Case Studies

Case 1

Summary

The business of uncoated free-sheet paper is at large in North America. Domtar ranks third in the uncoated free-sheet paper production. But prior to 1996 Domtar's financial records were disastrous and it was a bureaucratic organization with no clear organizational goals. With low investment grade ranking, the revenues generated by the organization were substantially low. In the year 1996, Raymond Royer took charge as chief executive officer and president of Domtar, with no prior knowledge of the industry of pulp and paper. However, he realized the importance of strategic direction and particular goals in the performance of an organization and to survive in the industry. The two major goals set by Royer in order to become a preferred supplier in the pulp and paper industry were to improve the investment-grades of the company and provide better customer services. To increase the critical mass and industrial participation, Royer's strategy focused on the innovational product designs, improved quality while cutting down its costs. The management policies resulted in the substantial increment in the revenue generated by Domtar and transforming it into an investment-grade company.

Question 2

The primary reason behind the Domtar's success was its training strategy and the performance management system was incorporated to measure the effectiveness of the Domtar's workforce and the performance based incentives. The performance system contributed largely in increasing the performance and contribution of the employees to the organization while preserving the values of the organization. Kaizen, as an employment process proved to be successful at Domtar. Also the cooperation of the management with the employees facilitated the revolutionary change brought about in the organization; the conduction of training activities to enhance the skills and the team management of the employees and above all the convincing and assurance to the employees by Royer, with respect to the new strategies and policies of Domtar reduced the hindering factors to the change process at Domtar.

The extensive training of supervisors and employees with regards to the development of organizational culture and customer service could be made better by including the assessment of the competencies of employees to further increase their effectiveness and contribution. Also, the introduction of electronic forms of training such as computer based training could be used to speed up the training process and knowledge building of employees.

Question 4

The triggering event in the case of Domtar's ADDIC (analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation) model was the lacking of a direction and unclear organizational goals which were identified by the new CEO Raymond Royer and which resulted in new policies and strategies

Analysis

The performance loophole in Domtar was primarily due to the lack of investments due to low investment-grade ranking and the low quality customer care of Domtar. The analysis of these two problems leads to the design and development of the latter strategies of Domtar

Design

The development of a mission statement and the efforts of Royer to convince his organizational workforce to support the new policies and the training strategies was an important step of design phase. The realization of the ...