SMA CASE STUDY

1. How was the change managed at SMA Micro?

Ans: 1. In order to make the changes work Spichty made sure that the project organization was in
place by June 2010. Project Teams were meeting and reviews were scheduled with the resource
allocation team. People tried to understand how the new organization will work.
During the increase in sales of ICs and Microprocessors, Spichty made it a point to continuously
communicate the importance of implementing new changes. This helped the people to keep their
morale up and they didnt lose focus from implementing the new changes.
Spichty and his staff scheduled meeting to resolve the urgent problems and conflicts in order to
satisfy the management of how and what work they are supposed to do and how is project team
tackling the problem.
2. How would you have handled change at SMA Micro?
Ans: The creation of Resource Allocation Team demarcated the responsibility of the previous
managers and they felt that they were not in the loop. They delegated their work to subordinates
instead of doing the work on their own. I would have created a better job design.
Because of additional responsibilities, employees wanted an increase in salary and therefore a
redesign of compensation and benefits policy was required in order to keep employees satisfied.
SMA Micro had planned to keep marketing officials as the coordinating function. This created
distrust in marketing employees by others and also a loss of their own influence in any opinion. So,
this created a rift in sales, manufacturing and other department employees. Also, marketing officials
came under pressure of not being able to handle the responsibility. Therefore, in order to avoid this
and make all employees feel at par, the coordinating function could have been given to each
department on a rotation basis.
There should be regular meetings between different departments so that they understand their aim
of increasing productivity, and can remove their areas of conflict.
3. What changes would you bring about in Team Building at SMA Micro, if any?
We can have outbound team building activities so that employees can understand the
benefit of working synergistically.
We should give proper clear set of goals that they have to achieve while working so that
they do not have conflicts in their work areas.
Seniors in the team should be very approachable so that juniors feel more comfortable and
can be mentored informally too.
Monetary and non monetary rewards should be given to the employees so that they are
well motivated to work. The managers should give frequent verbal appreciations to the
team to increase their comfort levels.
Since there were differences between marketing, sales, manufacturing department we can
provide a common platform for all the departments to work together so that they can know
each other on a personal level. For instance any CSR initiative for the company can involve
all the members of different departments.
4. Which ways were power and politics played in SMA Micro, if any?
Production superintendents and manufacturing engineers delegated work to the lower
level employees.
Coordinator role expanded the role and scope of marketing
Project coordinators had problems in getting the people they needed to work due to
other competitive activities
Marketing manager was attacked for not providing proper guidance
Negative perception about marketing people and general opinion that sales people
should be made coordinators
Concerns about manufacturing being able to lead a project
5. Were there any conflicts? How would you manage conflicts at SMA Micro?
There were many areas of conflict at SMA Micro as follows:
The market environment was very uncertain and rapidly changing and since almost all the
managers have sent their careers in another divisions, therefore they had difficulty in
operating
There was a vast difference in the structure, goals and orientations of the people. The need
for have clear inclusion and division of work areas was lacking
There are no good integrating mechanisms that existed earlier. The information required for
the creation of new products is not there which creates frustration.
The absence of mechanisms for bringing the groups together and competitive environment
created gaps amongst them
There was resentment for marketing since it was given the function to coordinate when
some of them were not perceived as competent
R&D and product development had less influence even though they had to launch new
products.
The people at the top didnt have a clear understanding of the objectives.
There was difference between the MEPD and SMAs traditional business.

For overcoming these conflicts it was necessary to create a hierarchy so that there was clear
understanding of goals at each level. People experienced in their domain should be taken to
utilize their expertise in a rapidly changing environment. There should be team building
activities to bring groups together. Coordination function should be rotated among different
departments. The importance of each department in the team should be realized. They
should be made to feel as important by giving them an equal say and remuneration. There
should be a new compensation & benefits scheme. The difference between the businesses
should be recognized.