The company AcuScan is on the way to launch a new innovative product into the market; the company is developing iScanner, which is considered to be the security scanner used in airports throughout the country. The demand for the product is extremely high and its claims about 40% of the whole market. The creativity and professionalism of the company’s specialists make the executives be sure of the profitability and growing demand for the new technology.
It is necessary to underline the fact that the extreme situation of the company is connected with the pressure of the mid-year numbers; the project revenues falling can be observed together with the sinking of the sales and service revenues. It should be noted that the company is to develop extreme actions through the new strategic planning development. Kelly Thomas, Pat Lambert, Cliff O’Connor and Chris Martinas are considered to be the representatives of the company working on the new technology project development. (Matthews, 2005)
The terms of the project fulfillment are clearly identified through the deadline to August of the running years, and minimal costs to be spent, no more than $400 000. The main step done by the team members was based on the creation of the Optimize product project covering the basic steps, costs and functions to be done for the final marketing launch.
The operation optimization, being developed by Chris Martinas and Pat Lambert, covered the following aspects: the necessity to create a new market for new revenues introduction, revamping the iScanner, investment reduction, and progressive objectives clarification.
It is necessary to underlines the fact that the first version of the report disclosed the required costs of %925 000; the budget covered the following points: launch marketing, software reprogramming, software design, advertising costs and repackaging development. The presentation of the report disclosed certain factions prohibiting the product to be launched on the market. The problem was focused on the necessity to develop certain alternatives meeting the requirements and opportunities of the company’s budget.
This caused the necessity to provide costs reduction by 15% in order to maintain the productivity and strengths of the department; as a result the Director of Marketing, Pat Lambert developed a new product concept with the reduction of the costs. A new concept does not cover the issue of contract software reprogramming and its costs made $575 000. The technology to be launched is to fulfill the following functions:
- provide the customers’ characteristic data;
- report the data in real-time;
- track the movements and be focused throughout the store.
The numbers provided by Pat Lambert appeared to be criticized by Kelly, who stressed that the concept looks not realistic and cannot be performed in accordance with the disclosed terms.
CEO required the costs to be reduced to $400 000 and the deadline to be met till the August of the running year. The conflict was based on the following factors:
- lack of sufficient specialists to provide technical support regularly;
- short terms of the project fulfillment;
- too much-reduced investment and costs;
- technical characteristics of the company’s product required a high level of careful programming;
- high competitive level.
Kelly Thomas, Chief Engineer of Product Software, being involved in the development of the project Optimize Product, built assumptions on the basis of the following concerns:
- Short staff
- Optimistic numbers;
- Insufficient programming;
- The necessity to maintain the existing service;
- Lack of planning;
- The programming process is careful development.
The little deadline for the project fulfillment appeared to be problematic leading to arguments among the members of the project team.
Pat Lambert, who is considered to be the Marketing Director, is busy with the development of a new company venture, the AcuScan project aimed at the introduction of the new product at the market, to take the leadership position through new technology. The report ‘Operation Optimize’ developed with Chris covers basic assumptions connected with the innovative technology introduction:
- The necessity to provide minimum investment;
- The strengthening of the competitiveness;
- The concept of the new product is to be developed in accordance with the past outcomes;
- The application creation is similar to the iScanner retail technology application.
Pat expressed the necessity in alternatives concerning the new product launching at the market. The developed report based on the opportunities to track the customers’ movement and report the data in the customizable flexible reports provided by the technology introduction, requires the investment of $575 000.
Cliff O’Connor is concerned with the introduced strategic budget cuts developed for the remaining fiscal year, stressing the inevitability of the short-term budget crisis faced by the company. The key task is aimed at the budget reduction by 15% at every department but for Marketing and Sales, which are the key revenue generators. The goal can be reached through each expenditure evaluation across the board. The Optimize product project is reduced to $400 000 with the deadline to August.
Chris Martinas, the Product Development VP, is a project partner of Pat Lambert at the project development; Chris is concentrated on the expertise issue. The necessity for AcuScan to provide technology expansion to the new segments of the market is the step to become a leader and satisfy the needs of potential customers. To fulfill this, it is necessary:
- to involve the investors;
- to find the new creative ways of technology introduction into the market before the competitors’ strategic actions.
The required costs, in accordance with the new product report, made $925 000 (including advertising, software programming, launch marketing, repackaging design and software design), and appeared to be the significant increase leading to the ROI reduction.
Arguments and evaluation
Kelly Thomas expressed the argument on the basis of workload analysis of the past; the volume of support engineering provided to the customers cannot be satisfied through the lack of qualified programmers. Lack of time for the product launching causes debates among the colleagues through the flimsy budget introduction.
Pat is considerably confident in the skills and professionalism of the programmers to build the product in time. The negative perception of strategic steps by Kelly led to conflict among the team members.
Pat and Cliff decided to concentrate on the alternatives for the project development; the key issue was focused on the possibility to contract with the outside software design aimed at bringing the iScanner o the retail market. The dropping service revenues and lackluster product sales made Pat and Chris cooperate in developing a new market.
Chris is concentrated on the security applications extension, covering government offices, vertical markets and banks. Kelly strives to make the strategy be based on the existing applications, stressing that additional databases are not perceived as a problem. The team is working on the Optimize product project performing competitive analysis and assessment of the greatest company’s competitor Secure-A.
The ideal product to be finally launched into the market is to be the retail retinal scanner which can easily identify the needs of the customers linking the relational databases to the identities of the clients.
The central arguments depicted by Kelly were based on the conclusions and analysis inaccuracies; the iScanner alternations are to be totally minimal; insufficient development of the QC standards following and the balance between the costs and the technical requirements cannot be satisfied.
The nature of the conflict lied in the company’s specialists’ disability to find a halfway in their strategies aimed at product launching into the market. It is necessary to underline the fact that the programming of the scanner to be introduced is to build on the real numbers and deadline.
It is necessary to underline the fact that the conflict can be resolved on the basis of alternatives to be introduced: 1) it is necessary to increase the staff of project programmers to be hired for the period of project development; 2) the costs for the advertising can be reduced by 10%; 3) it is necessary to conduct assessment research of the competitors’ technologies launching allowing evaluating the necessary marketing segment. (Haines, 2001)
The conflict is predominantly based on the specialists’ disability to balance the technical support costs and the budget provided to the department. The first problem solution it to be based on the increase of the budget costs; the company can be under the threat of the short-term crisis, nevertheless the costs and investing spent on the programming process will make the project be fulfilled in a shorter period and will bring faster profits to the company. Besides, in the case of the long-term project, the company can be under the threat of competitiveness increase and the launching of the product by the competitors.
The second solution is based on making the project to be dominant and of primary importance; it means that all the departments are to unite the efforts in the close regime for the project development; daily activities are to be closed for a period in order to fasten the process because one of the basic problems is connected with the lack of specialists for engineering support.
The project aimed at the new product launching is to be concentrated on the possibility to balance the requirements of the customers and the opportunities of the AcuScan Inc. for the purpose of iScanner introduction at the market before the competitors, stimulating high sales and demand on the innovative technology.
References
Haines, S. (2001). The systems thinking approach to strategic planning and management. CRC Press.
Matthews, J. (2005). Strategic planning and management for managers. Libraries Unlimited.