Question

Summary of profile case:” Stoner, Inc.” page 393

RSHIP FOR PERFORMANCE 10 CHAPTER XCELLENCE Performance Excellence Profile: Stoner, Inc.1 Stoner, Inc. (Stoner) is a small, family-owned business located in Lancaster County, the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country. The company was founded more than 60 years ago by Paul Stoner, an orphan, chemist, and entrepreneur who started the business by making printing inks. In 1986, the company was purchased by Paul Stoner's grandson, Rob Ecklin, who repositioned the company for growth and evolved the product line to more than 300 specialized cleaners, lubricants, coatings, and car care products. Today, Stoner is the largest supplier of aerosol and bulk release agents for plastics and other molded materials in the United States. In other markets, which include automotive car care and electronics cleaning, Stoner is a niche player but is still highly competitive with much larger companies. Stoner President Rob Ecklin personaly managed the company throughout the 1980s. Although Ecklin is still the sole owner, in 1990, he empowered a six- member senior leadership team to manage the business. These hands-on leaders facilitate strategic planning, develop team processes, and mentor team members to implement the company's strategy. The company's core values-exceed customer expectations, foster and develop a motivated team, be safety/health/ environment responsible, innovate new and better solutions, and continuously improve-guide all aspects of Stoner's business culture. At the heart of Stoner's success is the Stoner Excellence System, visualized as a pyramid with leadership at the top, supported by strategy and process. Stakeholder Value has a prominent place in the center of the system and is surrounded by Assess, Improve, Implement-the company's simple, but effective, three-step process for continuous improvement. All Stoner employees nown as team members, understand that continuous improvement is the key to sustaining competitive success and are focused on finding and implementing ways to add value for customers. Stoner's Advisory Board, which includes people outside of the company, is another resource to help provide dir and focus to the strategic planning process and advice on priority

Answer 1

Stoner, Inc. is one of the niche market player, led by Rob Ecklin who is the sole owner of the family owned business. To retain the company’s core values and facilitate the essential elements to run the business, the Stoner Excellence System is the reason for Stoner’s success. It is in the form of a pyramid with leadership, strategy, process and stakeholder value in the middle with three-step process (Assess, Improve, Implement) is followed by all employees for continuous improvement along with the Stoner’s Advisory Board. The strategic scorecard is used by the leadership team to keep an eye on the business activities and by the usage of an enterprise resource planning system to keep track of the orders on the day to day basis. Thus, with the clearly defined goals, vision, mission, Stoner has accomplished the outstanding business outcomes. Therefore, it is apparent that the leadership is the key to management and organizational behavior for successful business transformation.