Brief case study for “The Recalcitrant Director at Byte Products, Inc.” Terri Grisafi MGMT 6301 Fall 202 Prof. Christian

Byte Products is a leading manufacturer of specialized electronic components used in computers for business and engineering. With their main headquarters located in the Midwest, they are the largest volume supplier with 32% of the market and an industry leader with annual sales of $265 million and for the last six years sales have been increasing every year an average of 12%. In this case study, the situation Byte is facing is that their production facilities are operating at 100% capacity. Byte has three facilities in the United States and they are all running three 8 hr. …show more content…

Obviously the board and the shareholders were happy that the company was profitable but they did not plan for what was necessary to support future sales. The C.E.O. who was also on the board is doubly at fault for not doing the same. He should have presented a strategic plan to the board and they should have reviewed it. Corporate governance is one main issue in this case because a board of directors has a responsibility to the shareholders to oversee the activities of the corporation and to insure they are protected as well as to maximize profits. There is a conflict of interest when the C.E.O. is also the chairman of the board because the board may feel pressured to always go along with what the C.E.O. says. In this case it seems that neither the C.E.O. nor the board had a plan to deal with increased production needs.
I think that Byte’s situation should have been addressed initially at the Evaluation and Control step of the strategic management model. They were obviously tracking their increased sales but where was the evaluation of how those numbers affected their production. They should have seen their limitations and planned for their increased product demands. This would have returned them to the first part of the strategic management mode, environmental scanning. Internally, their strengths did lie in the fact that that had a very efficient production system and they were a