Wallace Group Case

Sarah Farid

November 1st 2015

The Wallace Group Company Analysis

Introduction

The Wallace Group is comprised of three operational groups, namely Electronics, Plastics and Chemicals. Harold Wallace, founder, chairman and president of the Wallace Group owns 45% of the outstanding stock. The latest figures showed that combined, the three groups had generated sales of $70 million. A brief dive into the history of the company shows that it started as a sole proprietorship operating only the electronics segment. Harold Wallace, concerned about the company’s severe dependence on defense-related businesses at the time, chose to embark on a journey of diversification. As a result, the company acquired its previous supplier for plastics. This was only possible through the attraction of investors who bought shares in the company and subsequently turned it into a closed corporation with a new Board of Directors with Harold Wallace as Chairman. Several years later, the company acquired its former supplier for chemicals as a further step towards its diversification strategy.

The work environment and overall company morale within Wallace Group have currently hit rock bottom, so much so that a surprisingly sizeable group of long term employees have recently made a “dramatic”, but failed, attempt to force the President’s resignation, in an effort to show their dissatisfaction and frustration with the way things were going in the company. In response to this event and its underlying causes, Mr. Wallace has appointed Frances Rampar, a management consultant, to conduct interviews with the company’s key employees to delve deeper into the strategic problems facing the company, and to produce a list of priorities and an action plan for the Wallace Group.

1. What is (are) the most important problem(s) facing the Wallace Group? You don’t need to list ALL the issues, only the one(s) you view as strategic.

The wide assortment of problems facing the Wallace Group ranges...