Management Capstone Project

Words:

1314

Graybar Inc. is considered the largest distributor and supply chain business of various electrical, telecommunication, and industrial materials. It distributes items like telephone equipment, optical fiber cables, copper cables, various wireless products, etc. The company, which was created in 1869 by engineer Elisha Gray and businessman Enos Barton, is wholly controlled by its employees. In 1872, Gray & Barton shifted their focus to Western Electric and moved to become the biggest manufacturer of telephones. This is the largest and probably the only company of its size employees owns. This study will focus on the current situation of the company based on a market overview. Graybar provides services to the industrial, corporate, governmental, public, utility, and residential industries. Graybar offerings help with building projects, capital projects, building renovations, servicing, restoration, management, and more. Also, the future goals of the company and the methods to be taken up will be evaluated. The Torq IT team collaborated with Graybar Canada to integrate marketing materials from thousands of goods and various data streams into a PIM application. They were enabled to develop a new program in collaboration with their data managers that assisted them in sorting all of their items into a new classification that is suitable for their impending E-commerce system.

This industry comprises companies selling electromagnetic building supplies, cabling components, electrically fluorescent fixtures, lamp bulbs, and/or electric energy equipment for generating electricity, transfer, delivery, or management. Graybar Canada distinguishes itself via technologies for telecommunications, data, robotics, and security mechanisms. Wholesalers may provide real-worth assistance including technological consulting, employment services, trying to arrange for product lines to be customized or fixed, organizing special financing proposals, or supplying overnight distribution centers for premium brands in addition to purchasing, auctioning, and transporting products among manufacturers and vendors. Due to financial challenges, the sector experienced small declines in 2020 but has risen significantly as Covid increased residential construction initiatives in 2021. For each company in whatever field, innovation is the key to success. A good digital culture encourages managers to experiment with and adopt innovations in the organization. Cultural creativity also enables a corporation like Graybar Canada to comprehend its many consumer kinds and its demands and to develop appropriately. It also guarantees that employees participate in the industry's workflow. The virtual strategy can also be used for marketing or employment.

Jason Taylor was named Graybar Canada's Executive Vice President and General Manager in March 2019, just before Covid 19. Since then, the executive management team has evolved, and young comers have gained new roles. A matrix model underpins the Graybar layout. Geographical regions are used to service current customers. Client connections are kept up to date, and income is tracked at the provincial scale. Traditionally, Atlantic Canada was the highest income area, and it is currently equivalent in area to Central Canada, which has witnessed enormous expansion. Western Canada is the weakest region, although it will grow with the hiring of a new Managing Partner in 2021. In 2021, the merger of a new strategic acquisition will also begin. The purchase of ElectroMag, a regional robotics supplier in the region of Québec, strengthens Graybar's footprint in Canada. National officials in selling, advertising, finance, telecommunications, stock, and management offer pass solutions to deal and direction to the areas. In 2021, a new key involvement Project Manager-was created in response to the growing national focus on innovation. Another significant institutional improvement was the founding of The Graybar Canada Innovation Council. This 60-person unit was constituted to give approval and feedback to Graybar Canada's current holdings of reforms. The group represents a horizontal slice of Graybar. This new emerging group is formed up of both long-term employees and recent hires from diverse divisions and sectors. The team met just a few times in 2021 and started to gain concentration and pace.

The company is currently facing several challenges in different sectors. COVID 19 pandemic had a huge impact on the growth of the company. Lockdown caused by the pandemic severely affected the sales rate of the company. The yearly revenue of the company decreased gradually during the pandemic time. Apart from that, the company is facing challenges with its supply network too. The supply chain is the biggest strength of this company which is now becoming a weak point for the organization. Due to poor performance, several outlets of the company are being closed currently.

Graybar Canada first established an application delivery solution using a competing product. Nevertheless, as research and development ceased and the software no longer worked effectively with Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, the IT staff struggled to handle the over 400 concurrent users. Furthermore, the software-defined- defined solution could not be published on iOS or Android handheld platforms. Graybar Canada needed a software-defined- defined alternative that would provide instant, dependable distant access to enterprise resource planning (ERP) software programs on distant location desktop machines, portable devices, and fully responsive internet browsers to enact more customer-friendly, mobile-friendly cloud computing facilities. Connectivity to ERP systems on mobile devices enabled staff to have real-time inventory stock data in one place, enhancing customer experience and increasing corporate efficiency.

During the COVID 19 viral outbreak and pandemic crisis throughout the world, Graybar Canada, like other firms, began to experience some obstacles that had not been encountered before. Many of the industry's stores were shuttered, and there was a great deal of anxiety in the industry's operating stores. With people all over the world choosing to purchase from the comfort of their own homes, the demand for e-commerce or search engine optimization was skyrocketing. Graybar Canada has since made investments more in the digitalization of its organization and has significantly enhanced its digital capabilities. Digital reforms enable any corporation to operate effectively even under the most difficult and essential conditions. In the context of virtual change, the responsibilities and potential of company leaders are enormous. The manager is responsible for integrating the appropriate tools and procedures in the firm's management system to carry out the firm's digitalization. They are also responsible for maintaining the company's staff and cultivating the workers' passion and commitment during the change time (Mwakisaghu,2019). Building particular teams, defining business goals, controlling customer support operations, and adopting transformational technology are all essential acts that executives must accomplish during the change. Along with the benefits and possibilities, there are other problems that leaders encounter during the digital revolution or disturbance. The major difficulty for leaders is sensing and detecting difficulties. Aside from that, selecting and implementing the most appropriate technology to alleviate the issues is critical. Leaders must even maintain a watch on market data and client ratings at the same time in order to make the best of difficult conditions. Another important difficulty for leaders throughout the digital revolution is planning and implementing digitized service to customers while retaining demand. t a few times and started to get concentration and momentum. Graybar began an effort in 2019 to develop an e-commerce system via which consumers may connect with Graybar immediately, especially purchasing things digitally. The radically altered various operations inside Graybar as well as for outside brand representatives. Salesforce was soon introduced by Graybar as a fresh Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Graybar selected the virtual appliance solution to provide a more robust foundation for future growth. The current ERP system is out of date, and technical assistance is insufficient. The new Infor Cloud Suite is a slashing methodology built on industry best practices. Graybar will profit with a more extended version of its business and more nearly identical as a result of Infor Cloud Suite. The in-house ERP system currently includes various statistics that were created over time. Data will also be accessible through a self-service website. The computer software and navigation of both the software will be improved to make use of contemporary technology.

According to the challenges and current scenario of the organization, Graybar , Canada it can be implemented that an effective change management plan should be incorporated within the organization to boost productivity which can aid in the process of innovation and also improve the growth and development of the company (Galli,2018). Although the company was one of the most renowned organizations dealing with electrical equipment combined with technology and softwares, the onset of the covid 19, affected the company's growth and operations. The company underwent a digital transformation, which also included certain drawbacks and affected the overall performance of the company. Hence, it has become effective that an immediate change management plan would help in building resilience, and restructure the organization by nurturing productivity in the new environment. This in turn would also assist in increasing the efficiencies of the employees and help them to perform better accomplishing the organizational goals. As this company is an employee-owned company, the roles and responsibilities are quite different from usual in this organization (Mwakisaghu,2019). About 700 employees of this company have all the rights and ability to buy shares in the organization. This is indeed a special characteristic of this company which makes this different from others of the same kind. There are numerous job titles and roles for the employees of this company. This feature of the company is one of the most significant aspects of change management which if implemented successfully by establishing an effective organizational hierarchy and hierarchical structure with an open communication system between the staff and the levels of management can prove to be beneficial for the betterment of the company. An effective change management plan includes the implementation of effective leadership approaches , and changes in the culture of the organization for increasing the productivity and performance of the employees along with identifying the specific areas which require more attention for improvements (Galli,2018). The company has been recognised for its innovative ideas and innovation which has enabled it to establish itself in the marketplace. But the pandemic has influenced Graybar and its employees to a great extent and they have become habituated with the modern habits of work culture. The employees to certain extent have also lost their creative thinking abilities which is one of the most significant reasons for the challenges. Although Graybar Canada was pleasantly surprised to see that implementing Parallels RAS elevated emulation technology only took just a few hours of IT personnel effort, the implementation of an effective change management plan would influence the organization to come up with better innovative ideas and solutions. Graybar Canada also profited from increased dependability and ERP accessibility from every gadget with Web connectivity. With the Parallels, RAS all-inclusive solution's automatic, the in-system extremely, the organization could quickly build a greater VM connectivity without the problems or expensive expenses involved with competing for virtualization development tools. Parallels RAS's continuous integration distribution assistance services Graybar Canada’s immediate access to ERP systems on just about any gadget, allowing the organization to keep superior control of authentic stock levels (Al-Lozi & Al-Qirem,2021). Parallels RAS provided excellent ERP software emulation, whereas the IT staff appreciated an incredibly simple infrastructure. Graybar should focus on developing a strong organizational culture and environment, with the assistance of an effective leadership approach like the transformational leadership approach which would influence the employees to remain motivated and engage in the process of creative thinking abilities to focus on innovation. A transformational leader is able to provide appropriate guidance to the employees which helps them to clear the role ambiguities, and develop high levels of job satisfaction. A high level of job satisfaction enables the employees to improve organizational commitment and hence they are able to actively participate and engage in the process of innovative thinking. The recent technology of Graybar which didn't work out with window 8.1 or 10 , is a lack of efficiency and skill sets (Al-Lozi & Al-Qirem,2021). This skill set among the employees can be inculcated , with the help of appropriate training facilities from the management including both formal and informal learning opportunities, like coaching sessions, mentoring, gamification etc. Establishment of an effective communication system is also essential to impose any culture of new thinking within the organization. Graybar should focus on the implementation of an effective communication system which would highly acknowledge the two way communication system and provide more emphasis on the feedback system by various assessments and tools like , interviews, questionnaires, surveys , etc. This would enable the management to identify the gaps in the skillsets and also they would be able to conduct a training needs analysis (Alqatawenh,2018). The company should also focus on investing more in the research and development for better cost effective technologies and with higher efficiencies which are able to satisfy the customers. Graybar needs to implement this change management plan for stimulating the process of innovation which would help them to resolve the challenges and barriers affecting their company. Successful innovative ideas would assist the company to improve their performance and boost productivity thereby generating maximum revenues and accomplishing organizational goals.

Graybar Canada can opt to use Parallels® Distant Database Server after examining different alternatives. After the quick implementation of Parallels RAS, the company would be able to give safe, simple virtual access permissions to its workers using Windows, Mac®, Android, iOS, and Microsoft Surface tablets, and also any gadget having an HTML5 internet browser. The HTML5 internet window client would enable employees to connect ERP systems without the need for hypervisor technology to be installed on their machine, making it much more adaptable and simpler to adopt for end customers (Alqatawenh,2018). Parallels RAS is a safe solution that enables Graybar Canada to increase efficiency by making workers work flexibly. Staff working online may connect to the HTML5 Portal or utilize the Parallels Customer on every gadget using Parallels RAS. Consumers in the workplace may now immediately browse programs using the Parallels Client for Windows without even any setup (Alqatawenh,2018). But away from the office, Graybar Canada sales professionals utilize the Parallels Application on iOS and Android smartphones to monitor inventory and transaction progress.

This study revealed the current situation of the company as well as the crisis during the pandemic time. At the end of this assignment, it can be concluded that Graybar is one of the leading companies and offers the best possible services to its customers. Although the company did face some challenges in the covid period, it has managed to overcome the situation by maintaining the guidelines properly. The Parallels RAS has solved the ERP system-related desktop and other device problems. The supply network of the company was down a little during the crisis period which needs to be taken care of by the supply chain management section of the company (Alqatawenh,2018). Looking at the current situation and the requirements of the customers, the company was able to transform itself digitally. This digital transformation of the company is now helping the cause of the organization and providing better outcomes for the company as well as for the customers. The company goes through a complicated job role system which can be simplified and improved for the betterment of the organization. This way the company can go and gain the top spot in the industry across the globe in the coming time

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