1.9 End-of-Topic Case: The Friendly Company
Bucky Smith began his information systems company out of the back seat of his car fifteen years ago. He provided companies lacking computer expertise with advice on how to install and maintain local area networks. He was very successful and today he now has over 200 customers who use him and his company for all kinds of computer support. Bucky’s company, Mega Byte Inc., now provides a full product and service menu of security services, database functions, software training, local area network installation and maintenance, and hardware upgrades. Mega Byte has about 150 employees with roughly half working on the technical side and half in administration.
Bucky is considering how best to provide rewards to his employees. While not an employee-owned company, the company culture felt like a family. People routinely brought pets to work, played games on breaks in the Mega Byte recreational facilities, and got together socially after work. Most of the employees were paid well by most standards, and health and vacation packages were nice compared to other companies in information systems.
Unfortunately, the news from accounting this past year was that Mega Byte has been taking on a huge hit in revenues. In fact, profits are down 30% this year and now Bucky has to decide who, if any, will get rewards. Bucky does not want to decide this himself, so he puts together a team of trusted employees (one from each department) to decide what and how rewards should be addressed for this past year. Typically, Bucky gave out a holiday bonus in December, and while it was generous, it was also probably unrealistic to assume that this would continue forever. Since you are on this team, Bucky would like to see your team’s recommendations in the next few weeks. Your tasks in this case are as follows:
Questions
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What is the project in this case?
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Who are the stakeholders in this project?
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What are the top five major issues of this project that need to be addressed?