If you were the consultant, what steps would you suggest to get the company to plan effectively?
Margaret Quinn, the president of Eastern Electric Corporation, one of the large electric
utilities operating in the eastern United States, had long been convinced that effective
planning in the company was absolutely essential to success. For more than 10 years she
had tried to get a company planning program installed without seeing much result. Over
this time, she had consecutively appointed three vice presidents in charge of planning
and, although each had seemed to work hard at the job, she noticed that individual
department heads kept going their own ways. They made decisions on problems as they
came up, and they prided themselves on doing an effective job of "fighting fires." But the
company seemed to be drifting, and individual decisions of department heads did not
always tally with each other. The executive in charge of regulatory matters was always
pressing state commissions to allow higher electric rates without having very much luck,
since the commissions felt that costs, although rising, were not justified. The head of
public relations was constantly appealing to the public to understand the problems of
electric utilities, but electric users in the various communities felt that the utility was
making enough money and that the company should solve its problems without raising
rates. The vice president in charge of operations, pressed by many communities to
expand electric lines, to put all lines underground to get rid of unsightly poles and lines,
and to give customers better services, felt that costs were secondary to keeping customers
off his back. When a consultant called in at the request of Ms. Quinn looked over the
situation, he found that the compan y really was not planning very well. The vice
president of planning and his staff were working hard, making studies and forecasts and
submitting them to the president. There they stopped, since all the department heads
looked on them as impractical paperwork that had no importance for their day-to-day
operations.
Questions:
a) If you were the consultant, what steps would you suggest to get the company to plan
effectively?
b) What advice would you give the company as and how far in the future to plan?
c) How would you suggest to the president that your recommendations be put into effect?
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