Motorola Case
MNGT 551
CRITICAL THINKING
&
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
CASE STUDY AYSE SUVAY ALPER KILIC
MOTOROLA CASE
Stage 1: Identifying and evaluating the need for change Motorola’s strategy was to invent exciting new technologies and then create new markets around them.The company prospered as it executed this strategy in an era of economic growth with virtually no competitive threat in its principal markets. The late 1990s, however, introduced a new reality when competitors began to bring new products and technologies to market more quickly than Motorola, and subsequently won market share in spaces Motorola once owned almost exclusively. It was apparent that Motorola’s traditional style of leadership was not up to the job of transforming the company to take on the competition by becoming more customer-focused, solutions-oriented, quick to adapt to changes in markets and technologies, and collaborative across business units. During the period of tremendous growth Motorola experienced in the early- to mid-1990s, scant attention was given to developing the next generation of leaders. More pressing was manufacturing and shipping product to meet seemingly insatiable customer demand. As a result, a large contingent of next-generation leadership talent never fully developed fundamental management and leadership skills. Later, as Motorola restructured in response to the market downturn, reduction of the workforce by nearly onethird further limited the size of the internal leadership pipeline and the available mix of leadership skills. At the same time Motorola was experiencing a dramatic increase in leadership demand, so was the rest of the world. The dot-com craze and concurrent rapid expansion of the global economy enticed numbers of business school graduates and experienced leaders alike away from traditional corporate roles to Internet start-up companies, thus reducing the external supply of available talent. With leadership
CRITICAL THINKING
&
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
CASE STUDY AYSE SUVAY ALPER KILIC
MOTOROLA CASE
Stage 1: Identifying and evaluating the need for change Motorola’s strategy was to invent exciting new technologies and then create new markets around them.The company prospered as it executed this strategy in an era of economic growth with virtually no competitive threat in its principal markets. The late 1990s, however, introduced a new reality when competitors began to bring new products and technologies to market more quickly than Motorola, and subsequently won market share in spaces Motorola once owned almost exclusively. It was apparent that Motorola’s traditional style of leadership was not up to the job of transforming the company to take on the competition by becoming more customer-focused, solutions-oriented, quick to adapt to changes in markets and technologies, and collaborative across business units. During the period of tremendous growth Motorola experienced in the early- to mid-1990s, scant attention was given to developing the next generation of leaders. More pressing was manufacturing and shipping product to meet seemingly insatiable customer demand. As a result, a large contingent of next-generation leadership talent never fully developed fundamental management and leadership skills. Later, as Motorola restructured in response to the market downturn, reduction of the workforce by nearly onethird further limited the size of the internal leadership pipeline and the available mix of leadership skills. At the same time Motorola was experiencing a dramatic increase in leadership demand, so was the rest of the world. The dot-com craze and concurrent rapid expansion of the global economy enticed numbers of business school graduates and experienced leaders alike away from traditional corporate roles to Internet start-up companies, thus reducing the external supply of available talent. With leadership