Reference no: EM132184590

Background:

J&J Furnishings, Ltd. It is a family business started by two brothers Jack and Jessica in 1965, in Sydney, Australia. They start building and selling home furniture but over the years they had added a new line of office furniture, as well as expanding the business with showrooms in New York, London and Tokyo and shipping furniture through Europe and the United States. This company has annual revenues of nearly $50,000,00 USD and the sales average is about 130,000 units per year.

J&J Furnishings has about 200 employees and Research and development, Manufacturing, Marketing, Sales, HR, IT, Accounting, Finance and Legal departments. The leadership team is made up of founders and managers from each area.

Goals: 1. In the past few years, the leadership team of J&J Furnishings has become concerned about the environmental impact that it's manufacturing and shipping processes are having on consumer perspectives and on the communities surrounding J&J’s manufacturing plants. The company’s goal is to persuade stakeholders, partners, and critics that its growth strategy includes plans for long-term sustainability. The J&J leadership team believes that focusing on corporate social responsibility will boost public relations and provide a higher return on investments. The team knows that delivering social responsibility and focusing on sustainability will deliver shareholder and strategic benefits.

With regard to manufacturing, the J&J team is looking closely at environmental factors, such as pollutants, manufacturing materials, and safety, as well as energy. The team would like to grow J&J’s furniture line made from recycled wood products and develop a tree replanting initiative to restore wood products used in the company’s existing wood furniture inventory. In addition, wood furniture is often treated with stains and oils. The J&J leadership team is interested in learning about alternative products, with an eye on both the environment and the safety of employees using those products in the manufacturing process.

2. In the past few years, it has become apparent that J&J Furnishings needs to upgrade its nearly 20- year-old ordering, shipping, and billing software and processes. In addition, the CEO has also decided that, as part of this estimated 18-month project, J&J’s marketing and sales should include social networking. In order to remain successful during the transition of its technology, J&J knows it must identify, mitigate, and manage any potential risks throughout this large project.

Upper management of J&J Furnishings realize that an IT upgrade should produce enormous benefits for the organisation, so they want a more sophisticated system that will help the company minimize lost sales, create efficiencies in the supply chain, and keep costs down as the company moves forward. In preparation, the leadership team began by collecting information from every functional area of the company in order to identify the best sales, ordering, billing, and shipping processes to target their current and future customers, as well as retailers. The leadership team also examined what other organisations had done in similar projects to avoid loss of revenue during their projects. From the research, the team identified three potential risks that could occur during this project of upgrading the IT systems and processes:

-Loss of business due to inability to process orders in a timely fashion

-Loss of credibility because of a lack of quality in the shipping process

-Loss of sales as competitors took advantage of any downtime

It was also determined that employee disruptions needed to be minimized, perhaps by temporarily reallocating employees and providing immediate training on the new systems and processes. In addition, the leadership team determined that disruptions might be less impactful if employee feedback is included and incorporated into the project.

3. J&J Furnishings has several ongoing projects due to its strategic plans to keep up with customer needs and improve its efficiency. These projects include a new line of furniture, which created the need for expanded manufacturing capabilities.

Starting as a small family-owned furniture store, the legacy this organisation leaves to future generations is just as important to the leadership team as is the impact J&J leaves on its customers and employees, as well as the various local and global environments in which it does business. Having this many projects at one time will impact J&J’s policies as assets, and the global of the leadership team is to have a strategy for growth and development that keeps J&J functioning well into the future.

QUESTION:

Explain why you might choose one of the leadership styles over another style when managing the highlighted project team.

Describe which tools and techniques you might use as a PM to influence this project team.

Explain which of the 5 types of power you would employ to:

1) influence the project team

2) motivate the team members to work collaboratively and impact the project’s success.