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Case Study

Table of Contents
PATCH 1: Processes of Strategy Development: Hewlett Packard Boardroom Battles...................3
Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
Political strategy which affected the strategy...............................................................................3
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................4
PATCH 2: Hurricane Katrina: Was it a disaster made by human?...................................................5
Introduction..................................................................................................................................5
Facts.............................................................................................................................................5
Formation of Katrina....................................................................................................................5
Human made disaster...................................................................................................................6
Who was responsible...................................................................................................................6
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................7
PATCH 3: Managing Change at Faslane.........................................................................................7
Introduction..................................................................................................................................7
How change was imposed?..........................................................................................................8
Levers of Change.........................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

PATCH 1: Processes of Strategy Development: Hewlett Packard Boardroom Battles

Introduction
The Hewlett Packard, known as HP, is an IT company which makes laptops, computers,
notebooks, and other ethnological items. The company was ranked in Forbes magazine 100 Best
Companies in 1998. For getting a listing on Forbes magazine, companies have to develop
employee trust. This magazine was the first magazine which was published by magazine and HP
got a ranking of 10th. Hewlett Packard remains at this position for several years. In 2002, HP was
removed from the list of Forbes magazine. HP tried their best within nine years but was not able
to come in the list of Forbes magazine. Company in 2010 was said to be a company which have
low values (Undermined Values). In 1997, company delivered a lot of technical material to the
countries in which sanctions were imposed by US. The hp because of that selling suffered a lot
of political pressure from the government officials.
Political strategy which affected the strategy
The HP case shows that the company was one of successful IT Company. Company was losing
its market share because there was a political activities going in between board. The members of
the board were criticizing each other publicly and because of which company suffered a lot of
losses. The company revenue was good but at same time the turnover was a height. The CEO in
2002 was Florida who criticized one of the board members because of not acquiring Compaq and
because of which the company share price was affected badly (Reid and Toffel, 2009). Also a
report was published in newspaper the hp board members were leaking the information to press
which was confidential information. The company was not performing well because all board
members were not working as a team. They were working on their own and were not supporting
any decision
According to De Andres and Vallelado (2008), it is a general theory that the company board of
directors should be supporting the decisions of Chief operating officer of the company and also
giving company proper directions. The board of directors and CEO should work together to
achieve company objectives. In case of HP it was not working, the company board of directors
was not working together. Everyone was working on its own. After florida the Mark Hurd was
hired as an CEO, his emphasis was only on cutting the costs of the company. The company under

his supervision decreased a lot of costs but the innovation was also decreased and company lost
its market share. The company was not innovating any new things. After Hurd departed the new
CEO was hired without even informing the board members and he was not having any
experience of handling such a big company. He was the CEO of a small company SAP which
was very small in comparison of HP. The new CEO decision of shuffling the board was not
supported by the board and because of which company share price was affected a lot. The
company personnel emails were getting leaked. Nothing was confidential, the company
information was leaking outside. There was a lot of criticism between the board members of HP.
The HP CEO decisions were not backed by the support of boar of members and neither the
decisions were good for the company. The board of directors denies sitting together in same
room. The CEO idea was to start focusing on business to busiess transaction as there was high
margin in that. The company also launched a tablet which was flopped and company suffered
sufficient losses from that as well. The new CEO apotheker was not working in favor of the
company.
All the statements issued by the company were against the company CEO or the board. The
political fights among the board members and the CEO decrease the share price a lot. The
company was not earning profits and turnover rate was increasing. The general rule is that the
company should have a supporting board of members team who should be behind every CEO
decision. A company not having proper board members will always suffer as it is the most
important part of the company and without this the company will suffer a lot. The company
decisions should be backed by BOD. In case of Hp, it was all opposite and was not working well.
The company lost a lot of market share (Pearce, Manz, Sims, 2008).
Also, the company did a mistake in 1997 to sold items to the areas which are prohibited and
sanctioned areas by the US. The company because of that deal suffered a lot of government
pressure and because of which share prices were drained a lot. The company wrong decisions
and the leaking of the confidential information was the main reason behind the company losses.
Conclusion
The HP Company was the top most IT Company. The company started losing its market share
because of the problems among the board of directors and the CEO. The CEO was publicly
criticizing the company board of directors. The board of directors was not supporting any

decision and also they denied to even sitting together in a room. The company one CEO was
focusing on cost and on the other hand the innovation also declined which affects a lot to the
share price of the company. The company another CEO was not hired by the board and because
of which no one was supporting him and his decisions. The all decisions taken by him were on
his own. Also the CE hired was of a small company and he was not having idea about such a big
company. To conclude, the companies in which the board of directors and CEO have problems
suffer a lot in terms of profitability.

PATCH 2: Hurricane Katrina: Was it a disaster made by human?

Introduction
Hurricane Katrina was a storm which hit US in 2005. On 29 th August 2005, this storm hit the
United States gulf coast. The storm was rated as number three when it hits the United States. The
storm damaged a lot to the US economy. Some cities were fully damaged and there was no one
to help them. This storm leads to a lot of flooding. The storm hits majorly Mississippi, Louisiana,
and Alabama. The peoples of these countries lost their homes in this storm and they claim that
the United States federal government was late. They should have taken action earlier. The
estimated damage by the experts of the USA was around $100 billion. US suffer a lot of cost
because of this storm.
Facts
This Hurricane Katrina was said to be the 3rd largest Hurricane which hits the US land. As
mentioned earlier the rating fixed for Katrina was 3 but soon it takes the rating of 5. The winds
were with the speed of 175 mph. The people who died in this Hurricane was 1836, majorly was
from Louisiana, and then Mississippi. The victims were mainly the senior citizens. The height of
the storm was 20 ft. Because of the hurricane, many people are still missing. This storm in total
affects a total population of 15 million. Many countries donated a lot of amount to US because of
Katrina Hurricane. The countries who donated were China, Pakistan, Qatar, Bangladesh and
India (Kates, Colten, Laska and Leatherman, 2006).
Formation of Katrina
According to Burby (2006), this storm was formed on 23 rd August 2005 in the Southeast
Bahamas. The clouds of the storms started wrapping together and formed a major storm, which

was named as Katrina. On August 25 th the storm moves toward the Florida, at that time the
category of storm was 1. Katrina actually got slow after its attack on Florida. The storm again
gained its speed and damaged a lot of people in different countries.
Human made disaster
The efforts regarding the rescue of the people after the storm Katrina was not enough and was
highly politicized. The local and federal states were not working to rescue people but were only
blaming each other for this fault. People blamed to federal government for not coming at the
right time, whereas they also blamed local government because they were not able to inform
people regarding this storm. Many people claimed that they were unaware of this storm. The
Federal emergency management agency was not able to handle this disaster properly. They just
posted a warning on their page one day before. The storm after a decade was claimed to be the
natural disaster. The disaster was named as natural disaster because of the failure of government.
The president Obama while addressing a crowd claimed that the storm was man-made storm.
There was no doubt that the disaster was a natural disaster, but it was made a man-made disaster
because government was unable to inform people regarding this storm and also they were unable
to reach at time for recovery of the people. Obama in his speech claimed that the government
was inefficient at their level. There was a lot of inequality was going on. The poor people
suffered a lot in this storm because the proper measures were not taken for them. He also
highlighted that the people of color affected a lot in Katrina (Hatman, 2006).
Who was responsible
The disaster was a man-made disaster and it was claimed by the United States. The disaster
caused by Katrina was because of the engineering of the cities. The Army Corps of Engineers
claimed that it was their own failure in defense of the city. Recently US are spending a total
amount of $5 billion to make strong walls which can handle the pressure of a storm. There had
been many cases because of bad weather and somewhat not good engineering. This was the case
in which it was claimed that the failure was mainly because of the political failure. The fighting
of the higher authorities in between was the main reason behind this disaster. The authorities
were fighting between each other rather than helping people who are affected. Army cops besides
spending a lot on the cities which were affected have invested a lot in the cities which are not yet
affect but are expected to suffer. The federal emergency management agency, local and federal

government was both responsible for this storm Katrina. The local government was unable to
even inform all residents regarding this storm and federal government was unable to come at
right time to save people from this storm (Tiemey, Bevc, and kuligowski, 2006).
Conclusion
The Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst floods to hid United States. The management during
the storm was not an easy task but it would have been managed if United States government
would have worked properly except fighting with each other. The president in 2005 was Bush
and at that time when flood hit, people claimed that the government didnt handle this situation
properly. The local and federal government was blaming each other and was not doing anything
for the affected citizens. Many higher authorities were removed from their seats and new
appointments had been done. The disaster was a natural disaster but government officials acts as
petrol in fire. They raised the disaster bar rather than decreasing it. They made this natural
disaster as the man-made disaster. There was a lot of inequality at that time. The poor people
suffered a lot than the rich people and among those poor people mainly were the black people.
The disaster caused the damage of over $100 billion and a lot of money was donated by different
countries. The major fault as found from the case was of the US officials (FEMA) and the worse
engineering of the city. The city engineering was not good that it can handle a storm or any
situation like this. This was also confirmed by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

PATCH 3: Managing Change at Faslane

Introduction
Faslane is a naval base Clyde. It is a home for storing nuclear submarines which are used for
trident system of weapons. The Faslane was an installation of MOD-Ministry of Defense, but it
was handed over to the private sector organization Babock International. The Babock office
related to marine was assigned with the duty to neglect a Gareloch in which US 148 meter long
submarines were maintained. Beside a base office the sailor accommodation is also at there.
These all were maintained under the fence walls. Babock Marine was not much involved in naval
base jobs. The Faslane was handed over to Babock when ministry of defense thought to reduce
the costs, and it was not an easy task to do while operating under the restrictions of civil service.
For decreasing its cots, the MOD starts making partnerships with the top most industrial firms.

Because of the decision of reducing cost by MOD, this task was handled to Babock and it was
warned that the operations of the company should not be affected at all.
How change was imposed?
The Babock people were being brought in who was suffered through these processes. The
peoples who got transferred were unaware of the policies of the naval base. The naval base was
having different policies for different things and the Babock people were unaware of it. MOD
transferred the Babock people to them who can decrease this difference. Management of change
at Faslane was not a easy task as it was a government institute and they were not worried about
the costs rather than quality. The change was necessary to implement. A lot of costs were spent
on the things which can be decreased by a sufficient amount. The given example in the case was
of the process of checking documents. The documents were checked by some officers and they
all were given a time period of 14 days. Everyone was aware of the fact that the documents are
only checked by the officers on 13th Day. So the Babock decreased the time period to 2 days. The
process of documents checking before this change was taking a total time of 56 days whereas
after the change the process time period was decreased to six days.
Babock was having a management which will not work for implementing change at Faslane as
they work as a corporate culture. The normal practice was to implement management structure
change first which was not right for a navy base so it was not a right thing to do. The change was
first implemented in lower levels and then it moves upward. All lower level changes were made
because these changes didnt take much time and are easy to do. The lower level change was
implemented and it benefits a total of 14 million Euros in first year while having a target of 3
million Euros. The direct implement of transformational change will not work as for making a
transformational change one requires full powers. These much powers were not given to Babock.
Thats why they started for management change. After successful implementation of change at
lower level company started to make transformational change by just keeping those members in
management team who have those skills. The management team at starting was of 250 which
were decreased to 125 after that.
The major problem was to deal with the local councils, which comprised of a total of 9.5% of
navy work force; it was reduced by 400 people. The other thing which was considered while
making change was that the normal practices of the navy is not affected. For example: if security

personnel would have decreased by a amount the stakeholders must have questioned that what is
reason behind decreasing security as security of naval was the one of the main objective to
achieve. So to start with the lower level change and then going for transformational change was
the technique used for implementing change at Faslane.
Levers of Change
There are mainly 5 levers of the management of change. These levers are sponsorship, training,
communication, coaching, and management of resistance (Sharpe, Benfield, and Francis, 2006).
These are the levers which are used to manage a change in an organization. These levers can be
customized depending on the type of organization. The change levers were the most important
thing to consider as these enable proper understanding of the change and managing it properly.
Every lever has its own importance and work on each level. In case of Faslane the first lever
which was implemented was the communication lever. In company there was a lot of
miscommunication was going on or the things were taking a lot of time. The communication
lever was implemented in as sense to deliver right things at right place at right time. Everything
was communicated properly with the navy that how change will be implemented without
disturbance to the normal operations.
The other lever which was used for the management of change was resistance management lever
which means that how resistance will be managed and this was the most important lever to
consider. There were a lot of restrictions from different bodies as this was a navy base so no
compromise can be done with security and the quality of the product. The resistance was high
initially, the Babock was told to deliver change bit without disturbing normal operations. The
resistance management change lever used to be handled properly as this lever involves a lot of
stress to be handled by the manager. The handle of resistance need carefulness and also the
manager have to make sure that there is no other resistance comes out of this. The other levers
which could have been used to manage the change are coaching lever, sponsorship roadmap
lever, and training lever. These levers of change management could have been used if this was
not a naval base. But the implemented policies were successful and a lot of costs were
maintained through implementing these practices. It was announced in 2010 that all UK
submarines will be stored at Faslane. The Faslane even becomes bigger and a lot of costs were
saved through changing different policies and paths of checking documents.

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References
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