Wendy Peterson Case Study

Executive summary- Lily

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Situation analysis- Lily

AccountBack is an accouting and software services company with 400 employees and $400,000 of revenues. The CEO of AccountBack, Will Gleason and Travis Hardiman retired and the new CEO was determined to boost the company’s growth again by replacing the vice presidents of sales in number of offices with the company’s most enterprising young sales directors given with aggressive growth targets. Wendy Peterson was one of the promoted employees, being named vice president of sales for AccountBack’s Plano, Texas. Sales executives job is to investing time getting to know clients and their business before submitting an initial proposal. Once the clients agree to sign the contract, responsibility will be transferred to an AccountBack account service team. Sales executives and account service teams collaborate to keep the contract and abreast of implementation challenges as well as of potential add-ons that their clients might need. After six years working of managing client engagements, Peterson decided for a change to work in sales, and she agreed to grow the revenues of her underperforming office by 40% in two years in order to receive a substantial bonus.

Wendy Peterson is a young, dynamic, and well-based with Economics degree at the top of her Ivy League university class in 2000 and six years working experience. As a junior-level sales executives, she was one of the few sales employees who brought in lots of new business to AccountBack in 2008 despite the global financial crisis. She believed that by making her team closer, changing the culture by investing in activities both inside and outside the office (offering lunch every Wednesdays, going bowling one afternoon, kayaking along the nearby Trinity River, after hour drinks, etc) would promote collegiality and collaboration. She did not hesitate when her colleagues ask for help, even she always walked around office asking her team if they need helps and give them solutions ( “which sometimes interrupted their jobs”, said one direct report). She is the type of person that does not want to be caught by negative news, therefore, she kept herself on tracks with every colleagues and wanted them to report ( micro manager), generating new ideas for new business, add-on services, and sales techniques. Revenue of AccountBack mostly form 11 top senior sales people, Wendy fired the top senior sales executive when he questioned the tactics, company lost the biggest producer and clients went with him. From 2003 to 2008, She did her own research and found out that fast-growing service businesses founded by Chinese entrepreneurs from mainland China had sprouted in Plano. She wanted to hire a right salesperson with priority to speak Mandarin for the new Chinese market.

Wu Fred was hired. He was born and raised in China and went to the U.S for 2 years to study business and economics. He immigrated to the U.S in 2004 and successfully launched and operated a printing business in Dallas then sold it to a larger printing company later in 2007. During his first month, he was a very dedicated employee: he went to work early in the morning and left the office late almost everyday, he studied company’s products and services, and compiled a list of questions, he helped his new colleagues to navigate the new tools. His first year goals were met and he even exceed the target in December. Wu closed his first business deal worths over $400,000 in annual fees eight months after he was hired. However, after his first month at work, his performances were inconsistent. He started not showing at the office regularly as before, and even less than the vast employees, which he excused himself for working outside, meeting with potential customers. As a person like to work and catch up often with employees, Wendy found this uncomfortable. Wu rather spent time working alone and outside office than collaborate with his co-workers. He had lots of bills from expensive restaurants with the reasons to meet his clients and a large amount of money on add-on services to a customer without asking for Peterson’s approval before head. He did not answer his phone in office as everyone neither used company’s software. After all, Wu requested Wendy for his private assistant to help him answer phone calls. Wendy knew that Wu understands that this is unreasonable since only the minority of excellent executives has their own assistant.