John Clendenin's Objectives

Question : What were John Clendenin’s constraints/barriers to accomplishing his objectives and why? Where did he have leverage and why?

Following are some of the constraints Clendenin have to accomplish his objectives:

The quality of MDC work was very much dependant on the support staff. He did not have a wide pool to choose resources from. The only resources available to him were the ones that others were willing to let go. These guys were probably not the winners in their own department and that is one of the reason the MDC department was looked down upon by many others in XEROX. According to the case they were staffed with stray cats and dogs.

Clendenin success at his job did not go well with his colleagues who have long term logistics experience. Every time he was planning to take an

Moreover the customers of MSDC were the lower level purchasing managers and according to Clendenin their interests were not always aligned with the interests of the company.

To revamp MSDC new role, Clendenin needed support and approval from CISB. It was quite difficult for him to talk to those guys, as they were quite high in the reporting level.

The manager who was heading the MSDC department quit the job and Clendenin has to manage the extra workload. This created an extra pressure situation for Clendenin.

Clendenin was short on budget and resources while heading MDC. He was not allowed extra resources and can only ask for money that will save the same amount in the same year. Moreover there was animosity from the members in the steering committee regarding budget. They were not happy with MDC using their money and telling them what MDC found out on their external benchmarking trips.

Clendenin had a leverage in some of the following situation/scenarios :

Clendenin had served in the Marines as a Major before going for him MBA and joining Xerox. He