Williams-Sonoma is a nationwide specialty retailer that sells high quality, upscale products for the home through its 478 retail stores and various direct-to-customer channels. Its retail concepts are comprised of Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Pottery Barn Teen, Chambers, West Elm and Hold Everything. Williams-Sonoma, a San Francisco based company, generated $2,361 million in revenue dollars. The company employs approximately 6,000 people nationwide. The organization rates a 10 in job satisfaction because it pays well and offers excellent health benefits; however, opportunities for advancement are limited locally due to employee loyalty and long tenures. It rates a 12 on the functioning of small groups due to its commitment to customer service and its ability to maintain a 98% service level of a two day product delivery within its direct-to-customer channels. Company culture rates an 11 because of high employee loyalty. Its employees are highly committed and loyal to the company in partly due to its "Friends and Family" referral program, in which employees are allowed to refer friends and family for work during peak shipping seasons. The average tenure in the distribution center is between 6-10 years. Finally, Williams-Sonoma rates a 12 in organizational performance because of its high product delivery rate, high customer service level and high customer.
Analyze key elements of training and development geared toward improving the performance of the specific small business for which you are consulting.
Training and development are important for all businesses and are particularly critical for small organizations. Experienced, competent people contribute to both the productivity and profitability of the company. Remaining competitive depends in large measure on ensuring that your workforce is trained and up to date with ever-changing skills and knowledge, especially in today’s global economy, in which keeping up with new methods is so important. Despite the clear need to keep employees current, small organizations often show a reluctance to train. This can be due to cost or the desire not to have people away from their job for any length of time.
While training and development can be expensive, it is still considered worthwhile in terms of achieving the long-term benefits of the company and the individual. Training expenses accrue not only from the actual cost of providing on- or off-the-job training, but also from loss of productivity while employees are away being trained. Nonetheless, it is still necessary to provide this training; otherwise, companies discover how easy it is to fall behind both in terms of competence and meeting customers’ needs.
There is another component to this reluctance, however. Many companies fear that if their employees are too well trained, they will move to another employer that pays more or offers other opportunities. In order to overcome this, some companies will train an employee so that he or she can be promoted to the next level within the organization and will want to stay with it. (Butteriss, 1999)
Predict three to five (3-5) potential challenges that the managers or owners of the business could face in addressing organizational performance.
The number one challenge that organizations and clients are facing right now is attracting and keeping good people. A survey in the US Conference Board in 2010 said that the average employee today, post-recession, is looking for work elsewhere. Think about the impact of that on an organization. Do you really know if the people you have right now will stay with you and your organization?
We know that people are the key to our business succeeding and many times as leaders we focus on the great people we have and we provide lots of energy and time for them but they should challenge themselves and ask are you looking at bringing some of your adequate people up to be great?
The second challenge that organizations are facing right now is equalizing technological knowledge among their teams. Companies should consider integrating a new technology into their organization and have a strategy and a timeline and a project implementation plan to get everyone on board with the technology but what they did not approach or tackle was the psychological resistance of some of the team members to adapting to the next technology. This is a big challenge for many organizations right now the equalizing of technological knowledge.
The third challenge that is seen with organizations is aligning their teams to focus on innovation and growth. Often times there are a few people that are very excited and clear on the strategy and the growth. What needs to happen in order to move forward is a unified vision of all team members to the strategies moving forward. This “pocket performance” are pockets of people performing at the levels expected but there is not a unified or gathered aligned team focusing on moving forward.
Another issue is individual employee problems can be personality conflicts, supervisor issues, personal trauma, or company structure oriented. Management must learn the cause of the problem and who or what keeps "fueling the fire." If there is no clear trigger, the answer could fall back to insufficient or confusing communications. For example, an employee in a decentralized organization may feel they must answer to multiple supervisors if the chain of command is not communicated clearly.
Simple employee or team issues can quickly expand to your total organization if you don't take immediate corrective action. You must avoid this situation at all costs, as it often results in your staff forming two groups, both at odds with each other. Should all your avoidance actions fail, be ready to take much more dramatic corrective measures. You must prevent these problems from negatively changing the corporate culture you have carefully cultivated to make your company and workplace a high performing entity.
Justify the effects of detecting organizational gaps in small business, providing examples to explain the rationale.
A gap analysis reveals what’s keeping your business from reaching its full potential. It can be performed for the company as a whole or focused on one department or business area. In either case, it alerts you to areas of underperformance, whether the problems are related to internal inefficiencies or external challenges. This then allows you to develop a strategy to eliminate the gap and maximize your profits. Now companies turn to the task of figuring out how to erase the gap and reach optimal levels. Systemic factors contributing to the suboptimal state must be addressed. Some of these fixes might be relatively simple, such as getting employees the required training to give them the skill sets needed to plug the gap. You might have to make internal fixes, such as readjusting sales territories to reflect market realities, or streamline work processes to lower your cost structure. Other approaches could require looking outside the organization, perhaps by forming an alliance with another business to market a gap product, rather than spending the resources to develop that capacity yourself.
Small businesses conduct a gap analyses in an attempt to bridge the divide between the current state of the business and the vision for the company, both now and in long-term planning. Comparisons can come against stated goals, generally accepted industry standards, and any regulations requirements. The first step is to analyze your current state. Get current operational data, and if necessary interview a representative sample of employees. Efficiencies have to be marked against both internal benchmarks and industry standards. Some businesses hire an outside group to conduct gap analyses in an effort to keep bias from influencing the results.
A final area central to business success is good relations between management and employees. Have your ever watched little league baseball when a few players tried to win the game by themselves? Individual achievement is no substitute for team effort. The same holds true for a business. Too often, managers forget that employees are part of the team, which can destroy a business. Work with your employees and communicate with them regularly. Educate them on financial aspects of the business, including the value of their service to customers. Give employees financial and educational incentives for doing their jobs well. Remember, employees are your most important resource. A sound employee retention program will pay back big dividends in a work force that is highly motivated and productive.
Propose a competitive training strategy that will improve the position of the business in the market. The strategy should include, at a minimum, an agenda of training activities, rationale for instructional strategies used, and the return on investment (ROI) that will be gained from the strategy you have developed.
Williams-Sonoma pricing needs to be controlled by the forces of supply and demand. As market forces increase demand, prices increase. Products and services can be divided into two categories: price sensitive and price insensitive. Buyers will shop around for a low price on price-sensitive items. As prices decrease, volumes sold will increase. Purchase decisions on price-insensitive goods are governed more by quality, uniqueness, and appearance, and less by price. The category that products and services fall under depends on how much they are needed or wanted by consumers. Generally speaking, those items that are critical to maintaining day-to-day living will be price insensitive. Conversely, in the event real incomes fall, less essential, leisure-type items will be the first to experience a decline in consumer demand.
Numerous methods are used in setting price, such as charging prices that consumers expect to pay, which is determined through experience based on last year's prices and customers; charging the same or better prices than your competitors; or charging prices based on production or purchase costs. Indeed, costs should be used as a gauge to set the lower bounds of the prices for the products and services you are selling. An effective pricing strategy includes elements of several methods. However, regardless of the policy used, price must be justified by value to the customer. Remember, ultimately, customers determine prices.

REFERENCES

http://www.nursecredentialing.org/Pathway/PathwayResources/Pathway-AssessmentGapAnalysis.pdf

http://www.businessballs.com/teambuilding.htm

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/williams-sonoma-inc/

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/organizational-problems-workplace-12570.html

Blanchard, P.N., & Thacker, J.W., (2013). Effective Training: Systems, Strategies, and
Practices. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall

Butteriss, M. (1999). Help Wanted: The Complete Guide to Human Resources. Retrieved from http://www.marsdd.com/articles/training and development for new and existing employees.