Task Force Committee Report – Issues and Solutions

Task Force Committee Report

Issues and Solutions

BUS 520: Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Introduction

Great leaders regularly asses their organizations by addressing issues and proposing solutions. In doing so, leaders must stay on top of situations that may facilitate or hinder their organization’s productivity. Organizational Behavior (OB) is at the center of a leader’s critical thinking process. “Organizational Behavior is the study of human behavior in organizations. It is an academic discipline devoted to understanding individuals, teams, interpersonal processes, and organizational dynamics. Learning about OB can help you build solid job skills and expand your potential for career success in the dynamic, shifting, and complex workplaces of today … and tomorrow.” (Uhl-Bien, 1) This task force committee report on Tesla, in which current events have adversely affected productivity, requiring management to resolve issues related to our corporate culture, managing diversity, leading teamwork, and developing motivational strategies. This report will describe our organization and the issue to resolve. The report will analyze current corporate culture, identify areas of weakness, and propose solutions. This report will also include and executive summary that briefly summarizes recommendations and research findings in a concise one-page summary to present to the CEO in an upcoming executive meeting.

Organization and the Issue to Resolve

Tesla, A multi-billion-dollar corporation was founded in 2003 by engineers who wanted people to see that they didn’t have to compromise anything by owning and driving an electric vehicle. They wanted to prove electric vehicles could be better, faster, and more fun than the gasoline vehicles already in popular demand. “Tesla builds not only all-electric vehicles but also infinitely scalable clean energy generation and storage products. Tesla believes the faster the world stops relying on fossil fuels and moves towards a zero-emission future, the better.” (Tesla, 2) The first vehicle, launched in 2008 using Tesla’s battery technology and electric powertrain. Tesla continued to produce other vehicles to include sport utility and trucks. Their vehicles are world-class safety and performance leaders. All vehicles are produced in their factory in Freemont, CA.

The organizational issue that adversely affected productivity in the Tesla market and sales that most affects vehicles being bought is the availability of longer mileage vehicles and more needed charging stations. While the production of Tesla is in full stream, the demand would be significantly increased by proving easily accessible quick charging stations in multiple locations throughout the world along with higher mileage driving vehicles. This is impacting Tesla’s ability to see actual growth and future demand.

Current Corporate Culture

Tesla’s mission statement is: To create the most compelling car company of the 21st century by driving the world’s transition to electric vehicles. Tesla’s vision statement is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Tesla’s current corporate culture facilitated the development of the current issue by selling cars that speak to their mission and vision statements, but don’t have accessible fuel resources to make customers feel they are safe to drive without running out of power. The drive of consumers to quickly buy these phenomenal vehicles before a fuel support structure was fully implement caused negative feedback about being able to drive anywhere you wished. This caused a pause in market saturation. Consumers are leery about buying for this reason alone. Tesla’s corporate culture is shared with consumers and non-consumers alike but falls short when it comes to deciding driving an electric vehicle over the inconvenience of always planning drives that are only to area’s supported by power stations in place.

Areas of Weakness

Tesla has high strength in its product and its name as the best all-electric vehicle line ever produced. ” Tesla has cracked the ranks of top-performing automakers in a survey of suppliers that measures carmakers’ willingness to encourage innovation and adopt new technology. Tesla, appearing for the first time in the biennial North American Suppliers’ Choice Study by Deloitte and Automotive News, ranked third, tied with Toyota and behind No. 1 BMW and No. 2 Mercedes-Benz.” (Wernie, 3)

That being said, Tesla’s areas of weakness are their drop in sales due to vehicles limited distance in miles before needing a charge and charging stations are sparse in many locations. Tesla must compete and build a longer mileage vehicle, increase the number and availability of power stations, or in a best-case scenario, both. A top-down revamp of emphasis on these two areas will increase demand and drive higher sales and profits.

Proposed Solutions

Tesla has done so much to cut cost in the area of in house production of batteries used in their vehicles. To indeed saturate the market and remain competitive, there needs to be a better design of a longer mileage vehicle, more availability of power stations, or in a best-case scenario, both. This would help drive sales that have previously plummeted. “In the first quarter, Tesla’s automotive gross margins, excluding certain items compressed to 20.3% from 24.7% in the last three months of 2018. The company has said it’s targeting 25% margins for the Model S, X and 3.” (Lahucik, 4). The organizational practices I would modify would be the advertisement and production of higher mileage vehicles with a very ambitious goal toward putting more charging stations in more locations while advertising and making a real-time application that people could log onto and see the growth.

I would also use that app to allow owners to show where they live and work to feed demographics to drive current power station build sites. This would be in conjunction with the constant and steady growth of charge stations in new locations where there weren’t power stations in the past. Our solutions to management would be to modify current organizational practices to change the reservations of a new customer while keeping our existing customer’s happy to advertise in our favor and resolve the issue. This is going to involve restructuring the assembly and production of chargers, marketing, and sales to include possible co-locating with another company that already owns space and locations. An example would be Target Parking lots with ten charging stations. Advertising, Marketing, IT, and customer support are going to require their division to facilitate and support this growth and demand. This would reinforce secure connections and supporting source material.

Executive Summary

Tesla, A multi-billion-dollar corporation was founded in 2003 by engineers who wanted people to see that they didn’t have to compromise anything by owning and driving an electric vehicle. They tried to prove electric vehicles could be better, faster, and more fun than the gasoline vehicles already in popular demand. The organizational issue that adversely affected productivity in the Tesla market and sales that most affects cars being bought is the availability of longer mileage vehicles and more needed charging stations.

Tesla’s areas of weakness are their drop-in sales due to vehicles limited distance in miles before needing a charge and charging stations are sparse in many locations. By addressing and correcting these issues. Tesla’ proposed solution would be to build a longer mileage vehicle, increase the number and availability of power stations, or in a best-case scenario, both. A top-down revamp of emphasis on these two areas will increase demand and drive higher sales and profits.

The organizational practices I would modify would be the advertisement and production of higher mileage vehicles with a very ambitious goal toward putting more charging stations in more locations while advertising and making a real-time application that people could log onto and see the growth. Our solutions to management would be to modify current organizational practices to change the reservations of a new customer while keeping our existing customer’s happy to advertise in our favor and resolve the issue. This is going to involve restructuring the assembly and production of chargers, marketing, and sales to include possible co-locating with another company that already owns space and locations. In doing so, we improve our sales and profit.

Conclusion

This task force committee report on the Tesla organization, in which current events have adversely affected productivity, requiring management to resolve issues related to Tesla corporate culture, managing diversity, leading teamwork, and developing motivational strategies. This report described Tesla’s organization and the problems resolved. The report analyzed current organizational culture, identified areas of weakness, and proposed solutions. This report also included an executive summary that briefly summarized recommendations and research findings in a concise one-page summary to present to the CEO in an upcoming executive meeting. Great leaders must stay on top of situations that may facilitate or hinder their organization’s productivity by regularly assessing their organizations and addressing issues and proposing solutions by using OB, “the study of human behavior in organizations. It is an academic discipline devoted to understanding individuals, teams, interpersonal processes, and organizational dynamics.” (Uhl-Bien, 5) In doing so, we as leaders improve our organization, production, and morale, not to mention sales and profit.

References

1. Uhl-Bien, M., Schermerhorn, J. R., Osborn, R. N. Organizational Behavior. [Strayer

University Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://strayer.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119033110/https://strayer.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119033110/

2. Tesla, 2019. About Tesla. Tesla.Com. https://www.tesla.com/about. Accessed July 28, 2019.

3. Wernle, B. (2015). Suppliers give Tesla high praise for innovation. Automotive News, 89(6698), 0003. Retrieved from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=110904371&site=eds-live&scope=site

4. Lahucik K. (2019) Tesla’s “Anemic” High-Margin Model Sales Extends Profit Struggle. Bloomberg.com. July 2019: N.PAG. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=137686880&site=eds-live&scope=site. Accessed July 28, 2019.

5. Uhl-Bien, M., Schermerhorn, J. R., Osborn, R. N. Organizational Behavior. [Strayer

University Bookshelf]. Retrieved from https://strayer.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119033110/https://strayer.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119033110/