The position cfo chief financial officer still vacant
Your task for Week 4 is to prepare a project proposal on how to set up the start-up company successfully, while ensuring that the executive team and the supplier teams remain motivated. Your proposal must indicate all the tasks that you will complete to ensure a successful start-up along with the schedule for completion of these tasks. Your proposal should have a brief project introduction, a problem statement, the project objectives, and conclusion. All references should be in the Harvard Referencing System.
One example of a project proposal can be found at the following Web site:
The brief project statement that you wrote together with Ryan and Jeff is:
To create the start-up company so that the product (as defined in a charter document) is available for installing at customer sites in 10 months from the start date and a production operation is also in place by that time to develop the vehicles at a rate of 50 units per week and control station at one per week.
Safety regulations must be met because the mobile vehicles will work in warehouses together with human workers. These safety regulations are different for different states in the U.S.
The project team needs to be assembled. As the overall project is of significant size and challenging in multiple dimensions, you need to employ staff quickly and the team members you recruit need to start contributing as soon as they are hired. On the other hand, as the project is at the “idea level” at this point in time, it will take some time before work can be assigned. Therefore, employing staff should be done accordingly.
Acquisition Proposal: Jeff Hoffman discovered a small company called Ryoichi in Tokyo, Japan, which undertakes contract work. The company is comprised of 13 closely-knit engineers. Jeff reported that the team at Ryoichi had the skills and expertise Sturata Inc. needs to design autonomous mobile vehicles. Jeff knows a few people from within Ryoichi. In fact, one of them was his student at a course which he taught at UC Berkeley. Dr. O’Neal was also impressed by the portfolio of contract work Ryoichi has delivered. He agreed that their skills and expertise correspond to the needs of Sturata Inc. Jeff wants to buy Ryoichi, using a mix of stock options and cash to finance the purchase. Ryan instead wants to use Ryoichi as a contract company because he is concerned about difficulties in communications (only five people from Ryoichi speak fluent English), the entrepreneurial spirit of that team, and the fact that the team members are very tightly knit together.
Assume that after discussions and negotiations mediated by you, Sturata Inc. decided to acquire Ryoichi and use it as a design and development centre. A formal offer is being prepared to acquire Ryoichi for US$1.25 million 30/70 cash/options ratio (ratio of cash to the underwritten value of stock options that a buying company offers to the shareholders of the company being purchased). As a start-up company, Sturata can only offer stock options and not marketable securities with cash or other tangible assets. It was also agreed that the team will look into the possibility of opening up a production centre in China. This has further complicated the overall project.
An organisational design plan for the start-up showing its evolution over 10 months. Include the following in this plan:
Your decision for the initial organisational form. What should the organisational form look like as the project progresses towards completion? Provide explanations to support your answer.
A Code of Ethics for Sturata Inc. highlighting the value system the organisation should embrace keeping in view its multi-cultural and cross-functional nature. The code should include one short paragraph to explain each of the following:
General employee conduct in a multicultural environment
Gifts, favours, and commissions
Responsibility to society and environment
