Growing Pains Stroz Friedberg’s, Case Study Example

Introduction

The area of focus in this case is Stroz Friedberg Company. Just like any other company, the main goal of Stroz Friedberg is to look into how it can expand and maybe reach greater height. This goal, however, is not that simple, and it includes planning amicably and making good decisions that will bring a positive change in the company. If these are not followed, then the company will just be rotating about dreams that will never be achieved. These are clearly seen in Stroz Friedberg Company. The essay points out the problem in the company, the possible solution that may salvage the whole situation and how to implement these plans. The essay goes further to state the success behind the company in the recent past, its weaknesses and the causes of the pains as witnessed.

The reasons behind the success of Stroz Friedberg can be attributed to the following factors:

First, area of operation of the company enables the company to have constant customers. Facts have it that as the level of technology improves, and advances then it does not imply that the effects shall only be positive effects. Some negative effects are tied to advances in technology. Gone are the old days when crime involved breaking to a bank or so, shooting in the air and others.

Today, crime situations are advancing day by day, and it includes malicious loss of crucial data, breakdown of a system in the aim of stealing money and other advanced crime acts. Stroz Friedberg handles digital forensic and digital risk management. Most people find this very crucial when they loose their data to fraudsters and will, therefore, run to the company providing this service.

Secondly, the company has highly qualified staff and managers. Starting from the main stakeholders, Edward Stroz and Eric Friedberg are very well trained and understands the concept of crime activities. Having worked in the Federal Bureu of Investigation, Edward understands how to investigate a crime act and how to look for the culprits. Eric, conversely, has a huge knowledge on the cyber crime suspect, also has the concept on how to deal with an investigation. They are not the only ones who are qualified and well trained, but this experience triggers down to the other staff members who are also well trained. The firm has a track record, and have been credited for their careful methodology and expertise in the field. Besides this, they have never lost any testimony. This gives them a lot of recognition from the customers.

Another area that the company has done to ensure success is planning and setting goals to target. Over the years since 2002, the firm has been setting goals then planning on how to attain the set goals. Planning entails activities to be done for the firm to succeed and how to do the stated procedures. Planning helps in delivering services on time thereby ensuring that the goals are met.

Problem Definition

The firm in its efforts of transforming into a bigger firm of the same league with others had some challenges, referred to as the growing pains. It was not until the year 2008 when Stroz reviewed the progress of the company. He was able to point out some factors that the workers had raised concern about them. Some of the causes of these growing pains include:

• Organization of the firm: the firm was first to assume the structure of a big company. They copied the structure of bigger companies without considering the effects it had on the overall structure of the workers. Communication and coordination between various departments became a problem. New workers who were employed did not take time to become accustomed to the new working environment as they immediately started working.
• The culture of the firm also changed drastically. Culture is considered as the determining factor in most organization. Each firm has its own culture of doing things. In Stroz Friedberg, abandoning the existing culture and adapting a foreign one, destroyed the existing working environment among the workers and their way of conducting their businesses.
• The infrastructure; more buildings had been put in place, and more offices had been acquired too. However, this raised concerns on the amount of infrastructure that the firm might finally install or put in place. They lacked enough infrastructures such as the type of software to be used. There was also difficulty in deciding the type of system since there was a row on settling on Dell or HP.
• The operational and business processes were tampered. The firm was in a hurry in establishing the required infrastructure and growing. The normal working processes were neglected and the normal routine was not adhered.
• Strategy and positioning of the policies came to a halt. The company was in cross roads. Everybody worked on the side allocated. There was no policy or recommendations on what was to be done next.

Diagnosis

Due to these growing pains, Stroz and Friedberg settled on some solutions that they hoped would help the firm come back to the normal working condition.

1. Communication and coordination were examined. Various systems were put in place that would allow the workers in different departments relate with each other by sharing information and collaboration. One of these systems was the of- the- shelf knowledge management system which allowed all workers to be connected.
2. Financial planning; matters concerning finance are very sensitive and crucial in any organization. In 2009, the Lynch’s team recommended that the firm had to develop a strategic plan that will monitor the financial matters of the firm. This involved including the workers in forming the budget for the next financial year.
3. The firm made a decision about the HR and the information system. The new members who were hired did not start their jobs directly as it was earlier. The senior members were to train the new members and monitor on their capability of handling the forensic department. By doing this, the company, would get to employ well-trained members who would take up the challenge rather than employing people who could not handle the work assigned to them. The level of motivation was also added by ensuring that success celebrations were to be held at least regularly.

Casual Links

Having made a conclusion on the possible solutions that would bring things back to normalcy some challenges were never addressed. The firm was in the process of transformation from small firm to big firm. It was in the height of trying to make ends meet, when these whole growing pains arose. The solutions given will address the matters concerning the normal working of the company. Matters such as branding the company to ensure that they retain their customers and attract more customers have not been put on the limelight.

Actual Plans

About the disagreement of the FY 2010 financial targets, Stroz and Friedberg have to come up with a conclusion of what is to be accomplished. It can only be done through further scrutiny and engagement of the necessary stakeholders. Having witnessed growth in the previous plans, the firm will certainly achieve the stated financial targets. It will not be a guarantee and concerns that have been raised by the concerned authorities, and leaders such as Lynch ought to never be neglected.

Some of the goals that the firm needs to put into considerations include; first, they should target increasing the level of infrastructures. This involves creating and installing modern and very effective software’s that will deliver the desired services faster. Secondly, the firm should aim at increasing the number of workers. This will, however, be increased through increasing the infrastructure. Branding of the company’s name should also be a goal. The firm will only grow into a bigger firm by building the name of the company. The perception of the people determines a lot the success of the people.

Conclusion

Strategic planning determines the direction of any organization. Planning should be embraced to attain the set objectives and targets. Stroz Friedberg Company has seen a fast growth in the company over the past years. This is only attributed to effective planning and standing by what have been planned. Outdated and sophisticated methods are not applicable when it comes to issues of attaining the goals that have been set. In addition, proper communication and coordination in a company does matters a lot. When the firm assumed foreign culture, there was a lack of appropriate communication and no coordination existed among the workers. This had negative effects on the company.