Ethan Berman Case Study

Ethan is pretty much the only senior management team and is responsible for all functions within RiskMetrics. RiskMetrics has a flat organization structure with Ethan Berman at the helm and rest being employees. Ethan was pretty much a hands on manager and was involved in all functions from hiring, operations, finance, product development, marketing etc. with other employees pitching in where needed.

RiskMetrics structure was such that there is no second in command within the organization and also no leaders managing the various departments. This has made RiskMetrics heavily dependent on Ethan Berman.

The challenges facing Ethan and RiskMetrics are:

a) Scalability of the organization as the organization: As the organization grows and has more office locations, it is nearly impossible for Ethan to manage all operations and his hands on approach will turn out to be a constraint to the growth of the organization.

b) Expertise: It is not possible to have expertise in all functions like sales and marketing, Product development, operations, HR, Finance and still create a vision and implement single handedly. RiskMetrics needs a second level management structure immediately.

c) Adaptability: There are many demands on Ethan in managing the growth of RiskMetrics and Ethan has to be adaptable single handedly to manage the challenges in imparting vision, initiating changes, taking difficult decisions, talent acquisition and day to day operations.

d) Talent acquisition: RiskMetrics need to acquire talent to manage their growth and the organization and Ethan are struggling to decide on what sort of talent and skills do they need?

e) Growth: RiskMetrics needs to diversify into other growth channels like retail, online brokerage to grow its customer base and they need sales resources to reach out to these segments and product development to cater to such customer segment needs.

f) Financial losses: RiskMetrics is currently making losses as of 12/1999. If that is to change...