Providian Trust: Tradition and Technology (A) A New CEO Within two weeks of accepting the position of CEO of Providian Trust Company, Stephen Walsh, a lawyer by training, faced an unusual corporate conflict and he would have to play the role of judge. There was an extraordinary difference of opinion between Providian Trust’s internal auditor, Peter Storey, and the leaders of a major information technology (IT) project in the trust division. “Peter’s extremely vocal point ran to the issue of documentation, that it was incomplete and should be brought up to speed,” explained Walsh. The conflict reached a climax during an Audit Committee meeting on May 13, 1995, when members of the committee, who were all on the Providian Trust board of directors, expressed to Walsh that they had lost confidence in the internal auditor and recommended that the external auditor, Steinman & Smith, do an analysis of the project documentation prior to implementation. The purpose of the project was to convert the trust division’s outdated information system into a more efficient system using Access Plus, new trust and custody management software made by Select One.
The stress that can compel a company to doctor their financial data can override the compromise of ethics within an organization. A look back at the catastrophic financial mistakes of health care organizations in the past illustrates the devastation unethical accounting can cause. HealthSouth provides an excellent glimpse into the horrible consequences when it all comes crashing down. According to Bouchard (2012), "Committing fraud, said the former CFO, had consequences he couldn’t and didn’t foresee. It nearly destroyed him emotionally, which is why he retired to everyone’s surprise in 1997 at the age of 54, just a year after the fraud began.
Employee feedback was discouraged. Critique of Lehman’s corporate policy was not tolerated, and questioning of its risky business practices snubbed or worse, as in the case of Lehman’s “whistle blower” Matthew Lee. According to Andrew Clark of the Guardian (2010), Lee “a worried accounting executive at Lehman Brothers raised alarm about what he saw as dubious number-crunching at the doomed Wall Street Bank” (para. 1). Just one month after alerting auditors to his findings, Lee was dismissed from his role as senior vice president of the financial division citing workforce reduction.
Malicious attacks can be brought on by disgruntled employees that want to get back at the organization by disrupting the flow of operation which causes financial loss for the company. There attacks can damage security systems immobilizing the networks for days while security teams try to get the system repaired and back to operation. All kinds of data are vulnerable to these types of attacks because they happen within an organization by people that have access to the credentials required to perform malicious attacks. The potential risks for employee negligence can be high too as small employee mistakes can lead to bigger problems down the road. According to Benson (2012), “Users, data entry clerks, system operators, and programmers frequently make unintentional errors that contribute to security problems, directly and indirectly” (Christopher Benson, 2012).
Unit 3 Focus Paper / Systems Theory Latrice Taylor GM504-2 (1108D) Organizational Excellence and Change 12/20/2011 Professor Linda Moershell INTRODUCTION In this focus paper I will be addressing the systems concepts of Wal-Mart. We will be exploring their internal and external processes. Wal-Mart is an outstanding organization that has practically dominated the retail industry. They have managed to exceed the competition and still prosper in this economy. They have a really persistent way of doing business that has given them a great advantage to prosper.
Case Study Series: What’s Working in Marketing & Selling Professional Services Crisis Averted: Proactive Sales Effort Stops Training Organization’s Revenue Loss By M. Sharon Baker Overview When Tony Jace took over in March 2009 as chief executive officer of Crisis Prevention Institute, he was looking forward to continuing the organization’s 28 consecutive years of revenue growth. But he quickly learned that the previous management team hoped to grow revenues by entering into new markets and had invested heavily to do so. And that plan was failing. The Wisconsin-based crisis training organization was facing a revenue decline of several hundred thousand dollars for the year and Jace needed to act quickly. Situation Jace knew achieving a 29th year of revenue growth in a very uncertain economic climate would be tough.
-The project has been given a deadline of ten weeks, with Rankin and his 5-member team in charge of technical implementation. -Bob Finley had a confrontation with Lynn Johnston, resulting in the two avoiding each other during the middle of the project. -Midway through the project, Team member Sally Phillips left the company for better prospects. -Rankin manages his employees simply by telling them his expectations, and only tries justifies the long hours and lack of sleep by telling them that he expects no more of them than he does of himself. Assumptions • Mike Frazer wants the system implemented in 10 weeks because he views it as the answer to the company’s lackluster follow up sales.
The “American world view” is embodied as the fast food industry is probably one of the greatest examples of capitalism, which is what America is most known for. It symbolizes the opportunity that people get to work their way up the economic ladder and strike it rich. It also defines the type of food that is considered “American” to the entire world. Chapter 1: The Founding Fathers (Histories of numerous fast food
He knows that the slim profit margins associated with trucking, coupled with a downturn in the economy, could spell disaster if Starfire were saddled with too much debt. August 2013 I S T R AT E G I C F I N A N C E 55 2014 STUDENT C ASE COMPETITION Roger Simmons, Starfire’s operations manager for the past 16 years, reviewed the FHP proposal and thought it was a great opportunity for the company. He approached James to talk about it, and within 10 minutes they were in a closed-door meeting going over the pros and cons of the offer. Simmons began: “Alan, this is a huge opportunity for us to grow the business. Not to mention, as FHP becomes more dependent on our
Especially three main customers announced bankruptcy during this period. Moreover, the main supplier’s foam gave off bad smell after being incorporated in Simmons product. Finally, he employees lack team spirit, people skills and communication skills (both at a horizontal as well as vertical level). Since Charlie Eitel was hired as CEO, his goal is to make the company a place where people like to work and with whom customers like to deal with. He made effort on product innovation, reorganized the management, and focused on customers’ needs.