IMD-6-0287 © 2006
Corey; Billington, Michèle, Barnett Berg
After a decade of continuous success within IQ; a computer products; services and solutions company with sales of $79.9 billion; an executive; Duncan Covington; was tasked with turning around an underperforming procurement organisation with a vacancy rate of 45% and a tarnished internal reputation. Moreover; there were rumours about procurement being decentralised and the organisation was going to be disbanded. Only five years before this same organisation had received numerous awards and accolades and was considered an excellent contributor to the firm.
Covington needed to execute this turnaround without additional resources or budget. In order to do thus; he created six leadership structures for the organization to accomplish sustainable success. Learning objectives: To provide a framework for supervisors seeking constructions and actual approaches to turn around an organization and obtain higher productivity. This case gives the building blocks of these structures and prompts the discussion of how exactly to best apply them for sustainable success and how leadership can best serve an organization. It provides participants with management hints that can make their leadership more efficient through processes rather than behaviors.
Subjects: Procurement; Leadership structures; Group norms; Changing measurement structures; Knowledge brokering
Settings: United States; Computer products; services and solutions; US$79.9 billion in revenues (2004); 1999-2003
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