HRM Case Study: Planning a New Program Launch at LDC

However, OLDS top executives felt that the company should offer more training programs for senior executives, arguing that If senior executives personally experienced the quality f the firm’s training, they would be more likely to recommend and approve trailing requests for their mid-level managers. Pam discussed the program objectives for the new Senior Executive Leadership Program with her boss and her peers. Some thought the program should be a “loss leader” or in other words, that it should lose money but pay for itself by generating more participants for Lad’s mid-level managerial programs.

Others thought that the new program should break even financially. Everyone agreed, however, that the program should be of sufficient quality that participants would have a very favorable impression of OLD.

As a result, they would be more likely to encourage their employees to attend OLD programs and approve their requests to do so. Pam determined that the program’s success would be measured in three ways. First, the number of participants taking the first program would be monitored. Pam calculated it would take about 18 participants for the program to break even financially.

Second, she would survey all participants regarding their satisfaction with the program, its content, materials, facilities, administration, and instructors.

Finally, OLD would track he number of mid-level managers from the companies of those attending the senior executive program to determine if there was an increased participation level over time. In launching the program, Pam examined the past marketing costs of other new programs. Previous new launches had cost about $30,000 in brochure and mailing expenses.

She expected that an extra $5,000 ought to be enough to launch the new senior executive program. The current budget did not anticipate the launch of the senior executive program, but another program in marketing had been cancelled. Consequently, $20,000 manned In the budget for that program, which Pam thought she could spend on the new senior executive program.

In Dalton, she thought she could access $15,000 from the general contingency budget of $30,000. One of the first things she needed to do was to talk to Lad’s possible Instructors and select a “faculty director. This person would design the specific content of the program Ana correlate ten toner Instructors along Walt ten content AT tenet trailing efforts. After the faculty director was chosen, the program would need to be designed and, based on the design, a brochure created. She estimated that the program design would require about three weeks and that the development of the brochures would take an additional two weeks.

Printing the brochures would require four days, and assembling them for mailing would take another three days.

Delivery of the mailed brochures would take about a week. Normally, OLD allowed about 12 weeks between the time people received brochures and the due date for their program applications. In general, program applications were due (along with the program fees) three weeks before the start of the program. Two weeks before the program tarts, all materials (handouts, notebooks, etc. ) would need to be assembled.

Pam had two people who reported directly to her and could assist in the implementation of the plan.

Timmy would be responsible for contacting the brochure design firm and the printing company and ensuring that the brochure would be ready on time. In addition, she would secure the mailing list and arrange for an outside contractor to stuff the envelopes with brochures for mailing. Dan would be responsible for venue details. OLD had its own training facilities and had contracts with several nearby hotels for lodging arrangements. Dan would also be expansible for the assembly of all training materials, which required obtaining the handouts and other materials from the instructors on time.

As the plan was put into action, everything seemed to go fine. A faculty member was selected to be the faculty director, and the program design and content were ready in two rather than the anticipated three weeks. The outside design firm quickly produced a brochure that with a few modifications was ready for mailing. Timmy obtained several mailing lists that had the names of senior executives in medium-to-large companies. The mailing was sent out about five days early. Inquiries regarding the program were 100 % higher than those for other new programs OLD had launched in the past.

However, as the program’s start date drew nearer, the ratio of inquiries to registrations was not good. Traditionally, one in ten people who contacted OLD for further information regarding a particular program ended up registering for it. However, eight weeks before the program’s start, the inquiry to registration ratio was 100 to 1 (not 10 to 1). Four weeks before the start of the program, only ten had signed up. Pam was stressed about what she should do. Case Questions 1 .

What adjustments would you make at this point? Aerogram or run it at a loss? Explain.

Would you cancel the 2 Draw out a Giant can’t AT ten sequence Ana telling AT Key satellites. Want Insights does this give you regarding the plan and its implementation? 3. What do you think went wrong? What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the planning process? 4. OLD seemed to follow a planning process that had worked well for its mid-level managerial programs.

Are there differences between senior executives and mid-level managers that might explain why the plan did not work our as anticipated? How could these differences have been anticipated?