Apex Manufacturing Company

SUBJECT Management Consulting

SUBMITTED TO Prof. R. Balachandran
DATE 5th February, 2018

SUBMITTED BY: Tarun Maheshwari

Major problem of case study
 There are communication problems in the top management group of the Apex Manufacturing
Company due to a recent reorganization.
 The company’s president needed help in handling some key people within the organization.
 The company expected to grow rapidly in the coming years and the need was felt by the top
management to bring in outside help to sort out these communication issues within the team
before the company enters its period of rapid growth.
Initial contact with the client and defining relationship
 In the initial he tried to create a formal and psychological contract between the consultant and
the company and its associates. .
 The formal contract was limited to an understanding about the per diem fee and potential
duration of the consultation
 The psychological contract dealt with the importance of exposing any possible misconceptions
and clarity regarding style of work, aims and methods.

Method of Work
 The consultant chose techniques like observation, informal interviewing and group discussions
which are more in line with the values of process consultation.
 For this he attended the regular half-day weekly meetings of the executive.
 He conducted a series of individual interviews to get further acquainted with the group.
Following are some of the key observations he made –
 The president was informal but also a very powerful and confident person who had little difficulty
in confronting and terminating relationships if he didn’t see any value in them.
 Although he was comfortable in meeting the consultant in a group.

Intervention
 A key observation made was regarding the circulation of financial information by the
treasurer who often made operational managers uncomfortable by giving indicting
statements due to which the meeting being reduced into a series of arguments from
both sides.
 They approached alternative way for financial control information which was done by
the circulation of a memo by the consultant on the same topic.
 Another method utilized was to make reprints of relevant articles available to the group
at selected times.
 Agenda setting was another unlikely problem area which was identified. If a group is
able to set its agenda correctly, it gives a way of entering other process discussions.
Following are some of the key observations he made –
 the group was overloaded with agendas which were too wide, often involving both policy as well
as operational issues
 It was decided to split the agendas such that certain meetings were dedicated towards policy
issues whereas others were solely for operations.
  Team would have a full day meeting once a month to discuss 1-2 large topics and discuss them in
depth.

Feedback Systems
 It was decided that the consultant would conduct the interview and share his conclusions
with the interviewee and then report only those items to the top management which the
group thought apt.
 The individual responses would be kept confidential and the summarized group report
would be discussed in a group meeting before being reported to the boss or higher
management.

Evaluation of Results
 With time the group was able to manage its own agenda.
 More time was now being utilized for analysis and the group was able to pay attention to their
internal processes.
 During the second year a model was developed in which a series of small group meetings would
take place and the group would set its own agenda.
 After every 3rd meeting a larger group discussion would take place. The consultant continues to
meet individual members of the group and the group as a whole.
 The consultant’s role in the entire exercise was to help the group invent the idea, be a facilitator
in the group’s efforts to be more productive, to serve as a resource on the topics to be covered in
meetings and to appear as an occasional lecturer on the lecture series or as a source of input at a
small group meeting.