Rock of Ages

Patriot Consulting Group Norwich University August 21, 2010

Patriot Consulting Group Authors Michael Braun Bradley Brill Michael Davila Audra Gray Erin Paradis

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Table of Contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................................3 Statement of Purpose....................................................................................................................4 Background Information..............................................................................................................6 Human Resources Environment...................................................................................................7 Current State of Rock of Ages Intangible Assets Human Capital..............................................................................................................................8 Information Capital......................................................................................................................9 Organizational Capital................................................................................................................10 Summary of Key Problems........................................................................................................11 Targets for Change.....................................................................................................................12 Strategic Action Plan Overview of Strategy Map.........................................................................................................13 Human Capital Adjustments......................................................................................................13 Information Capital Adjustments...............................................................................................17 Organizational Capital Adjustments..........................................................................................19 Justification for Strategy Effects of Human Capital Alignment.........................................................................................21 Effects of Information Capital Alignment.................................................................................21 Effects of Organizational Capital Alignment..............................................................................23 Conclusion..................................................................................................................................24 Bibliography...............................................................................................................................25

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Introduction Rock of Ages (RoA) Corporation was founded in 1885 and is an integrated granite quarrier and manufacturer whose principal product is granite memorials used primarily in cemeteries. The Company believes that it is the largest quarrier and manufacturer of finished granite memorials and granite blocks for memorial use in North America, based on revenues. The Company also sells memorials wholesale to approximately 95 independent authorized RoA retailers, that are the primary distribution channel for the Company's branded memorials in the U.S.(ROA Corporate Overview, 2009, p.4). RoAs financial situation has deteriorated significantly over the past five

years. This has led to RoAs management to halt its acquisition efforts while imposing strict limits on capital expenditures. RoA board members believe a key contributor to the

organizations economic crisis is a failure to align their intangible assets with RoAs strategy. This report will recommend specific strategies and initiatives RoA should pursue in order to more efficiently manage their intangible assets in order to achieve the companys strategy. The conclusion will list recommendations detailing the methods to better utilize the companys intangible assets, strategic job families the company should concentrate on, different learning and growth objectives, initiatives and measurements to support the strategic job families. End state is ROA is better prepared to meet present and future business challenges successfully.

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Statement of Purpose RoA Mission Statement states RoA seeks to become North America's pre-eminent and lowest cost quarrier and supplier of granite blocks of high quality and internationally recognized granites for either architectural or memorial use and the pre-eminent and lowest cost manufacturer and wholesaler of high quality branded granite memorials and other specialty granite products and services (ROA Corporate Report, 2009, p.5). RoA is failing to achieve this mission statement and without a strong push to redirect the company towards its strategic goals the future of RoA could be in jeopardy. RoA is at a critical crossroad and must ensure it is using all its assets to their full extent to maximize their performance. This is especially true of RoAs intangible assets, which are not properly aligned with RoAs strategy. Intangible assets are the ultimate source of sustainable value creation but must be properly measured in order to be properly managed (Kaplan & Norton, 2004, p. 7). Only by concentrating on learning and growth objectives in order to measure these intangible assets can RoA ensure they are aligned with their strategy. Additionally management must identify the strategic job families crucial to continued success and ensure these jobs receive RoAs full support. RoA is facing a crisis which left unchecked could lead to its ruin. However with a well thought out plan and carefully designed strategy map RoA can utilize the strengths of its intangible assets to position itself for not only a successfully turnaround but also achieve the goals outlined in its mission statement.

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Background Information

RoA Corporation has been a leader in granite quarrying and manufacturing for over 125 years. As one of the oldest companies in the memorial industry, the company is known for its trademark granite memorials and high-quality products. Our company has been primarily

concerned with quarrying and manufacturing granite products, and in conjunction with its initial public offering in 1997 we invested in an aggressive retail strategy and acquired over 80 retail locations in over 16 states (Annual Report, 2009). In order to best serve its shareholders, RoA sold its retail division in January 2008 and now sells granite products wholesale to 115 authorized independent retailers in the United States and 116 retailers in Canada (Annual Report, 2009). RoA produces raw granite quarry products and manufactured granite products, including a diverse line of granite memorials. Despite the companys pursuit of becoming the lowest-cost and highest-quality manufacturer and wholesaler of granite products, RoA experienced significant revenue decreases in recent years. Between 2008 and 2009, revenue in the quarrying division decreased from $29 million to $22 million, and revenue in the manufacturing division decreased from $27.2 million to $23.9 million (Annual Report, 2009). Several factors including global competition, changes in the industry, adjustments in leadership and company strategy, and shifts in the economy contributed to the significant financial losses. In order to effectively combat these challenges, we need to first understand our corporations assets, target weak sectors of operations, and execute a strategy that will strengthen our assets, processes, relationships with customers and that will ultimately lead to financial growth for the company. A thorough analysis of the human resource environment, financial indicators and intangible assets will allow us to identify our strategic processes and job families that will have the greatest positive impact upon RoA in our pursuit of excellence and dominance in the industry.

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Human Resource Environment Industry RoAs unique integration of both quarrying and manufacturing of granite contributes to the companys challenges of maintaining a competitive status in two different industries. Its quarry operations fall under the stone dimension industry and its manufacturing of granite products are mostly part of the memorial industry. Raw granite blocks from RoAs various quarries are purchased for memorials, industrial machines and building materials. The types of granite differ in terms of grade, quality, and color. Manufactured products include memorials markers for cemeteries, mausoleums, and precision granite products such as surface plates, machines bases and measuring devices. RoA primary products memorials are sold to authorized independent retailers and directly to customers. (Annual Report, 2009) Competition Competition for both the quarry division and the manufacturing division are high. The quarry division must compete with other granite and natural stone quarries, as well as engineered products that have similar properties to granite. RoA must compete with foreign manufacturers of granite products from China, India and South Africa that have fewer regulatory and social processes which add to operation costs. (Annual Report, 2009) Technology RoA has made considerable investments in its quarry and manufacturing technology to improve its products and remain competitive in the stone dimension and memorial product industries. The three primary methods used in quarry channeling are jet torches, slot drills and diamond wire saws (RoA Video, 2010). Implementing new technologies may improve

productivity but can be costly to install. For precision manufacturing of memorial products, sand

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carving and specialized saws are used (RoA Video, 2010). These technologies and methods allow for product specialization and craftsmanship. In the area of information technology, RoA had difficulty integrating systems between the quarrying and manufacturing divisions but was able to implement a standard financial system (Norwich, 2009). The major discrepancy seems to be in streamlining information between retail sales and the two divisions since the retail sales are now done through independent retailers. Demographics RoA human capital demographics are diverse. Though the corporation only employs approximately 230 employees (Norwich, 2009), the unique skills required for different operations necessitate the hiring of workers from a variety of backgrounds. Master sculptors, quarry laborers, managers, IT specialists, financial experts, and many more contribute their knowledge and skills to RoAs human capital assets. The diversity of jobs mean the workforce also represents various levels of education, training, and years of experience. Operations RoAs Board of Directors and Chief Officers oversee all corporate operations and business processes to ensure the company is working in the best interest of its shareholders. The primary divisions of the company, manufacturing and quarrying, each have specific operational procedures that allow for the harvesting of granite and transfer of raw materials into deliverable goods. Since RoA is a multi-million dollar corporation, the complexity of its operations

necessitates a clear business strategy to align intangible assets of human capital, information capital and organizational capital in its efforts to reduce operational costs and increase productivity. (Annual Report, 2009)

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Current State of RoA Intangible Assets Human Capital When considering the readiness of an organizations Human Capital, one important factor, after assessing the strategic job families, is identifying the expertise required by staff members to perform the critical internal processes. At RoA, there seems to be a lack of alignment in the organizations Human Capital with respect to the companys mission. Moreover, RoA is superfluously committed to the equitable treatment of all employees. Not to mention, they go beyond due process in disciplinary actions for employee related infringements. Yet, some of its operating facilities are still unionized which leads to the thought that even with RoA exorbitant efforts to treat all employees well there are some ambiguities amongst its employee base. While all jobs in an organization are important, usually, only certain jobs create differentiation (Kaplan & Norton, 2004). These strategic jobs usually account for approximately ten percent of the entire workforce. RoA has stated in the company mission that absolute customer dedication is key to a success (RoA, 2009), which is why it is important that RoA actively train people in these key or critical positions in the areas of customer service. Furthermore, from the mission statement description, customer service is just about everyones concern at RoA. RoA does not currently have a short-term employee evaluation system in place, nor do they actively train all employees in the areas of customer service. This is especially true for their authorized dealers. Although RoA is not directly responsible for the employees of their authorized dealers, not providing training material on how RoA should be branded through customer service is not aligning with their Customer Service Commitment. Complete customer service all the way to the family who purchase RoA products, has been expressed as being an

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important part of the RoA branding. Therefore detailed attention is needed all the way through to the end users, not just the dealers or wholesale customers. Information Capital The efficient use of information systems and information technology can have a dramatic impact on a business. In the past we have relied upon enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to manage our disparate divisions. (Laudon and Laudon, 2010, p. 56) Our former retail divisions unique requirements limited our ability to fully integrate them into our current mainstay of quarrying and manufacturing. The ERP licenses that we once used for our retail division are no longer cost effective. We have had a great deal of success in increasing IT efficiencies due to the implementation of the following: 1. Our utilization of open source, web-based databases has allowed us to lessen our hardware footprint, lower our costs due to licensing expensive ERP software, while decreasing the cost of in-house tech support. We cannot afford to commission a custom software solution, and our current web-based solution provides the repository of information available from anywhere there is an Internet connection. This is an improvement over using our own local servers. 2. Since we have been able to sub-contract these services, as well as their required support, we will continue to see our efficiencies grow. The hardware requirement to access, download, and upload information is inexpensive and does not require topend equipment. Our previous software was taxing and its continued use would have required a more robust hardware solution. 3. Virtually all of our employees have computers and Internet access, so learning the new systems is fairly easy.

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Although we have been able to implement cost-saving IT systems throughout RoA, it is far from perfect, and we will continue to strive for improvement. Organizational Capital The culture of a company is represented through its personality, the actions it takes and through its family of workers. RoA workers are mostly older, lower skilled male laborers with little formal education but possessing much experience and mechanical aptitude. Intentionally or not, this is the culture RoA has developed and the employees have embraced. While this culture represents the Vermont employees it does not transfer well outside of Vermont, resulting in difficulties finding and retaining quality labor in other divisions. Leadership has attempted several different initiatives to improve performance and increase production; however employee pushback has largely negated these initiatives. The employees have learned how to maintain status quo and avoid change in the organization. There is little true alignment between human capital, information capital and organizational capital at RoA. The different divisions do not work well together. RoA

leadership is having difficulty finding tools to train its workforce and prepare new leaders to effectively manage RoAs multitude of operations. Teamwork may be strong within the Barre division, but the gruff culture makes it difficult for the employees to work well with others for different RoA locations. While RoA intentions are good, job security and high wages should be earned through hard work and a good attitude. Workers at the Barre, VT division seem to have a complacent attitude and maybe even a fear of change. RoA needs to make a change in the hearts and minds of not only the Barre employees but also the rest of the company.

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Summary of Key Problems RoA has a variety of issues which must be addressed; the following section provides a summary of the most pressing problems. Human Capital: RoAs employees lack motivation and training. There are a select few individuals you could consider artisans in the granite trade but many of the workers are unskilled laborers. Motivation for RoA employees comes predominately from the pay and benefits or extrinsic means. Edward L. Deci writes in his book, Why We Do What We Do that For extrinsic motivation to work as a motivator there must be clarity about what behaviors are expected, and what outcomes will result from those instrumental behaviors. Based on this statement, RoA is incorrectly utilizing its extrinsic motivation because it does not make clear what is expected of its own employees. (Deci, E.L., 1996) Information Capital: RoA is getting better at developing its capabilities and efficiencies with regard to information capital. Once up-to-date sales data, a more efficient supply chain, and the e-commerce site are implemented operations will run smoother. Organizational Capital: We still have issues within our organization due to the nature of the work our employees are assigned to accomplish. Unskilled laborers can be a tough crowd and very resistant to change. There have even been instances of the deliberate sabotage of newly implemented ideas. (Robbins and Judge, 2010). Because the culture does not transfer outside of VT, we need to devise a way to broaden our employees horizons to enable us to grow more easily.

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Targets for Change Now that we have identified key problems and internal processes to address, we must target strategic job families, the strategic IT portfolio and organization change agenda for alignment. Kaplan and Norton state that the focus on jobs, IT systems and change agenda that are most critical for alignment will contribute to speed of action and efficient spending (2004). If we target specific areas for improvement we will save money on resources and execute strategic changes more efficiently. Targeting mid-level staff managers for each division of the company as agents of change would align and communicate the expectations of the job profiles and performance evaluations to all staff members. These managers can then effectively

communicate and provide leadership that would have the greatest impact upon the largest number of workers. In identifying deficiencies in RoAs information systems, our targets should be our transactional processing applications used to interact with independent retailers and analytic applications used to track sales data. By focusing on the development of a comprehensive webbased sales system, we will be able to enact immediate changes to our operations systems and customer management processes. Our organizational change agenda should integrate and align Organization Capital for improvement in the strategic themes of operational processes and customer relationships. Our focus upon training and developing mid-level managers for human capital readiness may also tie in with leadership training and building the companys culture. Identifying specific job families for human capital and organization capital, as well as specific systems for information capital will make RoA strategy implementation more efficient and effective.

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Strategic Action Plan Overview of Strategy Map The Balanced Scorecard is the creation of noted business authors Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton. The BSC is a measurement tool which allows senior leadership to analyze the performance of the organization. It uses four perspectives to measure performance, financial, customer, internal and learning and growth. The Learning and Growth Perspective tries to identify measures to improve performance through the use of intangible assets of Human Capital, Information Capital and Organization Capital. Management lists the key performance indicators for each perspective and analyzes the information in a flow chart method. The flow chart assists in the identification of problem areas, allowing the manager to focus on correcting these deficiencies. The BSC is routinely reviewed in order to account for changes in the organizations strategy, new technologies and changes to the business environment. Learning and Growth Perspectives Human Capital Adjustments Improvement in human capital will strategically align RoAs intangible assets of employee knowledge, talent and values with its overall goal to have customers make recommendations to other potential customers. These objectives include creating value through improvements in skills supporting quality, management and processes (Kaplan & Norton, 2004). Creating competency profiles that enable all employees to know general and categorical outcomes expected from job processes will reduce costs indirectly related to employee competency issues. Effective management of human capital will assure specific jobs are

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matched to the right talent to further perpetuate employee satisfaction while developing a system to constantly monitor the learning and growth perspective in order to reveal needed adjustments. Human Capital Initiatives The human capital initiative includes identifying the strategic job families, defining competency profiles, assessing strategic readiness, building a human capital readiness report and then allowing human resources to deploy a human capital development program (Kaplan & Norton, 2004). Most jobs are relevant but there are some jobs that actualize differentiation and have a significant effect on RoA organizational strategy. Since RoAs mission emphasizes every employees involvement in a executing a customer-focused strategy, it is logical for RoA to implement utilize the Strategic Job Families Model and the Strategic Values Model (Kaplan and Norton, 2004) in developing human capital assets. The first initiative is to identify the strategic job families that have a critical impact on customer service outcomes. This would include the people who are in direct contact with RoAs authorized dealers and wholesalers. This group represents anyone who deals directly with sales and issues surrounding sales transactions. Artisans, laborers and support staff members and all other support processes that indirectly affect customer service will mostly benefit from the Strategic Values Model development. This also includes the custodians responsible for keeping the facilities clean and safe from any environmental hazards for the RoA member and onsite customers. Quality customer service is everyones job; therefore, RoA should allocate resources for Strategic Job Families and Strategic Values Model development, which addresses one hundred percent of RoA employees. Strategic Job Families To achieve Customer Satisfaction and high recommendation levels, the Human Capital strategic job families should be Customer Relationship Development. This encompasses: New

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Customer Procurement, Branding & Marketing Development, Sales Consulting, Product development, Order Fulfillment Processes, Relationship Management and Information documentation. Their goals are the following: -New Customer Procurement: find and develop new relationships. -Branding & Marketing Development: develop and market RoAs desires image of quality workmanship and equitable customer. -Sales Consulting: develop a solid brand, industry and customer knowledge. -Product development: deliver a preeminent product every time. -Order Fulfillment Process: to accurately process every order. -Relationship Development: perform post-sales transactions follow up surveys to proactively seek customer feedback. -Information documentation: document and organize customer feedback, employee evaluations and company branding and marketing materials for evaluation and performance measurements. Strategic Values Model It is imperative that all RoA employees fully understand the RoA brand and how it differs from other granite memorial and manufacturing brands. The RoA mission also accentuates the need to create value in job execution. Therefore, RoA places great emphasis on quality workmanship and the equitable treatment of customers. All these things are the values RoA desires to project to every customer, vendor, supplier, wholesaler and the community. Providing up to date guidelines readily available through the company wide information technology system will help implement the Strategic Values Model, consistently broadcasting it to everyone associated with the RoA brand. By creating online access, authorized dealers and wholesalers

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can log into RoA information system for information on RoAs branding, marketing, and company values. All of this will help assure RoA is branded consistently and correctly. Human Capital Measurements Once RoA defines, implements and develops the human capital program, the next step is to measure the program overall effectiveness. Measurements in customer and employee satisfaction can be done quantitatively and qualitatively. Two major measurement tools are the customer feedback information and post transaction sales information. This information can include sales figures for specific customer, types of products purchased, and a Likert Scale assessing the level of customer satisfaction with the overall RoA experience and products (Sekaran, 2003). When measuring employee success and satisfaction after development or training, RoA can use employee self-evaluation forms, along with manager observations and annual evaluation meetings to listen and give constructive feedback confidentially. In some cases peer assessments can be performed as a group activity to solicit helpful suggestions on departmental improvements (Robbins & Judge, 2010). The self-evaluation forms, managers observation and peer assessments should be a quarterly process. This information should help managers and supervisor to better understand why select employees experience varying degrees of job dissatisfaction and how to negotiate better outcomes.

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Information Capital Adjustments Even though we no longer own our retail sales division, we need to put effort into helping those that sell our products if we are to be successful. They are literally the face of RoA. The customer that is interested in one of our memorials will develop a relationship with one of our independent retailers, and if we empower our retailers for success then we will be successful. We must capture sales data from our independent retailers in order to focus our resources on what the customers want. Only the retail sales stores can provide this information to us. With the current recession, it would be difficult to convince our independent retailers to invest in new information technology infrastructure. By utilizing electronic data interchange (web-based sales reporting), we can collect the data we used to collect through our ERP software, but without all of the added licensing costs. In addition, hardware whose only purpose is to access the web is inexpensive and for the most part, very little in the way of hardware upgrades would have to take place. (Laudon and Laudon, 2010, p.56) By capturing real-time sales data, we can improve our supply chain from the quarry to the customer. As we build our database, we will be able to reduce the amount of product that sits dormant in our warehouses, our manufacturing plants, and the retail outlets. The data that we collect will allow us to focus on manufacturing the most popular products, ensure that the products are available when customers desire them, and increase efficiencies in the transportation of our products. Clearly, our products are extremely heavy and will reach a trucks weight capacity far before it reaches its space capacity, so careful planning of loads to our independent retailers has never been more important, especially with the price of fuel. Each winter, during the period of time that we cannot remove the granite from our quarry, we have a

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sale on our products. By increasing our efficiencies in our supply chain, we should be able to mitigate the losses that we typically see in our off-season. Although it is a tall order, our goal should be to strive for a just-in-time strategy for our products. This will require our independent retailers to utilize our web-based sales tracking service, so we must stress to them the benefits they will enjoy by the increased efficiencies they will experience with the new system. (Laudon and Laudon, 2010, p. 344) With the data we collect from our web-based reporting system, we will also be able to develop pivot tables that will enhance our decision making on what products are purchased most often by area, further focusing how we support our independent retailers. This, like the

utilization will have a small impact to our operating costs because we can utilize our current Microsoft Excel software to build the tables. (Laudon and Laudon, 2010, p. 466) Americans are increasingly opting for cremation vice purchasing large monuments and caskets. This trend is expected to increase over the next several years, and with the current state of the economy, it is a more attractive option than it was even two years ago. We are currently developing products that meet this new demand, so we recommend the start our own ecommerce site in order to sell our urns and other cremation based products. This will give us another avenue to pursue profitable sales outside of the quarry and manufacturing divisions. By starting an e-commerce site, we will be able to reach customers outside of our normal distribution and sales channels. (Laudon and Laudon, 2010, p. 376.)

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Organizational Capital Adjustments Organizational Capital Readiness Report

Attribute Leadership Measuring of Strategic Readiness Leadership Gap (Key Attributes) Alignment

Organizational Capital Development Program

Targets 90% Strategic Initiatives 80% 80% Leadership Development Job Descriptions Leadership Mentors Communications Change Management Leadership Development Performance Management Total Compensation and Reward Positive Work Environment Knowledge Management Organizational Effectiveness Staff Rotation Lead Indicators Percent of Internal Versus External Hires Percent of participation in Leadership Program Percent of Employees Regularly Surveyed Culture Assessment

Culture

CustomerFocus Core Values

Strategic Awareness Strategic Alignment

80% 100%

Personal Goals Linked to BSC Percent Receiving Incentive Compensation

Teamwork

Best Practices Key People Teams Rewards

100%

Percent Using Knowledge-Sharing Channels

Ref 1 (Kaplan and Norton, 2004 p309)

Above is a Strategy Map developed for RoA using a metrics from (Kaplan and Norton, 2004), and targeting areas of concern defined by the leadership at RoA. The strategic initiatives specifically target the management training, overall culture and team integration at RoA. The first step in developing the leadership training program is to understand the requirements of the initiative. Defining the roles and job specifics of each of the leadership positions is

imperative to the process. This process will enable RoA to close the gap between the leadership and the future leaders at RoA. There is a gap between what RoA leaders claim is their culture and what the employees believe the culture to be. The key will be to align these ideas and empower RoA for the future. RoA says their culture is We value our people. (Robbins & Judge, 2010) RoA has had

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difficulty finding employees to fill skill positions within the company. Training from within is always a good solution, you put a proven commodity into a new role but thats not always the best solution. The best way to attract fresh new talent is to demonstrate to them RoA is the place to work - actions speak louder than words. The changes to the culture do not have to be costly but they do take initiative and dedication. Employees may not respond right away to change so perseverance may be needed. Communicate the new changes but also show them with the actions of leadership. Town hall meetings are a great tool to find out what the workers feel is wrong with RoA; many problems can be fixed through open communication. Let the workers know you value their input and so they know you are listening inform them of the status of any action items from previous town hall meetings. You will also need to counsel the workers who show signs of deviant behavior; it is counterproductive to the goals you are attempting to achieve Employee job surveys are important tools for learning about the challenges the employees are facing. This valuable tool can help RoA determine what areas need to modify their training to improve the performance and efficiency. Cross training employees into different areas may also be a valuable tool to increase motivation and efficiency. By developing additional skills workers will expand their individual talents, gain loyalty towards RoA and be motivated by the additional challenges. The increased flexibility will give management a better grasp of the current talent pool and add new intangible assets to RoA.

Justification for Strategy

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Effects of Human Capital Alignment Human capital alignment can translate RoAs intangible assets of knowledge, skills and values into tangible outcomes such as improved branding commitment, customer and job satisfaction and customer expansion and retention (Kaplan & Norton, 2004). Improved industry and company knowledge will help all RoA employees obtain the customers confidence. This level of job involvement in knowing and understanding RoAs products and processes will create empowerment and job satisfaction (Robbins & Judge, 2010). This also translates into saved revenues because RoA will not have to constantly train new hires due to staff turnover and it is less expensive to maintain existing customers than to find new ones (Winer, 2007). Yet expanding our customerbase would be prudent for longevity and to combat environmental changes. As RoA employees increase knowledge of the companys products and procedures and participate in feedback, they will believe that the company genuinely values their contributions (Robbins & Judge, 2010). Building customer retention will translate into a larger profit, more customer recommendations and expanded business opportunities. Effects of Information Capital Alignment Kaplan and Norton argue in their book, Strategy Maps, that in order to achieve the most success in business you must align intangible assets of organizational capital, human capital, and Information Capital. I have inserted the below table to show visually how we intend to align our Information Capital with our human capital. (Kaplan and Norton, 2004)

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Our objectives are as follows:

1. Increase accurate and timely sales data reporting. 2. Increase the efficiency of our supply chain with a goal of just-in-time product delivery. 3. Develop and market products on an e-commerce site. 4. Utilize our current productivity software in order to reduce costs of new software and training expenses.
Our initiatives are as follows:

1. In order to capture what, where, and how much of a product we sell we will utilize web-based sales data tracking for near real-time data availability. 2. We will promote our e-commerce site and our new products via a Facebook page and take advantage of the diverse clientele and geographical separation of users. 3. We have no plans to purchase new, expensive software packages since what we have currently is sufficient.

Patriot Consulting Group Presentation We will measure our success by:

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1. Monitoring the amount of sales data that is received during the first 6 months in comparison to the same 6 month time frame over the past 5 years. 2. Monitor the amount of dormant product in our warehouses 3. Monitor sales data from our e-commerce site. Effects of Organizational Capital Alignment Implementation of these programs will increase motivation, efficiency and proficiency. By assessing each leadership candidates existing skills and tailoring the training to specific leadership skills we will quickly develop the talent to advance into positions of greater responsibility. Human Resources will need to thoroughly evaluate each candidate in order to accurately access their skills. The number of candidates who volunteer for leadership training can be used as a gauge of how motivated the workforce is. Implementing job satisfaction surveys will allow RoA to accurately gauge how effectively leadership is managing the work at RoA. Communication with the workforce in order to keep information flowing is crucial in any process but especially vital when change occurs. Town hall type meetings will help assess the motivation levels and the immediate culture within ROA. The workforce at RoA has been rebellious to change in the past; new initiatives need to be communicated and adhered to. If the leadership decides on a course of action then it needs to follow through with the action. Indecisiveness only promotes deviant behavior and negative morale. The compensation system at RoA seems generous, but other forms of rewards may be necessary to improving morale such as safety bonuses and bonuses for suggestions improving efficiency.

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Set expectations for conduct companywide and ensure employees adhere to the policy. The divisions of RoA all come from different backgrounds, what may be acceptable to some is crude and unwanted to others. The rules should take into account the entire workforce, not just a section. Conclusion RoA Corporations place as a leader in the granite quarrying and manufacturing industry will shift for better or worse depending upon our actions. The Lack of human capital, information capital and organization capital alignment with the companys mission and strategy have contributed to revenue loss. We recommend Rock of Ages target Human Resource management and mid-level managers for Human Capital development and the initiatives to create and implement job competency profiles and performance evaluations take effect immediately. The holistic approach of the Strategic Value Model (Kaplan and Norton, 2004) to communicate company values and goals for all employees should be implemented to maximize knowledgesharing and enhance company culture. To improve Information Capital, we recommend that RoA utilize web-based data tracking to track and analyze sales data and develop an e-commerce division that would enhance supply capabilities to include just-in-time manufacturing. Finally, utilizing a variety of communication techniques, employee job surveys and employee crosstraining are initiatives that would improve Organization Capital by aligning employees with company values and expand employees skills. Part of our core values at RoA is our unwavering belief that our most important assets are our people, our customers, our integrity, our access to capital, and our reputation for uncommon customer service (Our Mission, 2009). If we truly expect to be the paramount of all quarry companies and granite product manufacturers in North America, we must take action to align all aspects of our business and operations with our mission

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and values. These measures will ensure that Rock of Ages continues our tradition of excellence in granite quarrying, manufacturing and customer service for years to come.

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Rock of Ages. (2009). Rock of Ages reports second quarter results. Retrieved from http://www.rockofages.com/images/stories/pressrelease/reports%202nd%20qtr.pdf

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Rock of Ages. (2010). Rock of Ages video. Retrieved from https://norwich.angellearning.com/section/default.asp?id=20102525059%5FGR%5FGB511B

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