Assignment 1_Cliff (2)

Assignment 1

Insert name

Institutional affiliation

Assignment 1

Overview of the New Company

Superior Technologies is a small software company that has 60 employees. The company was founded by two partners, Malcolm White and Bruce Thomson, who were former college classmates, in 2016. White was the Chief Financial Officer whereas Thomson is the Chief Executive Officer of the company. Superior Technologies’ headquarters are in New York City. The company also has offices in Chicago, Illinois, and Vermont, Virginia. Since its incorporation, Superior Technologies has grown gradually without the need for mergers or acquisitions. However, increased competition threatens the continued existence of the company, which prompted White and Thomson to seek a merger with a similar company.

Palmer Technologies is this company. Palmer Technology was founded by Stephen Palmer in 2015. It specializes in the development of mobile technology applications. The company’s headquarters are in San Francisco Bay Area, California. It also has operations in Dallas, Texas, and Settle, Washington. Palmer Technology has 80 employees. The company is renowned for the development of high quality innovative mobile technology solutions. Palmer Technologies and Superior Technologies merged their operations to combine their synergies in the face of stiff competition in the industry. The new entity would be referred to as Supermer Technologies. The headquarters of the new entity would be in San Francisco Bay Area. Being located at the heart of Silicon Valley would enable Supermer Technologies have access to a pool of talented employees that would help in improving the competitiveness of the company (Noe et al., 2017). However, the company will also retain its New York offices for commercial purposes.

The CEO of Superior Technologies would become the Chief Technology Officer whereas the previous CEO of Palmer Technologies would be the CEO of the new entity, Supermer Technologies. The company would also have various departmental heads that would report to the CEO. These include the sales and marketing, research and development, human resource management, production, and accounting and finance. As such, Supermer would have a functional organizational structure with each employee having one clear supervisor.

Supermer Technologies would provide a competitive benefits package and pay plan. The company acknowledges the importance of the benefits package and pay plan in the ability to attract and retain highly talented employees. Therefore, the company would provide the employees with health insurance, annual paid, share plan, paid maternity leave, and sabbaticals. In case of any questions, one can contact Mary Hill, the human resource manager through 415-200-0434.

Training on the New Organization Systems

Due to the merger, Supermer would adopt new organizational systems. The company will use Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Google Drive. Supermer Technologies will use Microsoft Dynamics 365 to for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and the customer relationship management (CRM). One of the main benefits of Microsoft Dynamics 365 is that it would support apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. In addition, the apps in Microsoft Dynamics 365 are available offline. Therefore, it would enable the employees of the company to work without data connectivity and the data would subsequently be synced automatically when internet connectivity is established. In addition, the business apps of Microsoft Dynamics 365 would can be deployed as a package or independently as a company grows and expand. Therefore, Palmer Technologies can deploy the business apps in various locations of the company and continue adding new apps as these locations expand. Microsoft Dynamics 365 would also integrate into OneNote, Outlook, Lync, SharePoint, and other Microsoft applications. In so doing, it would be reduce double entry and save time.

The company will also use Google Drive to store information. This would enable the employees of the company access various documents remotely. They would only require having an internet connectivity. These systems would enable Supermer Technologies to create a flexible work environment, which would improve employee satisfaction. This would go a long way towards improving the competitiveness of the company.

Employees would be trained on how to use these new systems since failure to ensure there is optimal use of the systems would make the company fail to realize the benefits of the implementation of the systems. Training would be conducted one week before the systems go “live.” The employees would receive training at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco Bay Area. Even though this would be expensive as it would require the employees based in the New York office to travel to San Francisco, it would ultimately benefit the company as these systems would be vital to the normal operations of the company. If the employees do not know how to use these systems, they may jeopardize the operations of the company. The company will only train managerial employees on how to use the new systems. These employees would subsequently train their subordinates. Training of the managerial staff would take one week. They would then go use an additional week to train their subordinates. This would reduce the costs of training the employees on how to use the new organizational systems (Omotayo, 2015).

New Timesheet System

Since the company would provide flexible working hours, it would be vital to ensure there is an efficient timesheet system that would meet the needs of the company. Supermer Technologies would use Hubstaff (hubststaff.com) as the new timesheet system. This system would be compatible with various systems. It can be used as a desktop time tracking app. It can also run on Windows, Linux, and Mac devices. Hubstaff also has an iOS app and an Android app that the company can use to track the locations and GPS of the employees using their mobile devices.

Hubstaff facilitates both manual and automatic timesheet entries. The employees would record their time accurately and submit their time series by the end of the business week. The built-in approval process of the system would enable the managers to view each timesheet and approve it.

The employees would receive training on how to use the new timesheet system through asynchronous virtual training. This is due to the fact that some of the employees may not located within the company’s premises but would like to know how to use the timesheet while undertaking their daily work duties. The company would seek the services of third-party vendors who would provide modules on how to use Hubstaff.

Supermer Technologies would use the Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) policy. This policy would reduce the resources that the company requires to train its employees on how to use the new timesheet system. The company would request employees to install the new system in their personal electronic devices. Since the employees are confortable working with their devices, it would increase their likelihood of the being conversant with the new timesheet system.

New Project Management System

Supermer Technologies would use Workzone (workzone.com) in project management. This system would provide various benefits such as having personalized to-do lists, the ability to assign people more than one task, and develop Gantt charts quickly to see the status of projects. One of the major benefits of the project management system is its capability of setting permissions for certain users to access projects, files, and tasks. This would be vital as it would ensure there is managerial control of projects. Training on the new project management system would take one week. It would involve all employees of the company. Supermer will conduct in-person training using third-party vendors. The company will put more emphasis in this training since project management is vital in the ultimate success of Supermer Technologies.

Conclusion

As the head of the training department, I appreciate the fact that the training should be staggered. This would ensure each of the employees receives appropriate training to enable them perform their functions effectively using the new systems. It would also ensure the resources of the training department are not stretched. This would require the training department to seek use its employees and also seek the services of third-party vendors. These vendors may be more conversant with the new systems than the training department. The vendors would also provide training to the members of the training department to improve their capabilities of offering effective training to the employees of the company. Ultimately, it is vital for the company to ensure that the training leads to the creation of an effective workplace practices that would improve its competitiveness and profitability.

References

Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2017). Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

Omotayo, F. O. (2015). Knowledge Management as an important tool in Organisational Management: A Review of Literature. Library Philosophy and Practice, 1(2015), 1-23.