Write a speech. In articulating this speech, you are to assume the role of the presenter at the quarterly sales meeting with CEO Darleen Simpson. Darleen and the CFO are the only two who know about the most recent quarterly financials. You are pleased to know from speaking to her that the news is actually good. For the first time in over a year, the numbers are getting better and there are real signs of recovery for Highpoint Industries. With that said, you, Darleen, and the CFO all recognize that Highpoint is not out of the woods yet. In fact, there have recently been some challenges that have come up. They are as follows. First, IKEA has come out with very high quality and low-cost competitors to Highpoint’s basketball hoops. While reviewers continue to give Highpoint’s hoops a better rating, everyone in the company is unsure of the degree to which IKEA will have an impact on the market. They are unsure how much IKEA will even pay attention to promoting this new offering and the degree to which buyers of this product will respond to a spontaneous purchase in an IKEA store. This is creating a great deal of uncertainty. Secondly, in dealing with this issue, they know that they are under a certain degree of time pressure due to the fact that IKEA is going to be placing their new product in a number of their stores in just a few weeks. This creates a bit of a time constraint in that members of the C team want to be prepared for this issue while simultaneously not overreacting. Finally, even though the financial report will be good, the CFO was quick to point out that there is much less money in the reserves right now and the ability to spend extra money on resource support, etc. is at an all-time minimum in the twenty-year history of the company. Simply put, unless the company is willing to significantly borrow against future earnings, they are going to have to innovate in a thoughtful and entirely fiscally responsible way. Given the constraints of this extreme uncertainty, the time pressure you are experiencing with IKEA, and the resource constraints that have emerged, you are preparing a speech that will motivate and provide direction to the C team to meet this challenge. While you aren’t asked in this speech to specifically address how IKEA may compete and/or strategies for selling basketball hoops, you can address the degree to which uncertainty, time pressures, and resource constraints can have an impact and ultimately lead to better results. After all, you are aware of the fact that there have been many instances wherein businesses have been faced with unique challenges like this that have actually come out ahead. They have been able to narrow their focus and achieve better results than ever.

• Component 1: The challenge of leading with uncertainty regarding systems and outcomes.

• Component 2: The challenge of leading with time pressures and objectives which appear to be more robust than the time available.

• Component 3: Conceptualizing and exploring the challenge of organizational improvement and development and the constraints to those objectives.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Quarterly Reports Introduction Challenges experienced in the construction industry require excellent risk management plans to ensure optimal success in the projects undertaken Challenges can be very c... View the full answer