Entrepreneur Management
Institutional Affiliation
Student’s Name
Class
Date
- Current Stage of ATH Technologies Inc.
In the year 2007, Dr. Charles Casper and John Frost founded ATH Technologies, Inc. that would focus on dealing with the development and supply of emerging medical equipment. Both founders were optimistic that their products had significant market potential. They were able to convince a group of doctors to invest in the enterprise (Class Material, n.d). The company commenced its operations with $4.7 million in paid-in capital. In the year 2008, ATH technologies obtained its first delivery approval to dispatch its first product into the market, an imaging system designed to work alongside minimally invasive surgical procedures. In 2011, ATH technologies was acquired following the payment of an initial sum of $ 120 million.
In 2012, the company experienced spiked losses due to investing heavily in development at the company’s coffers’ direct expense. At the beginning of 2013, the management launched a program to push profitability (Class Material, n.d). The program was immensely successful. However, later in the same year, the company faced a setback occasioned by increased product returns due to defects.
In the year 2014, the company was able to resolve issues raised by the regulator, and the following year, it had successfully reinstated 95% of its sales (Class Material, n.d). Beginning the year 2016, the company’s growth came to an abrupt stop. Products had been loaded on customers in the previous year. The growth stoppage was also significantly contributed to by the emergence of competition in Europe after introducing a substituting product that was increasingly becoming more preferable.
In the same year, there was a change in management. The new management acknowledged that the company was not able to maintain previous growth rates at that time. The management focused on putting up a measure that reduced running cost and more funds were directed at the development of new products.
In the year 2017, two products were to be introduced into the market but were rejected after discovering major shortcomings. The company was left with only the old products in a significantly dynamic market. Never the less, this situation creates objectives that the company can strive to achieve. It is also a learning opportunity that will help the company make the right resolutions that would enable it to remain competitive in the future.
- Ways of communicating to and motivating employees to achieve profit and performance goals
Employees play a vital role in the achievement of profit and goals of any company. According to Jha and Kumar (2016), it is crucial that companies’ management put up measures to ensure that their employees are well motivated for maximum productivity.
Recognizing employees’ efforts is one effective way of motivating them. Appreciating the employee’s roles in the company’s operations largely motivates them, making them more productive, consequently contributing to its financial success.
Organizing team building events not only breaks the monotony of routine but also ensures bonding between the employees. This plays a major role in strengthening solidarity in the workforce, which is beneficial to its effectiveness (Jha & Kumar, 2016).
Providing autonomy to the workers also contributes to achieving the prospected profit and goals of a company. According to Jha and Kumar (2016), allowing the workers to decide what they should encourage innovativeness and boost their confidence. When used appropriately, this strategy significantly pushes the company toward better performance in terms of profits and goals achievement.
Similarly, as a company seeks feedback from its customers, it is also important to seek the same from its employees. However, it is a tricky resolve considering backlashes that might emanate from the workforce when a decision is imposed. Nevertheless, encouraging feedback from the employees allows the management to identify areas that need improvement regarding working conditions. This will subsequently translate to improved productivity.
Providing workers with the allowance to share profits will almost certainly lead to increased productivity. When workers are aware that they hold a stake in the company’s profits, they will most likely double their efforts towards ensuring that the company achieves maximum profit.
References
Class material- ATH Technologies: Making the Numbers
Jha, B., & Kumar, A. (2016). Employee engagement: A strategic tool to enhance performance. DAWN: Journal for Contemporary Research in Management, 3(2), 21-29.