Case Study: Stone Finch Inc.

ASSIGNMENT#1 Case Study: Stone Finch, Inc.

Assessment of Jim Billings’ performance as president of Stone Finch:

Jim Billings’ energy, capacity to take risks, build a culture of experimentation and make a team of falcons made him appropriate for the position of President of Stone Finch.
His growth and success was quick and remarkable as he moved rapidly from the research group to corporate planning to plant management. He was recognized as high-potential leader throughout the company and he was given responsibility to head R&D and invest capital in it. Due to Billings’ capabilities Richard Stone decided to acquire Goldfinch.
Billings believed in the culture of innovation and to make it happen he made very critical changes in the company.

Jim Billing’s leadership style:
According to me Jim Billing’s leadership style was different from others and good enough to sustain a company. His idea of organizing “company jam” was pretty convincing as he got to interact with employees, read their suggestions, complains and comments about subsidiaries. After reading those comments he started searching for facts and figures and ponder over them. But his leadership quality was not perfect enough to keep his team/employees intact as a group of people got unrecognized and were resigning the company.
Assessment of the entrepreneurial subsidy concept:
His subsidiary plan gave a golden chance for employees to get themselves and their innovative ideas recognized and put into action. It also gave chance for one to three top tier talents to get identified. The subsidiary was reward for employees with innovative ideas that initially in turn helped in the growth of company. Employees were given chance to work on new technologies and being part of close-knit entrepreneurial teams. Subsidiaries were focused as the primary channel of innovation within Stone Finch and also there were contradictions in manufacturing and service

There should be strong relationship between the two divisions. Employees working in core business or existing products should be equal priority and periodic rewards so that they don’t feel left out. There should be some training programs for the growth of employees. Also there should be periodic assessment programs like the company jam in which opinions of employees from both sides should be taken into consideration.

Stone Fitch Discussion Questions

1 What is your assessment of Jim Billings’ performance as president of Stone Finch? What do you think of his leadership style?

2 What is your assessment of the entrepreneurial subsidy concept? How can companies manage the contradictions of managing existing products and innovation simultaneously?

3 What are the major problems Jim Billings currently faces? How serious are these problems? How quickly should Billings act? And why?

4 What should Jim Billings do?
Jim Billings should do:
Jim Billings should prioritize core business and keep a balance for innovation and existing products. Along with innovation he should also give equal weightage to investment in existing products. Though inviting falcons is a great idea but people outside the company shouldn’t be made subsidiary officials unless they make an extraordinary contribution to the subsidiary because this make company employees feel out of the