Human Capital Management Mid Term Exam Assignment

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Added on 2019-09-23

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This is a mid-term exam assignment for the Human Capital Management course. The assignment requires students to read a case study about Acme Inc. and answer a question related to the case. The response should be in a specific format and use material covered in class and Chapters 1-4 of the HCM text. The case study describes the problems Acme faced with the launch of its new product, Seat Plus, and the resignation of its Director of Research, John Harrington. The President of Acme, Dr. Juliet Bogen, wants HR to come up with a plan to deal with the crisis. The plan should cover compensation for the next Director of Research, aligning the R&D Department and Marketing and Sales to the firm's strategy, and retaining and attracting the best talent in the industry.

Human Capital Management Mid Term Exam Assignment

Added on 2019-09-23

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Mid Term ExamHuman Capital ManagementThe exam is due back by 8 p.m. Tuesday, November 1, as an email attachment.Please read the attached case, John Harrington, (Acme I and Acme II – see below) and answer the assignment.Assignment: Please come up with a response to what Dr. Juliet Bogen wants from Greta Flaherty at the end of Acme II.You are expected to use Chapters 1-4 of our text, HCM, and material covered in class to write your response.Please use the following format: 1. Executive Summary (this summarizes the major points of your paper in no more than 100 words); 2. Statement of issues/problems; 3. Analysis of causes regarding these issues/problems; 4. Recommendations and solutions to solve the issues/problems that you have identified.No more than 5 pages in total, not counting any exhibits you add.

Human Capital Management Mid Term Exam Assignment_1

Acme IJohn Harrington was extremely pleased as summer 2009 rolled around. His research group at Acme, Inc. had just been awarded a prize for their new application software, Seat Plus, used in managing airline seat reservation systems. He was extremely proud andgratified that June morning as he felt he had been instrumental in the development of the software and in motivating his research group into producing the award-winning application. As colleagues, heads of other departments, and finally, the President of Acme herself came by to congratulate him on the award, he basked in his success and reflected that it had been worth it to leave his previous company and join Acme. Hadn’t the President herself said while congratulating him, “The sky’s the limit here at Acme, John, if you create successful products!”? The rewards were coming to him pretty quicklyand he was pleased with results of his performance on the job. John had come to work at Acme Inc. in January 2009 as the new Head of Research. He had been hired away from his previous employer with a 20% increase in salary, the promise of interesting work, a great deal of freedom and latitude on how he ran the research department and the promise of a lucrative annual bonus for superior performance. He had set ambitious targets for his research group and had been active in

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the work that had won the prize. Now he had to get together with marketing and sales to figure out the best way to present and sell the product to clients. He felt the award was a good beginning as it would allow them use the prize to sell the software.Acme was a software company that specialized in applications software for the airline industry. In particular, they made software to manage the sale of seats to maximize revenue. Using Acme software, an airline could decide how to price seats right up to the day and time of departure. Past patterns of seat bookings and other factors were used to set up the algorithms that decided on the price for any day. The program also decided how many seats to allot per day for any particular price. Seat Plus was designed to maximize yields for any flights, being particularly sensitive to past patterns for any specific day combined with any current market developments.Acme’s strategy was to sell their products as premium ones yielding especially high yields for seat management. Its brand was managed through close contacts in the airline industry, personal selling and the cultivation of an image comprising of highly reliable products. Seat Plus was rolled out into the market along the lines of this strategy. And that is when the problems began.Software glitches that had not been apparent during development and limited-use Beta-testing became apparent with intensive and extensive customer use. Customers were calling constantly about bugs and failures in the application program. Acme responded with quick patches to remedy problems, but the patches themselves created new problemsand failures. Customers began deserting Acme and abandoning Seat Plus.

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