...Emma Richardson is in a dilemma whether to go ahead with the Project Aerial or not. The poor decision making process is one of the main reasons for the dilemma caused. Had the management of TerraCog not ignored the idea of shifting to satellite imagery as soon as Posthaste did it, the damage would have been much less. The organisation suffers from inefficient group structure. The decisions were not made in the right manner. When customer requests increased, Richard Fiero on his own decided to change his mind on satellite imagery, without discussing it with anyone else. Now the product development team is not happy with the decision made because it feels that there are several other exciting projects that are being compromised upon. Moreover, with a decision of go/no-go to be made by Emma, the large size of the group involved again threatens to thwart the decision making process. The inter department conflicts add to the dilemma. The sales team headed by Ed Prior feels the new product Aerial should be priced below $425 to capture the lost market share to the competitors. The design team headed by Allen Roth, redesigned within the existing GPS platform so as to speed up the development process and avoid costs of new moldings and major configurations. As per their estimate of the pricing team, the price for sale would, at the minimum, be $475. The price is quite too high for the sales team to consider. The design team has pressed the production team to reconsider the price estimates;...
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...Participant Name: Munaim Akhtar (ERP ID: 10426) Case Title: TERRACOG GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEMS: CONFLICT AND COMMUNICATION ON PROJECT AERIAL Case Analysis: This case is about TerraCog, a well-known high-tech firm that develop product like GPS for consumer market. This case describes the failure of new project initiated by TerraCog named project Aerial due to organizational conflicts between sales, production, and design, development department of TerraCog. Problems: Posthaste, a competitor in market introduced a GPS prototype called Birds I at summer 2006 outdoor retailer show that displays satellite imagery in form of static satellite photographs. The TerraCog management were not impressed by innovation of competitor and dismissed the posthaste concept as a vogue. However Product Birds I proved to be a great success in consumer market. In order to save the position is consumer market TerraCog management decided to launch a GPS with moving satellite imagery named project Aerial without the feedback from Design, development and production department. At last, due to high production cost, non-availability of latest technology and time limit, project Aerial launching was not supported at all. Solutions/Recommendations: There was lack of Interpersonal relationship between departments at TerraCog which reflects in the quality of work/discussions. Furthermore, higher management without deciding at their own end should have consulted with design, development and production...
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...Terracog Global Positioning System : conflict and communication on project Aerial. Problem essay : Position statement: From the outset of the case it appears that determination of price point is the sole bone of contention between various players. However, a deeper analysis shows that the problem is beyond determination of the price point. According to my point of view the root cause of all the conflicts within Terracog is the lack of leadership, effective communication and vision and inter-groups conflicts. Lack of leadership is evident from the role the president , Richard Fiero. He was persuaded into making the decision by the sales Vice President Ed Pryor. Richard Fiero went ahead and took the decision based on only one source of information – Sales. He did not consult the other important players – Production and Design and Development. This shows his sheer lack of leadership skills. Before announcing the decision he should have consulted these important groups and come out with a consensus. The case shows Richard in a reactive mode. He thinks he can force the price he wants from Tony Barren. This is not what a leader should do. Further he clearly does not take help from Harold Whisler. As evident from Exhibit 2 Harold is a co-founder of Terracog and comes with thirty one odd years of experience. Harold also has a sound engineering background and in the past has contributed significantly to Terracog’s key sonar equipment products in 1980s. The president clearly chooses to...
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...Introduction: This case study discussing the failure of the project “Aerial” due to the lack of communication between TerraCog management and design, development departments. Background: In earlier starting days 1977, TerraCog providing high end sonar equipment to serious sports fishermen and boaters (Beer & Yong, 2008). Around the late 1990s, TerraCog started providing high quality GPS units, these units sold well, as the company already created a name for themselves. Problem: When a competitor “Posthaste “introduced a GPS prototype called BirdsI´ that displays satellite imagery, the TerraCog management signed off the competition as a fad but the product BirdsI´ was a huge success. In order not to lose the market, TerraCog management Richard Fierro, the company president, and Ed Pryor, the vice president, launched a GPS with satellite imagery named as “Project Aerial” without discussing with the design and development departments. Due to various reasons production cost, Unavailability of new technology better than BirdsI and busy with other projects initially they are not supporting the “Project Aerial” Opportunities: TerraCog had an opportunity to open door communication within different departments, this would give employees opportunity to contribute to the success of the new product. An employer’s attitude towards co-workers reflects in the quality of the work. By improving their interpersonal relationships, the company can regain their customer base. Recommendations:...
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...Case Study Analysis 1: TerraCog GPS Terracog was a successful privately held firm specializing in high quality Global Positioning system and fishing sonar equipment. Even though TerraCog was always not the first to market new products, but their products were successful because of their high quality and effectively addressed customer needs. When their competitor Posthaste introduced a GPS prototype called BirdsI that displays satellite imagery, TerraCog did not view it to be a threat and believed it was a non-essential fad. TerraCog realized their mistake in judging BirdsI and the product was a huge success. In order not to lose the market, TerraCog planned to launch a GPS with satellite imagery Project Aerial. A redesign within existing GPS platform was proposed and the projected costs threaten to destroy the project. Ed Pryor VP of sales feels the new product Aerial should be priced below $425 to capture the lost market share to the competitors. The estimate for the price would at minimum be $475 and the sales teams deemed it too high to consider. The managers of each division gather in a pair of combative meetings that contain anger, finger pointing, and blame but do not produce an effective conclusion. Personal and individual objectives which were contrary to one another led to the current situation. The sales staffs’ main concern was to have a GPS device that would be superior to their competitors’ and would be priced competitively. The product design & development...
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...TerraCog Global Positioning Systems: Conflict and Communication on Project Aerial GEB314 – Group and Organizational Dynamics Professor Barry Atkins Carlos Albizu University Monica Estopinan Spring 2013 Introduction TerraCog is a private company specializing in high-quality Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and fishing sonar equipment. In spring 2007, the company took on a project to enhance their high-quality GPS handheld with satellite imagery; the project was named Project Aerial. The decision to develop the new enhancement resulted from increased customer demand, and loss of market share to competitor Posthaste, who in October 2006, introduced BirdsI, the “only handheld GPS with satellite imagery” (Beer, Young, 2008). By the end of 2007, TerraCog had developed a prototype of their version of a GPS unit with satellite imagery and planned to launch the product by the holiday season of 2008. Emma Richardson, the new Executive Vice President, was tasked with the launch of the newly developed GPS unit; she needed to finalize decisions on costs, pricing, and initial production volume. Emma’s main focus as the new EVP was to move the company toward greater operational alignment and increase cross-departmental cooperation. This focus was in response to existing tension between the U.S headquarters in Chicago and the production team in China. The development of the new Aerial would no doubt add to this tension. The design conditions of the Aerial GPS were handed off...
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...also sub-divides and assigns roles, responsibilities, and authority to accomplish different tasks. Organizations are “open systems” in that they are affected by their environment – both macro and micro. As far as the role organizations play in society, the detailed role varies geographically, but overall, organizations greatly influence the culture of the surrounding society. My experience and observations throughout my life have shown that organizations with similar missions tend to geographically cluster together. I believe that the mentality and personalities of the people working at these organizations hold significant weight in the formation of the environment and attitudes of the surrounding society. For example, San Francisco is approximately 49 square-miles, but it has several very diverse societies that are broken up into districts. People who are interested in finance will most likely gravitate towards Market Street and the Financial District because the organizations in that area are of that “personality.” Through investigation and analysis of many different case studies, it seems that the “silo-ing” of departments within an organization is the most significant human issue facing organizations today. There is a serious lack of common goals and lack of communication between departments within an organization. The lack of communication has the potential to suppress a company’s growth or even ruin the company. As a result of a lack of...
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...Barcelona, Spain, and had become one of the top developers of solo-player games for standard mobile phones and iPhones. The structure of the company is based on these the global teams where each one has expertise and a defined role and function during the development of games. Digital Chocolate’s culture is an example of cooperative environment and fine inter-personal relations. These features are results of the well-established communication methods followed. Functional departmentalization and communication is an important factor in every company and Digital Chocolate has achieved an exceptional flow of information between all levels of employees. Hawkins’s general strategy followed incorporates acquiring small but talented gaming companies. This way Digital Chocolate went into operations in very short period and captured a great market share. Moreover, one of the strategic tactics involves industry research. The competition of the gaming industry is fierce and in order to maintain a strategic position the companies offering services and products have to align with the technological achievements and customer needs. When the research is based on a global perspective, it opens new markets and can identify the global trends. This can be considered one of DC’s strengths that has helped in the development of a global common spirit and reduced costs. In 2009, Hawkins was eager to start developing new...
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...25 Spring 2010 Professor R. Kabaliswaran Office: KMC 7-56 E-mail: rkabalis@stern.nyu.edu Office Hours: 11:30 AM– 1:00 PM on class days and by appointment Class Hrs: Wed 1:30-4:20 PM on Jan 27; Feb 3, 10, 17, 24; Mar 3, 10, 24, 31; Apr 7, 14, 21, 28. Due Dates Team Case Write-up: 2/24. Final Team Project : 4/28. Indiv Take Home Final: 5/2. ____________________________________________________________ _________________ Course Overview Welcome aboard! What do leaders do? What happens inside organizations? And how do these relate to each other? In a nutshell, that’s the stuff this course is made of. Business organizations of all types face chronic management problems that pose significant challenges to them. These problems include the difficulty of designing organizations capable of coping with highly dynamic business environments, the challenge of developing strategies and structures for hypercompetitive conditions, the greater complexity of managing global enterprises, the difficult task of shaping a corporate culture, managing politics and conflict between individuals and organizational units, motivating employees who are more mobile than ever, designing attractive incentive systems, managing and harnessing intellectual capital, and so on. Such challenges and how the top leadership can deal with them are the subject of this course. The course has two major components. The first is “macro” in nature. It focuses on organizational level issues and problems, such as how an organization...
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