Reference no: EM133513259
Chap11 Case Study O'Leary's Managements Solutions
Mary O'Leary is an extremely successful management consultant. Mary worked for several large corporations in various roles before starting her consulting business. Mary's forte is using long-established management concepts and applying them in innovative ways.
Consequently, Mary is a much sought-after consultant. As the years have passed, Mary has hired other very talented people and trained them in her approach.
Currently, O'Leary Management Solutions is located in New York. However, her company of consultants travels all over the United States. At last count, they consulted in thirty-two states on a routine basis. Technology helps limit some of the travel. Conferences calls, e-mail, and transferring files using the cloud all help O'Leary work closely with their clients, while being efficient with their own time management.
As Mary reviews her company's current status and looks toward its future she wonders if it is time to open a second office location. Although technology helps, Mary is a big believer in hands-on consulting. Mary's experience tells her that meeting people face to face, when trying to find a solution to their issues, is crucial. That is getting more and more difficult to do, particularly in states closer to the west coast.
Mary plans to address this idea with her staff, but in the meantime, she did some personal brainstorming about what factors she should consider when choosing a second location. Her employees were all high powered, highly educated, successful people, many who have families. All enjoy their time off, although they don't get much of that. Although government regulations weren't a big concern, taxes for her company and employees were. Mary felt it was best to think long term and anticipate further growth, such as what new states could be future markets. One key marketing factor for Mary is being located in the high rent section of the business district. This is as important as her employees being well groomed and well dressed. First impressions often sealed the deal.
Mary eventually decides that opening a second office is a must. Mary schedules a meeting with her staff for next Thursday and plans to explain why they are opening another office and share her thoughts about the selection criteria. Also, she plans to get their feedback on what would be the best location selection criteria since some of them will have to move there.
Questions
1. The textbook lists eleven major community factors to use as selection criteria for choosing a location. Mary realizes that all factors are important; however, eleven are too many because it waters down the effect of each factor's weight. Therefore, Mary wants no more than five major factors. Based on the information in the case, which factors should Mary and her staff choose? Explain why the specific factors you picked are pertinent to Mary's company.
2. Building on question 1, weight the five factors you choose for O'Leary Management Solutions. Mary has expressed that she does not want any two factors with the same weight. Explain why you rated them as you did, that is, why one criterion is more or less important than another.
3. Mary is thinking that quality of life may be one of the factors they should pick. However, it is much too general a term to be a good indicator of the best location. Therefore, Mary believes it would be best to create a weighed factor rating matrix just for quality of life. Each location can be looked at through that specific criteria as well and the score each receives can then put inputted into the broader selection matrix. There are nine quality-of-life factors listed in the textbook. This time, Mary wants no more than four for this subweighted factor rating analysis. Which four would you recommend and why? How would you weight them and why?