 65+NPS scorethis year.
Each Department Should drive its own Goals from the organizationalGoals,
and all the members of the organization should understand that each action
they do can be a step forward or backward toward theoverall goals.
Working withthe team:
 My company used to operate in unstructured way before, the
employees used to work for the sakeof work with no clear goals, or
understanding for the organizational strategy.
 The first thing that I will do is to make surethat each member of my
team is aware of the corporatestrategy, and objectives.
 Then I will driveour department objectives that will contribute to
achieve the organizationalgoals.
 I have to make surethat each team member understand the department
objectives “Key performance indicators“KPIs.
 The Objectives/KPIs has to be very clear and understandable.

11. 11
 We will develop a scorecard for each department and consequently
individuals, to measure their monthly progress toward achieving the
department goals.
 The scorecard will show, and indicate with colors whatgood, moderate
is or bad performanceare.
 The KPIs will representthe Objective part of the appraisal, which will be
60%, the other 40% will be on how you achieved the objectives through
the organizational culture.
 By a way we will make surethat the employees performs, and live by the
culture, which will havea great effect on the overall organization.
 Train all the staff on how to usepriority matrix for more efficient time
management.
The Customer Experience:
 As the company did not recorded what a good performancewas, so we
startto chooseanother marketleader and useit as benchmark “Istekbal
furniture “.
 To measurethe satisfaction of our customer , we will usemeasures like
“Customer Satisfaction , Case Resolutions “in case if the customer is
complaining aboutsomething “, Net promoter Score “ as these
measures will provideus with a good image about how the extent to
which the customer is satisfied and willing to recommend us to his
connections.
 These figures will be partof the employee KPIs, and it will measure if
there is any improvementis the way that the employees treats the
customer.
 We will provideregular training and quizzes for our employees its main
aim is to makethem understand the importance and the power of the
positive attitude, and how to retain our existing customers.
 Mystery shopping willbe part of the quality control process, as it will
measurehow the employees will treat our customers.
 We will makesure that we hire, and retail only the employees with
positive attitude toward our customers.

12. 12
 We will review these figures, compareit to our benchmark, and work on
the deviations Positive, or negative it was.
 The Benchmark can raise, if we managed to achieve it successfully.
The Product:
• We will need to provide new products by introducing new designs, and
depending on other raw material “e.g. using MDF wood, Plastic, Metal,
recycled wood “rather than depending entirely on the Wood only.
• Other products also including providing furniturenot justfor households
but also for Offices, clinics, etc.
• We will offer variety of products “differentdesignsModern/classic, High
Tier, and Low Tier products”.
• There is a demand also on the Smart furniture“one piece that fits in
small places and has differentfunctionse.g. a bed that can turn to Sofa
“.
• We will useour good credit history to take a loan from the bank to buy
new production lines to provide the new non-wood, and the recycled
material.
The Service:
• We will startinstallment options so we can encourage morecustomer to
buy fromus.
• We will providefree shipping for the furniture.
• We will providea warranty for our high tier products “which covers the
manufacturing issues “.
• We will hire internal decorators in our showrooms so they can help our
hesitant customer to makethe best choice.
• We can offer custom furniture on demand, depends of the required
space, or colors.
• We will build a new online catalog, which contains our designs, and all
the relevant information.

13. 13
The Organization:
• We will locate our retail store in popular places with higher walk-in
probabilities “Big Malls “.
• Providemore retail stores.
• We will renovateour showrooms, and divideit into sections depends on
the furnishing styles.
• We will train our retail staff providethem with a very good
product/systemknowledge, and train them on the importantto havea
customer focus attitude.
• We will startto digitalize our organization, by installing CRM, ERP
solutions which will help us to providethe required products, maintain a
great customer experience, and offer related products. “E.g. newly
married might need to buy a baby room later “.
• We will build a strong organizationalculture, and a Code of Ethics to
make surethat there is a consistency on the behavior, and attitude of
our employee toward each other and toward the customers.
• We will build a strong ITinfrastructurethatconnects all members,
branches, manufacturing units, and HQ together.
• We will usea short-rangeplan (1 year) to make it achievable and easy to
get useto the new organization’s cultureand the system.
• Each department will haveits own tactical plan in order to keep them
focused and determined through the new policies and SOPs.
• We will usethe “staff planners” technique as we can implement it
through delegation and MBO to make surethat the plan is going as
planned and to make our staff ambitious for their futurein our company
and its new culture.

14. 14
Scenarioand contingency plan:
 Each department, and sub unit will haveto develop a business continuity
plan in case of any emergency.
 Working with minimum work force.
 Work fromhome “for non-retailemployees“.
 How to operate in case of unstable Security situation.
 Impacton Business in case of absenceof a certain Service, ITsystem,
Product, or process “business impactanalysis”.
 Backup systems in caseof any failure to the operating one
 Availability to operate from a different facility.
 Identifying the Dependents department “sending, and receiving “to
complete any process.
 30% or our staff is trained on first Aid and firefighting.

15. 15
The organization structure:
The structurebased on the Functional structuredue to its advantages that
will help the company gain experience and training.
The three departments (IT, Legal and design) will be outsourced to reduce
the overhead costs and increase operating efficiency but there will be a
Vice President with small team for each department.
To overcome its disadvantages of the functional structurewe will launch a
programcalled Bank of ideas, which will is created on cross-functional
teams to reshapethe structureto be Matrix structurewhile minimizing the
disadvantages of the Matrix structureinside the program.
The programwill give our staff the chanceto develop new ideas, products
and plans that can improveour company.
Each team consisted of a member of each department that they will haveto
collaborate through the program and choosean idea to develop it.
Benefits of this program:
 Better senseof cooperation and common purpose.
 High quality problem solving.
 Expertise focused on the idea (productor customer).
 Keeps the staff motivated and positive to adjustment.
 No two bosses system, which willreduce the pressureon the staff.

16. 16

17. 17
The leadership system:
• as a newly hired manager it will be very crucial to understand my team ,
so a welcome meeting should be prepared in the beginning to I can
introduce myself to the team ,and get to know each other.
• I have to understand the competent of each team member as this
should help me to get the best outcome out of them, we can use Belbin
8 roles exam to identify these roles.
• Explaining our organizationalstrategy is very vital, as this is what we
want to achieve in order to be a successfulorganization, and then I will
explain how we will contribute to the organizationalgoals through our
department goals.
• I will let everyone know that I am accessibleanytime if they need my
consultant.
• I can go 30 minutes earlier so socializes with my team and check if they
have any issues.
• On the personallevel, I will be committed to supportmy team, and
empower them by information, responsibility,authority, and trust.
• A One to One meeting has to be done with each team members
individually to discuss his own performanceand how we can improve it.
• I have to tell each member that I am here to develop him, and to help
him to take the next step in his career in the shortestpossibletime.
• My leadership style is changeable depends on the subordinate, and the
nature of the task "Hersey BlanchardModel “.
• As a manager I have to determine all of my tasks and to categorize, it
depends on how urgent, and important they are. Then I should mainly
focus on the important but not urgent tasks, and some of the urgent,
and important ones.
• As for the rest of the urgent and importanttasks, the Urgent, and
unimportantones, I will delegate it to my subordinates.
• Before delegating the tasks to any of my subordinates, I willhave to
determine the readiness of each one of them in terms of the Ability,
willingness, and confidence.

18. 18
• I need to make surethat the Storming phaseis very short, so we can
transcend, and perform.
• I will be organizing someteam building activities, as it will help me to
spotany issue, collect and analyzedata, plan and implement actions,
and evaluate the situation.
• Because of these teambuilding activities, it will help me to increasethe
operating effectiveness.
• Any successfulleader at any level should have great Interpersonalskills,
and usethe emotional intelligence to manage himself, and the
relationships effectively.
• I had a situation whereone of my subordinates “a store manager “who
has a great potentials failed to achieve his designated sales target for
severalmonths.
• I have discussed his performanceon the Oneto Onemeeting ,and he
informed me that the main reasons behind the drawback in the sales is
the lack of sufficient work force,and that his store is small ,and needs
expansion .
I have decided to create an MBO for this casefor the next 3 months that he
will need to achieve his sales target progressively e.g. To be on the first month
$ 45,000 sales,$47,000 for the second month and $50,000for the third month.
• In addition, frommy end I will providehim with supportin hiring new
employees in his store, and try to expand his storeby buying the next-
door warehouse.
• After the MBO cycle ends, we will meet again to discuss theoutcome.

19. 19
The control system and process:
Based on our proposed plan, the new objectives and standards areset and
each department has its tactical plan.
Measuring the actual performance:
 Key performanceindicators KPI willrepresent the objectives (60%)
and the organization culture (40%) which will measurethe
performanceof each one of our staff.
 Net promoter scoreNPS and mystery shopping will measurethe
satisfaction of our customers.
 Employee net promoter scoreENPS will measureour corporate
culture and how our organization act with it.
 The MBO cycle with any employee will end by comparing the
result of the employee’s performance with the agreed adjectives
standard.
 retail operation will develop its own scorecard for every
employee will be able to check his own contribution by the end of
each month ,and the scorecard is updated on daily basis the
direct manager can interfere in case if the employee isn’t
achieving the agreed numbers .”Feedback, and Feedforward
control“.
After comparing the actual performancewith the standards somedecisions
can be taken e.g. Employee’s appraisal, Employee training, firing employees
with continuous poor performance.