For this week’s assignment, assume the role of the owner/CEO of a company that is looking to change its fortunes through innovation. You are the CEO of Top Pet Products, Inc., a leading company in the pet novelty toy business. Your mother started the business 30 years ago with a group of friends. They experimented part-time for years, with many failures along the way, until they developed an electric mouse that realistically mimicked the movements of a real mouse, Speedy the Mouse. Speedy drove cats around the country crazy and grew Top Pet Products with high profits. Top Pet Products rode Speedy to over $10 million a year in sales and almost 100 employees and a manufacturing operation in California. Unfortunately, success breeds imitation, and Speedy has faced heavy competition and declining sales. The company had developed some new versions of Speedy over the years, like Zombie Speedy for Halloween, but those did little to stop the sales decline.

You took charge of the company last year after your mother retired. Your initial assessment is that the company had lost its entrepreneurial spirit and had no drive to develop new innovative products. The company is also not as profitable as it really should be, given its sales. You believe the firm is just not being innovative in its operational processes. Processes employed 20 years ago are still used today but are now impeding the company’s progress.

You could sell off the company and the rights to Speedy to a larger competitor, but you really want to save your family’s legacy and turn the company around. Many of your employees have been with the firm for ten years or more. They are extremely loyal, and all have significant expertise related to the job. You want to keep them, but the status quo is not acceptable.

After reading and viewing this week’s required resources, address the following in a brief paper with an accompanying employee pamphlet:

• Analyze the underlying challenges that Top Pet Products is experiencing.
• Document five ideas from your research that you will implement at Top Pet Products to increase the entrepreneurial spirit and create an organizational culture that encourages innovative ideas and initiatives from all your employees. Please make sure the ideas are ethically sound.
• Include how technology might be used to implement these five ideas, such as the use of social media or video conferencing.
• Use two or more of the ideas that you generated to create a pamphlet that you will distribute to your employees to explain the necessary changes at Top Pet Products. This should be designed to get their buy-in and encourage their full participation. Remember not to bore your employees. Ensure the pamphlet content is brief and relevant to their needs. You can do this as an appendix to your paper or create a separate document. Part of the grading will be based on the look and clarity of your pamphlet/handout.

Support your assignment with the items in the Books and Resources for this Week. In addition to these specified resources, other appropriate scholarly resources, including seminal articles, should be included.

Length: 3 to 5-page paper, plus 1 to 2-page pamphlet, not including title and reference pages

Your assignment should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts presented in the course by providing new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect scholarly writing and current APA standards. Be sure to adhere to Northcentral University's Academic Integrity Policy.

Upload your document, and then click the Submit to Dropbox button.

Due DateJul 20, 2019 11:59 PM