CMGT500 Week 2 Application Assignment

In May of 2011, my organization announced that the field sales force would begin a massive restructuring process that was referred to as “right sizing”. The District Sales Manager (DSM) positions would go from 1350 down to 850, and the divisions would decrease from 72 to 60. My company called this strategy One Simple Sales Model or OSSM (awesome). The thought process behind OSSM was to streamline field activities and increase productivity through the Leadership representatives. OSSM was designed to decrease the DSM span of control and increase the leadership representatives’ role through mentoring, training, and developing the representatives. Moreover, the geographic size of the individual districts would increase as would the number of representatives within each district boundary. Overall, the DSM role would be elevated as would the responsibilities of the leadership representatives to share in the responsibilities of the district.

The initial steps included goal setting and the removal of DSMs who were soon to retire, not performing to expectations, or looking at outside opportunities. To begin the initial process, Personal Role Reviews (PRR), conducted between May and September of 2011, established the initial DSMs that would continue through the restructuring process. Current performance evaluations played a significant role in the process as did past reviews. Further, performance to plan was a contributing factor as well. The initial goal was to weed out the DSMs who would have left the organization within the set time frame of this restructuring anyway. Other established goals would follow the PRR process. This course of action was under the guidance of Human Resources and Avon corporate leadership.

The restructuring process was a predesigned procedure established long before the strategy was implemented to the field sales force. Moreover, partnerships were created to assist in the organizational restructuring process. An outside agency was used to conduct the phone interviews with the field sales force associates. Additionally, another outside agency was used to dispense online tests to associates. These partnerships helped simplify the right sizing processes, so my organization's leaders could focus on further stages in the implementation process of OSSM to the chosen field sales associates. These outside agencies assisted my organization for one reason; to speed up the interviewing process by alleviating some of the responsibilities throughout the initial stages of the process.  A third organization was asked to contribute information regarding geographic boundaries across North America.

Having gone through the right sizing process, the outside agencies’ contributions were flawed. An example of this happened with the remapping of the district boundaries. Single towns were split into three district geographies giving DSMs geography hundreds of miles away from traditional boundaries. While my organization was striving to streamline field processes, efficiency was lost in the redevelopment. Representative product input and shipment was the largest area affected by the geography remapping. Field associate feedback would have solved this problem before it became one. Moreover, crossover of field associate functions would have limited other mistakes made in the geographic development stages. These mistakes may be reversed in the future for efficiency purposes.

The overall OSSM process was very stressful for the field associates. Many associates went out on medical leave based on fear of potential job loss. A critical component all through the restructuring process was communication between the organization and the field associates. Webinars, PowerPoint presentations, teleconferences, and e-mail was used to update associates throughout the process. Some of the communication updates helped to relieve associate’s stress and some updates added to the stress being experienced by associates. What was helpful, Avon sent an organizational structure map to identify current, transitional, and end state goals for the structural roles changes to the field sales and leadership team. This map included a time structure associated with specific goals. This information helped associates understand the current goals and the future goals within set time frames. Frequent communication was forthcoming throughout the process.

This week’s reading was a reminder of the importance of flexibility and of being a team player. The OSSM restructuring plan was designed with team players in mind. Additionally, the Aligned Star Model (Galbriath, 2002) illustrated how strategy, structure, processes, rewards, and people all come together to identify the roles and responsibilities behind the design of an organization. Further, each segment of an organizational design plays a specific role in the redevelopment of an organizational plan, especially throughout a restructuring process. After reading Galbraith’s chapter 6 of Designing Organizations (2002), I was able to identify specific processes my organization used in the OSSM strategy. Moreover, this week’s assigned reading helped me identify how my organization implemented the OSSM strategy and why outside agencies were used in the initial stages of the process. Furthermore, I have a clearer understanding of the complexities involved in a restructuring process.

Reference
Galbraith, J. R. (2002). Designing organizations: An executive guide to strategy, structure, and purpose. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.