A Report on the case

Wendy Peterson

Submitted to: Prof. Madhusri Shrivastava

In partial fulfilment of WAC Course

Submitted by
Arvind Kumar Roll no. 13
On 03 February 2016
Memo of transmittal
To: Prof. Madhusri Shrivastava
From: Arvind Kumar
Date: 03/02/2016
Subject: WAC Report on the case Wendy Peterson
As directed by you on 8th of January, 2016 regarding the case Wendy Peterson, I
have analysed the dilemma of Wendy Peterson on whether to terminate Fred Wu or cave into
his demands. All possible options and the evaluating criteria are discussed in the report and a
recommendation has been made on which option she should choose based on the evaluations.
Kindly let me know in case of any clarifications so that we can have a meeting at
your convenient time and discuss regarding the same.

Arvind Kumar
Executive summary
Wendy Peterson, a VP sale of Account Back, a software development company was in a
dilemma on whether to fire one of her subordinates Wu or not. Peterson was the one who
hired Wu on account of getting Chinese clients as Wu was well acquainted with Chinese
language since he was born and brought up in China. Within 12 month after joining Account
Back, Wu has signed his regional teams largest client, but Peterson has reservation about
Wus performance and is uneasy about their working relationship .Wu has requested an
assistant, which was unprecedented seeing the flat organization structure of Account Back.
Peterson has to take a decision now considering all the pros and cons of her decision of firing
Wu. The major impact of her firing Wu included losing an existing Chinese client which is
handled by Wu, efforts in finding out substitute for Wu and training the new employee to
take over his job. If Peterson agreed to the demand of Mr Wu, this would send a negative
signal to other employees working under Peterson and might create a strained relationship
between Peterson and her subordinates. After analysis, it is recommended that she fire him
taking into consideration the company work culture and the ethos where Mr Wu is unable to
fit in.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Situation Analysis 5
2 Problem Statement 6
3 Options available 6
4 Criteria for evaluation 6
5 Evaluation Options 7
6 Recommendation 7-8
7 Action implementation Plan 8
Situational Analysis

Wendy Peterson was the Vice President of Sales in the Plano office of Account Back, an
accounting software development firm. Presently Wendy was in a dilemma whether to fire or
retain one of the companys sales executive Fred Wu. To penetrate a perceived Chinese
market in Plano, Wendy personally hires Fred Wu who is well familiar with Chinese business
leaders in Plano. Since Wu was born and raised in China, partly educated in U.S, and
immigrated to U.S in 2005. Thus Wu was well proficient in Chinese language, which made
him best suited to deal with these Chinese business leaders.
Initially after joining the company Wu was very engaged with his colleagues and try to gain
maximum knowledge from his co-worker. Once he knew all the business, Wu started
working outside the office more than the normal. Besides Wendy was an overzealous person
who likes to be constantly updated by her reportee about his/her work while Wu was
someone who preferred working independently. Wu was very private about his work and
used to spoke only about the work within the workplace. Secondly there was increase in
revenue from the Wu Account, which was attributed to approval of expensive add-ons to his
client without the prior approval made by Peterson. Although this action was against the
company policy, Wu tried to justify his action by saying that he has legitimate proof that
these requests were made by client themselves. Moreover Wu gave much attention to his
existing client rather than brining new client for the company, which was his primary job. All
these actions taken by Wu created a drift from Wendy expectation from his subordinate Wu.
And the same was reflected during an annual review of Fred Wu, Wu made an unreasonable
demand of needing an assistant for him. As the Account back company has a flat structure
where an assistant was generally provided only to senior sales executives who handled more
than 30 accounts and some of these assistants were working on sharing basis. Wendy tried to
explain the situation to him but Wu was persistent on his demand. The same day, Wu came to
Wendy and told her that he had got an offer from a competitor and threatened to dismantle
his association with the company if his demand of having an assistant was not met. Wendy
was in a dilemma whether to cave into his demands or allow him to resign.
Problem Statement
Whether to fire Fred Wu or not?

Options available
Fire Fred Wu
Cave into Freds demands and keep him as sales executive

Criteria for Evaluation

Possibility of losing existing client which is handled by Wu.
Possibility of finding a substitute for Fred Wu
Strain on working relationship between Wu and Wendy
Impact on others employees working in the company
Retaining the company work culture and ethics.

Evaluation of Options
1. Fire Fred Wu
Firing Fred Wu would mean that the company has possibility of losing a major client
of his. This would mean a huge loss of revenues for the company. Besides, firing Wu
would mean losing the possibility of converting most of his acquaintances into
customers. This again means losing of huge amounts of possible revenue from these
clients.
Firing Wu also means Wendy needs to find a person with similar networking and
confidence as displayed by Fred Wu. This was by no means an easy task as Wus
networking was very difficult to match.
Since the working style of Fred is completely different from Peterson and Fred is
unwilling to follow Wendys leadership style, so there is high probability that in
future the tussle will continue which will eventually lead to the straining of the
relationship between the two. This will ultimately have a negative impact on company
growth. So its better to take this action of firing Wu at the earliest.
Also by firing Wu, company will send a strong signal to all his employees that the
company policy and work culture has to be followed by everyone and no compromise
can be made in this regard.
 2. Cave into Wus demands
Caving into Wus demands means Wendy doesnt have to fire him in the first
place.Wu was indeed a very good performer as he has signed a business deal of
$400000 only after eight months of being hired and he has conveyed to Peterson that
he was in the verge of getting new clients as his approach of building relationship
with Chinese businessmans will reap its fruit in coming months. Thus by retaining
Wu, Peterson will ensure that the current client of Wu is not lost and the company
would be able to leverage upon the relationship which Wu has created with potential
clients and convert them into revenue for the company.
Also company would be able to save there lot of money and time in finding out the
substitute for Wu. Moreover Peterson wont be sure that the new employee hired
would be as efficient in building contacts as Wu.
The biggest issue in caving into Wus demands will be the further straining of
relationship between her and Wu. Once the demand of Wu is met, he would strive for
other demands in the future. Wu dealing with his Chinese clients are not transparent
and is not in line with the company policy, especially the printing of visiting cards in
Chinese language and his reluctance to take his Boss Wendy into consideration for
any action which he performs. If Peterson does not fire Wu, these actions will
continue and would ultimately affect the company.
Since company provides assistant to only those sales executives who handles around
30 clients and in this context providing Wu with assistant who handles presently 1
client will send a wrong signal to other employees. This action may cause lot of
discontent among the present employees and would create a sense of disharmony
among Peterson and her subordinates.

Recommendation
After evaluating the criteria and looking at both the options, it is recommended to fire
Wu. Even though the major negatives of this option are the risk of losing the existing
Wu clients which would lead to the loss of revenue. Secondly loss of time and money
in finding the substitute for Wu would also add to the worry of Peterson .But if we see
the long term goal of establishing company ethos and culture keeping in mind the
growth of the company, firing Wu seems to be more logical choice. Also in the
present scenario, company is more reliant on Wu which is not good for the company.
The company needs to ensure that the new employee hired in place of Wu has the
responsibility and power which is well beneath the Peterson and company should
 always have a upper hand in negotiating the terms with his/her employee ,which was
not in the case of Wu.

Action Plan

In order to implement the above recommendation, the following action plan has to be
implemented

In order to gain some time, Petersons should delay the release process of
Wu from the company based upon the rules and regulation of the
company.
In the meantime, company should start looking for the new employees
who is fluent in Chinese language and has same skillset as that of Wu.