Maureen Frye at Quaker Alloy & Steel Company

Maureen Frye at Quaker Alloy & Steel Company

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• Background on the company. A company’s past can greatly affect the present and future state of the organization. Make sure your case study analysis investigates the company’s founding, critical incidents, structure, and growth.

• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the company. For example, make a list of the value creation functions of the company. For example, the company may be weak in product development, but strong in marketing.

• Identify the actors. Describe the key players, from the CEO to the plant floor manager, in the study. Provide information on their education, how they got to their current position, their business philosophy and their views and roles in the problem the study is spotlighting. In this section, a strong case study will also describe unique qualities about the person. For example, if the company leader wears Brooks Brothers button down shirts, but works in the Silicon Valley where executives wear polo shirts, put this in the case study. It is a piece of information that speaks loudly about one of the main players in the study.

• Evaluate the problem or the potential solutions. Make sure this section requires the reader to think critically and analytically about the different paths to take. Make sure to have enough information for a good analysis. Some of the areas you can spotlight can be: corporate level strategy; business level strategy; business strategy implementation and organizational structure.

• Come to a conclusion. Your case will need a conclusion. Rather than putting in your answer in the case, leave the reader with some more questions.

Maureen Frye at Quaker Steel and Alloy Corporation

1. What were the mistakes made by Maureen Frye?

2. What would you do if you were Maureen Frye at the end of the case?

Key Facts of Case

• She first proposed the idea in 1994 to Salk. The idea was to reallocate the time being spent on smaller clients to larger accounts. Her analysis and conclusion was reached based on computer simulations.

• Presented to Bethancourt in early 1995. Final meeting being held in December 1995. The idea has been around for long and she has had time to develop it and communicate its necessity and the factors affecting success.

• She has the support of her supervisors and they are enthusiastic and hopeful for successful implementation.

Background

Maureen Frye has been working on and is proposing a change in the call patterns of salespeople responsible for selling extruded titanium alloy products. Initially developed as an idea by Frye, the proposal has the backing