Reference no: EM132912314

Case analysis

Marsden Insurance Ltd is the third largest in the insurance industry in Jamaica. Since last year they have been experiencing falling sales. The executive management team consists of: Brian Marsden, Chief Executive officer; Paula Bruce, vice president in charge of operations, Christopher Jones, vice president in charge of marketing; Paul Sing, chief financial officer, and David Nyeke, vice president in charge of technology. They are very concerned about the falling sales as they realize that some of them may be without jobs soon.

The executive management team had a meeting on Wednesday evening after work hours to discuss the financial health of the company. They were all very were trying to come up with options as to how to solve the problem. They all agreed that one of the main operating costs were those associated with the staff payments. Redundancy seemed to be the best way to solve the problem." according to Paul Sing. Christopher Jones felt that the best way to get more customers was to beat the competition to the turn-around time for processing claims.

In the end the decision was taken that they would reduce the turn-around time for processing claims from fourteen days to twenty-four hours. They also decided that they would stop paying the clerks overtime money to process the claims. David Nyeke said that over time payments ranged from five hundred thousand to one million dollars per month.

At the end of the meeting the final decisions were taken:

1. Christopher Jones should send an add to the news media immediately about the new turn-around time for processing claims with immediate effect.

2. Paula Bruce should inform the staff on Monday, about the discontinuation of the overtime payment

3. Accounts would hire a new staff to prepare checks for customers when they had their claims processed. Lue would appoint that staff member in two weeks.

4. The water dispenser located in the office for customers to use will be removed since the company could not afford to keep paying that expense.

Jones sent off an add to the media houses immediately, informing the public that Marsden Insurance Ltd would now process all accident claims within twenty-four hours effective immediately. Neither Jones nor Bruce were present at work on Friday. At the meeting, the decision was that Paula Bruce would be the one to break the news to the staff about the cut in overtime payment.

On the following Monday morning the office at Marsden Insurance was a-buzz with customers doing new business because of the advertisements airing all weekend about the new policy on the twenty-four-hour processing for accident claims. Most of them were taxi owners. When Brian Marsden entered the business office that Monday morning, he was smiling from ear to ear. "Yes!" said he, "Now we can beat the competition and we will be the most profitable business in the whole wide world!" He went directly to sit in his office when he heard a loud commotion among the staff. He opened his office door to see what was happening. Workers were shouting at the top of their voices. He could not hear what they were saying since everyone was talking at the same time.

They were shouting at Bruce who was trying to calm them down so that the customers would not hear about this disrespect by the workers. Bruce had just informed them about the discontinuation of the overtime work. They complained that they had organized their finances around that payment since the company's pay system was so poor. Many of them could not cope with the low wages and send their children to school and pay rent and transportation. To add insult to injury, the company informed customers by way of media advertising over the weekend about the reduction in claims processing time and did not even have the decency to inform the staff ahead of time. That is why the staff are so demotivated and demoralized.

John Jones, who had worked with the company for twenty years, shouted at Marsden; "Where are the systems that you have put in place to shorten the claims-processing time? Why did you not even respect us to tell us about this?

Why is it that it is the customers who are the ones to tell us about it? Do you expect staff to work overtime and not be paid? Are you ready for the strike that we are going to call? Are you prepared to have CVM and TVJ down here to report on all this slackness that you call management?

Marsden scratched his head then said to Jones, "You're fired! I don't want you working here anymore. You have no respect for management. You must go and you must go NOW!"

Bruce called Marsden aside and told him that he could not do that because workers have rights. He could not summarily dismiss him on those grounds. Marsden said to Bruce, "Well, I just did, and there is nothing he can do about that."

When Bruce looked around the corner, he saw the office full of customers listening in on all the goings-on between the staff and management.

Question 1 - What is/are the macro problem/s?

Question 2 - What is/are the micro problem/problems?

Question 3 - Give Three Causes of the Problem?

Question 4 - What systems have been affected?

Question 5 -I Should Recommend the best way to solve the problem at Marsden Insurance Ltd.

1. What is to be done? -

2. Who should do it? -

3. Time line -

4. Methodology - I SHOULD ENSURE THAT I IDENTIFY BY NAME WHO IS TO DO WHAT (E.G THE CEO SHOULD:)

5. Identify the Benefits of the actions to the organization and stakeholders