Page 367 - Business Principles and Management

Chapter
14 Implementing and Controlling

14.1 The Implementing Function

14.2 Motivation and Change Management

14.3 The Controlling Function
14.4 Gathering and Using Performance Information

RE ALITY CHECK

Losing Control

asmine Marsh had been hired as the manager of the new telemarketing
department of an office supply company. The department was fully auto-
Jmated with computerized telephone and order-processing systems. A
strategy was developed to sell office supplies through catalogs and telephone
sales. Jasmine was given a large budget to retrain current employees and to
hire and train new employees for telephone sales. A catalog was prepared
and mailed to all businesses in the city. Follow-up telephone calls were made,
introducing the service and promoting the company’s delivery guarantee.
The promise was that any order placed by 10 p.m. would be delivered by
10 a.m. the next day.
Things got off to a good start. There was a real excitement among the
employees when they made the sales calls to introduce the new service,
and orders began to come in. However, the rapidly expanding sales vol-
ume was putting pressure on Jasmine’s department. After the first month
of operations, it was clear that a growing number of problems were lead-
ing to employee dissatisfaction and a high turnover rate. Experienced
employees, especially those who had worked for the company before the
change, were quitting or asking for transfers because of the pressure they
were facing on the job.
Jasmine knew that her department was essential to the success of
the company. If the department was not able to maintain and increase the
level of sales and process orders efficiently, the new business strategy
would fail. As the manager, she needed to figure out ways to solve the
growing number of problems.

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