Inter Clean Benchmarking

Inter-Clean Benchmarking

Abstract

InterClean, Inc. is a major player in the cleaning and sanitation industry. After a recent merger with a top competitor, EnvironTech, the company must undergo an intensive change management transition. Through research analysis of three other companies, the following is a summarization of solutions InterClean Human Resources may consider during this ordeal.

InterClean Benchmarking

In today’s global and technological market environment, change is constant. As a result, businesses around the world are finding ways to sustain competitive advantage. Instead of just focusing on financial, strategic, and technological capabilities, emphasis shifts now to a company’s ability to effectively manage people through “organizational capabilities,” which relates to hiring and retaining competent employees and developing those competencies through effective human resource practices. (Dreher & Dougherty, 2001) More and more organizations and senior executives are saying human-capital management is critical and Human Resources should play a major role in improving it. (Lawler, 2005)

In the current problem scenario we are analyzing, InterClean, Incorporated, a major player in the cleaning and sanitation industry, will undergo an intensive change management transition. InterClean’s Human Resources is assigned to plan strategic organizational changes necessary to accommodate the development of full-service solutions packages within three to six months. As InterClean aligns organizational change around the new solutions- based vision, sales and marketing will experience a change management transition, especially after the acquisition of a domestic competitor, EnviroTech. This task will not be easy for HR since “the management of organizational change is a challenge on that we must study continually if we are to identify the skills sets we need to cope with it at today’s ever-accelerating pace” (Reilly, 2007, 16).

When a company such as InterClean faces dilemmas with organizational change, change management, acquisitions of other companies, limited expenses, need to expand operations, and handling different stakeholders; human resources management needs to think outside the box. A common practice is to benchmark to find best solutions to handle these transactions. InterClean can learn from other company’s best practices and situations experienced from outside the cleaning and sanitaation industry. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Pfizer, and Del Monte Foods also faced similar dilemmas during acquisitions. With the proper research from these companies, several ideas were obtained.

First we begin looking at a major technology company, Hewlett-Packard (HP), who operates in more than 170 countries. The company has successfully expanded to be a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. In early September 2001, HP acquires Compaq, a major competitor, in a $25 billion deal and became “one of the largest technology companies in the world” (Williams & Legard, PC World, 2001). Obviously, this acquisition is not at the same scale as InterClean’s but it provides best procedures as to how two large companies with combined staff of “around 145,000 people in 160 countries after the merger” were able to retain key talent. Human Resources played a large role with the HP-Compaq.

Another company examined during our benchmarking research is Pfizer, a research-based, global pharmaceutical company. This company, headquartered in New York City, employs about 115,000 people worldwide. At present, Pfizer manufactures five of the world’s top selling medicines, including Lipitor, the world’s best selling drug.

In August, 2006, Pfizer Chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Kindler, announced the new organizational structure of the company that will address the rapid changes taking place in the healthcare environment. According to Kindler, “we need to align our organization to today’s markets, so that we see opportunities quickly and act on them, whether that means increasing support for successful new medicines, forging partnerships with key customers, entering into co-promotion and licensing agreements, investing in new technologies to add value to our core product offering, or acquiring new products and services from outside the company.”

Last year, Pfizer recorded revenue of $45.1 billion, a 2 percent increase compared to 2005. The pharmaceutical industry is changing rapidly. Science is creating wholly new ways to treat disease, regulators and payers are more demanding, and patients are becoming more involved in their healthcare decisions.

The third company analyzed is Del Monte Foods, the world famous canning company whose products are found in