A few days after delivering his father's loss, Michael Plummer Jr. sat at the ornate desk in his father's office and signed paychecks for the 30 employees who worked at Our Town America,the company his father had founded in 1972 in Florida. Although Plummer never shared his father's enthusiasm for the family business, which provided welcome packages from local businesses to people who had just relocated, he had spent the last nine years working with his father in the company. Plummer had given up a career that he loved as an army doctor to help his father manage the family business after Michael Plummer Sr. had his first heart attack. Sitting at his late father's desk, Plummer,35,thought about how much he missed the adrenaline rush of emergency medicine and saving lives with instant decisions. Reflecting on the last nine years, he thought, "Everything is my father's. It was his legacy, but I am engulfed by it."
Naturally, Plummer was saddened by his father's sudden death at 57, but he thought it might be the ideal time for him to sell the family business and return to the career that he loved. The decision would be difficult. Our Town America was his father's legacy and the company employed his sister, aunt and cousin. Could he sell it and walk away? After all, Plummer had started working in the business when he was just five years old, stuffing envelopes and continued working there until he graduated from high school, when he turned down a $5,000 monthly salary offer from his father to join the army. Plummer's military service took him to South Korea, where he managed an urgent care clinic. Four years later, he received word that his father has survived a heart attack and needed help running family business. He started in sales before moving into the company's information technology department, where he improved the company's databases and developed an on-demand printing operation. The work was challenging and fun but Plummer says that the best part of the job was the time he spent with his father. Still, he never considered Our Town America anything more than a detour from his passion of being a doctor.
A few days after his father died, Plummer received a call from a business broker who asked him whether he would be interested in selling Our Town America. Plummer began to wonder whether selling was the best option. Several family members, including his father's wife, were quarreling over the ownership and direction of company. Longtime employees wondered about the security of their jobs, and everyone was looking to Plummer for answers. "A lot of knowledge was lost when Michael Sr. passed away", says Travis Morales, the company's sales manager. "People wondered if we were going to make it."
In reality, Plummer also was wondering whether the company would be able to survive. He soon discovered that recession had caused the company's sales to decline by 24%. His father's penchant for allocating cash when employees ran into financial problems had created financial problems for the company. Our Town America payroll was bloated. "Michael Sr. was paying people who didn't actually do anything", says Cliff Hallmark, the company's chief financial officer. "Instead of hiring the right person for the job, he hired friends."
The challenges the company faced made Plummer's decision all the more difficult. His father had named him as successor in the family business and had spent nine years training him for the job, but was really ready to take over the company his father has founded and loved so much? What if the company failed under his watch? Should he sell the entire business and share the earnings with his two sisters? Should he keep the business and hire a professional manager to run it? [...]
QUESTION 1:
Do you think that Michael Plummer Sr. has adequately prepared his son to take over the family business? What are the indications mentioned in the case to illustrate this preparation?
QUESTION 2:
Evaluate the hiring and the remuneration policy adopted by Plummer Sr. with the employees of his family-owned business.
QUESTION 3:
Do you consider Plummer Jr. a successful entrepreneur? Discuss your opinion by explaining the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur and the Plummer Jr. traits as revealed by the case.
QUESTION 4:
Assume the role of adviser to Michael Plummer Jr. What actions do you recommend he takes concerning the future of the family business? Explain.