In January of 2009, Stone Finch was an international company that operated in 12 different countries and employed over 20,000 people. Stone Finch provided products and services for water and wastewater-related industries. Within the company, there were two main divisions; the Water Products, and the Solutions. The “Water Products” division carried out the traditional business services that the company built themselves up with. The “Solutions” division was formed through the acquisition of another company called Goldfinch Technologies in 2000. This division was a team of 75 employees, headed by Jim Billings, focused on biomechanical services and developing new technologies for the company. Stone really trusted Billings and was very intrigued by his work ethic and being an innovative risk taker. …show more content…
When Billings took charge, he put a lot of focus on growing the solutions group by stimulating innovation and recruiting the best possible candidates through the support of independent subsidiaries. He wanted to focus specifically on nuclear waste water service and ground water purification. Subsidiaries were then formed by people in the Solutions division who were willing to risk their careers for a greater payout if their technologies were worth implementing after four years. This type of research and development is very expensive and the Solutions Division did not have enough funds to finance it. This resulted in the retained earnings of the Water Division to be invested into the research for the Solutions Division. Financially, this move worked out very well. There was a 74% increase in revenues over the four year period and the size of the Solutions Division grew to 4,000 employees. This type of change brought about a problem in the organizational structure and alignment of the