The vice-president of regulation at the Investment Funds Institute of Canada is reviewing the monthly statistics. It shows the continuance of three trends, prevalent during the last 12 months in the Canadian mutual funds industry. Net sales of mutual funds were declining, fund redemptions were rising and the rate of growth in mutual fund assets had been marginal. The vice-president must determine how the Investment Funds Institute, as the industry trade association for mutual funds, can influence these trends. He must decide on the message, who he should target with the message and the media through which he should reach his target audience, and present his plan at the next executive committee meeting.
The vice-president at a large investment firm has discovered that some clients have taken significant losses and determines that it was due to the actions of one of the firm's investment advisors. He has no choice but to terminate this advisor's employment with the firm and must determine how to communicate with and maintain the relationships with these clients. The supplement, Greentree Investment Corporation (B), product 9B04C016, continues with the situation and looks at dealing with angry customers.
Success in navigating through a crisis situation requires good planning, sound judgement and swift reaction. This note provides a set of detailed guidelines on business crisis management. Areas covered include crisis definition, key principles and a step-by-step assessment of what to do when one occurs.
A newspaper editor must decide how to deal with negative public reaction to items printed in the paper. He was concerned about the hurt to those involved, and about potential loss of readership and advertising dollars. He wondered what could be done to prevent future incidents.
Rudolph Giuliani was the mayor of New York City during the events of September 11, 2001, and became world renowned for his leadership. Outlined is a description of his background, his first few years in office, the troubles he faced in his last year in office and the sudden shift in his popularity post-September 11, 2001.
Two engineers formed Teqswitch Inc. to design and produce faster networking equipment. Five years after they began, the company has 120 employees in Canada, England and Australia and sales in the tens of millions. The company decided to expand into Latin America and has worked out a $15 million joint venture with Unitas in Argentina to sell components. Teqswitch establishes an office in Buenos Aires and works with Unitas to develop sales personnel and business processes. As the company is about to launch its next generation of products, the vice-president international of Teqswitch receives information from the joint venture partner about terminating the agreement. He must determine what has gone wrong.
Stamford Machine Corporation is a market leader in the manufacturing of photocopiers and office equipment. The director of corporate business ethics and compliance has been notified that the company is being served with a discrimination lawsuit. A newspaper announcement was released to the public outlining details of the charges and before the director could leave his office, he receives a call from a journalist asking for the company's comments. He must determine if there has been a breach in the company's policy on discrimination and plan how the company will deal with the media.
The Microsoft Corporation is one of the most successful software developers in the world. The company has been involved in an anti-trust suit with the U.S. Justice Department since the early 1990s and is about to launch the latest version of their combined personal computer operating and Internet browser software. The company, when faced with government intervention, must determine how to effectively rally support to fight the challenge and continue with normal business at the same time.
Procter & Gamble is a major player in the global hair care industry. In a practice common to many companies facing fierce competition in a lucrative market, Procter & Gamble hired a competitive intelligence contractor to monitor the activities of a rival company. As a result, Procter & Gamble acquired valuable information on the competitor. While legal counsel confirmed that the information was not gained through illegal activities, senior executives acknowledge that Procter & Gamble's own core values may have been compromised.
Teck Cominco is an integrated natural resource group with activities in mining, smelting and refining ores. A number of complaints of ill health by contract workers at one of the plants lead to medical tests. The test results revealed elevated levels of thallium. Concerned about employee safety, plant management immediately shut down the operation until it was safe for workers. The operations manager must plan how he will handle the media over the next few weeks.
OrangeWerks, an entrepreneurial company that creates software applications, is preparing to present to venture capital firms for its first major round of funding. However, during routine network maintenance, the network administrator becomes aware that the company may not have purchased the original software used to create the company's product, and that government workplace safety insurance was not in place. He must decide how to proceed with the knowledge by assessing available options and judging the stakeholder impact, as well as his career implications.
The leader of a newly formed small business banking division of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) decided on the necessity of creating a unifying vision for its 2,000 employees. She knew that a critical success factor in corporate reorganizations was to focus the team, through a corporate vision, on new shared goals they all believed were achievable. If the leadership team believed, then this winning attitude would cascade throughout the division and mobilize the workforce. In turn, this energy would be felt by the customers and become the most competitive weapon she could provide. The process of creating a vision and determining what actions make visions successful is presented within the context of the financial services industry and the challenges facing a new business unit.
This note is designed as detailed supplemental material for management communication courses. It contains information on creating effective business documents in the workplace. Categories covered are: report writing, e-mails and memos, and Internet writing.