Visionary Design Systems
The founding fathers of VDS, PDM’s mother company, felt that their employees were their most important asset and ensured that they were rewarded largely for their hard work and dedication thru stock options, bonuses, autonomy and commissions. The founding fathers of the company also recognized that PDM was a critical market for their company; their long term goal was in total systems integration, so that their customers would properly implement CAD hardware and software systems. It was not until three years later did upper management realize there was not a defined Missions, Goals, Tactics & Objective statement. Though the founders verbally communicated with the employees regularly about, their Mission, but how they were attacking their goals (full integration) didn’t support their long term objectives. By their compensation scale and how many sales representatives were hired, verses how many applications engineers and service specialists reflected the fact the business growth was more there were more money making opportunities in training and consulting. The compensation system should promote support rather than growth. Company growth will continue regardless, through the support of its customers. The base salaries of the sales team and the application engineers should increase and bonuses/commissions should be much smaller until all the factors are in place and sure signs of growth are present, then you can use the bonus/commissions as incentive. The way you pay your employees should always reflect the successes of the company based on achieving its objectives.
VDS has maintained that their employees are their greatest asset. In order for them to continue growth and maintain a positive reputation among its customers, it must invest in the training of its sales force and application engineers. I would begin by a lengthy orientation process and maybe a training camp led by the specialists. All employees would have to participate to some extent,