Kids'stop Case Study

Kids’ Stop is a daycare center for preschool children. Tom Maier is the chairman and founder of the company. He handed the company to Tim, the current Chief Executive Officer four years ago. Kids’ Stop was facing a financial problem before Tim step in, and he turn the company over and continue growing since. Tim is consider as an innovator with an entrepreneur at heart, however he is a rude speaker. In this case, Tim made bad comments in of the children in front of the potential sponsor and experience teachers of Kids’ Stop in a conference. Both incidents have been spread throughout the United States. It is hurting the image and stock price of the company. Therefore Tom has to make the decision of either keeping Tim and continue to be the CEO of Kids’ Stop or ouster him. Child care industry is a very competitive industry. According to Michael Porter’s five forces, the rival of competitors and the bargaining power of buyers are relatively high. As stated in the case, “Childcare was a tough field, and only the most innovative companies turned even a modest profit.” Under Tim lead, Kids’ Stop improved their inner strength a lot and secure a stable market share in the field. For example, Tim added the lactation rooms for women who breastfeed during work, which increase their market segment and differentia the brand from other competitors. He also saw the opportunity to “carve out the niche and provide on site care for client companies”. It had successfully expand Kids’ Stop throughout the United State. These improvement have been increase Kids’ Stop market strength in the child care industry. However, because of Tim’s “abrasive personality and some disregard for social convention”, he become or even turn valuable assets into a threats for the company. For example, one of the their goals and objective is to “provide scholarships for kids whose families demonstrated financial need” and they are currently looking for sponsors to pay for the scholarships. And during the tour for the potential sponsor, Delores Dayton, Tim made a rude comment to the kids in front of her. That might result not only bad image for the company but …show more content…
Although the company might not even have stock like they do now or even operating if Tim step into Kids’ Stop, yet his behavior is not appropriate to qualify as the chief executive officer for the company. As a corporate level officer, their behavior reflect the company as a whole. They are the image of the company. No matter how great the company is doing, investors and consumer look up to the CEO, and his or her behavior determine how the company will be in the future. Same thing as the employees, CEO is their leader and he or she should be the inspire one, someone who they could look up to and follow. In this case, Tim fail to do any of these, even he is innovative and has been leading Kids’ Stop into the right direction. However I believe in order for a company to be successful in the long run, they need the employees to help them along. And this is the major problem Tim had cause lately. Therefore I recommend Tom to ouster Tim as the CEO position. Yet Tom can assign Tim into different position in Kids’ Stop and still helping the company to grow continually but less influence with the corporate’s image and employees’