article

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HBS Professor Michael Beer and writer Rachel Shelton prepared this case solely as a basis for class discussion and not as an endorsement, a
source of primary data, or an illustration of effective or ineffective management. This case, though based on real events, is fictionalized, and any
resemblance to actual persons or entities is coincidental. There are occasional references to actual companies in the narration.

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Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School.

M I C H A E L B E E R

R A C H E L S H E L T O N

BoldFlash: Cross-Functional Challenges in the
Mobile Division

On January 16, 2012, Dr. Roger Cahill walked into his office in BoldFlash’s Waltham,
Massachusetts headquarters at 7 a.m., less than a year into his new role as Vice President of the
company’s Mobile Division. His predecessor’s personal photos and mementos had been packed up
months ago, but they still sat in a corner, patiently waiting for someone to collect them. Cahill didn’t
have the heart to move them because Jim Harrison had died unexpectedly after more than a decade
in the position. Jack Young, the company’s CEO, immediately replaced Harrison with Cahill, a 24-
year employee and highly respected research scientist who previously had led Research in the
Consumer Division.

Cahill had faced a big challenge since assuming his new role. BoldFlash, a producer of flash
memory components for electronic devices, had fallen behind its competitors on several fronts. It was
experiencing pressure on both prices and the ability to get new products to market quickly. Shortly
before Harrison’s death, the Mobile team had developed redundant customized chips for mobile
phone market customers while completely missing a critical market in storage devices used for
tablets, thus handing its competitors an advantage in a critical growth market. A brilliant
entrepreneur whose vision drove the growth of the Mobile Division, Harrison was perceived as an
autocrat who fostered a compliant culture in which people protected themselves and their territory
from his strong top-down directives. Cahill wondered if his predecessor’s leadership style
contributed to the conflicts he was observing. More generally, he had been unsure what to expect
from the groups in the division——Product Development, Marketing and Sales, and Manufacturing——
and he did not want to judge based on anything other than personal experience and observation.

After a few months on the job, Cahill felt that he had sized up the situation. There was a lot of
unproductive conflict between the functional departments, particularly around the product
development process. Manufacturing was the dominant function and seemed to be pulling its
weight, but overall he saw a division that was underperforming and struggled with communication
and teamwork. The product development process seemed dysfunctional. The division’s quarterly
product development meeting was also dysfunctional. ‘‘The product development meeting should be
the primary opportunity to plan the creation of new products. So I was surprised when I found out
that Jim Harrison usually didn’t attend and instead left leadership of the meeting up to Marketing,’’
he observed. Cahill had broken with tradition and attended the most recent meeting two months ago.

4 4 3 8
M A Y 3 1 , 2 0 1 2

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‘‘I did not see the strong leadership that I would expect from a team with this much talent,’’ he
observed. ‘‘The meeting lasted two days, yet I had a hard time summarizing what we had
accomplished.’’

With the next two-day product development meeting coming up in less than a month, Cahill
wondered what changes he would have to make to the meeting, the organization, and the product
development process to develop truly innovative, market-leading products that anticipated customer
needs.

Company History and the Flash Memory Market

Two computer science professors founded BoldDisk in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1982. Initially,
it manufactured computer storage media, primarily floppy disks, at a plant in Waltham. The
company continued to focus on storage devices as technology evolved (with the exception of an ill-
fated foray into MP3 players in the early 1990s), although its product mix evolved with the market.
By 2012, the company——now re-named BoldFlash——focused on flash memory and had a significant
customer base in both OEM (original equipment manufacturer) and direct-to-consumer markets.

Flash memory is a solid-state drive (SSD) that maintains data storage without moving parts, even
when disconnected from power. It is commonly used in consumer devices such as digital cameras,
mobile phones, USB drives, MP3 players, DVD players, GPS systems, tablet computers, and notebook
computers. Although some flash memory is embedded into the product, consumers can also
purchase flash memory devices to increase the device’s storage capacity. Industry production is
spread among a number of manufacturers that run the gamut from small specialty manufacturers to
global technology powerhouses. Purchasing power is concentrated, with one customer alone
consuming one-third of the market for the newer, high-density NAND-type flash memory. In 2011,
smartphones accounted for 40% of the overall market.

Industry revenues, $20 billion in 2010, were expected to increase to $44 billion by 2014. The sector
was highly competitive. Although demand was consistently strong and expected to grow 22% in
2012, margins were constantly squeezed due to pricing pressure (prices were expected to decline 30%
in 2012) and manufacturers sought to reduce costs wherever possible. This environment led
BoldFlash to move most of its manufacturing outside the U.S. By 2012 the Mobile Division’s largest
plant was in Shanghai; its remaining U.S. plant was in Austin, Texas, and it also had a smaller plant
in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Unlike some of its competitors, BoldFlash operated its own plants; it
did not subcontract or have any joint venture agreements with competitors. The industry was
sometimes prone to supply shortages, so fast, flexible manufacturing practices were critical in
meeting customer demand.

In 2011, overall revenues at BoldFlash were $3.9B, with approximately half of sales to OEMs and
half directly to consumers through warehouses, big box retailers, and electronics stores. Mobile
Division revenues were $1.5B (see Exhibits 1A and 1B for detailed financial statements); smartphone
manufacturers were its largest customer group. The company focused solely on organic growth and
had never made an acquisition.

Competitors and customers respected BoldFlash’s reputation for quality. Consistently headed by a
PhD-level scientist, the company maintained a strong commitment to ongoing research. It placed a
premium on intellectual property, and employees receiving patents were richly rewarded and
recognized. The company held more than 600 patents in the U.S. alone; however, it had not always
successfully commercialized the technology it developed, and its developments did not always align
with market needs. Analysts sometimes criticized the firm as doing research for its own sake rather

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than to improve products or meet new customer needs and faulted a corporate culture that was not
always focused on results.

Because of rapid changes in customer preferences, the Mobile Division had to identify customer
needs and respond more swiftly than in the past with new products that adapted its technology to
the needs of Marketing and Sales. The number of new products developed by Mobile in the past few
years had slowed considerably, however, accounting for its lack of growth. Because of cost
pressures, new products had to be designed with cost of manufacturing in mind, not just technical
elegance.

Leadership of BoldFlash Mobile

Roger Cahill had spent his career working in R&D at Waltham headquarters. He joined in 1984 as
a co-op student while he completed his degree in Electrical Engineering, and although he left for four
years in the early 1990s to finish his doctorate in the same field, he rejoined the week after
graduation. He himself held fifteen patents, the most of anyone in the company at his level.

Cahill reported to CEO Jack Young (see Exhibits 2A and 2B for organization charts), and everyone
on the Mobile Division leadership team was a long-term BoldFlash employee. Except for the Vice
President and plant-based manufacturing employees in China and Canada, most of the rest of
Mobile’s 650 employees had been based in Austin since 1995, when corporate leadership spun the
Mobile Division out of the OEM group and moved the plant from Waltham. The central Texas
location offered lower cost of manufacturing and benefited from proximity to the other high-tech
firms in the area.

Because of the tablet miss, Cahill was under pressure from Young to get Mobile back on track
quickly. Cahill said, ‘‘I’m not a naturally quick decision-maker. I’m a scientist. I like to analyze all the
options and make sure I’m doing the right thing. But in this case, Jack told me in no uncertain terms
that ‘time’ was something I didn’t have. So I moved quickly,’’ said Cahill. ‘‘I’m still not sure if what I
did was right, but I had to do something.’’ Within his first six months in Mobile, he had made several
big changes.

Two months into his tenure, Cahill had separated Marketing and Sales, which had previously
operated together under Director Chip Bryant. ‘‘The two are essentially different functions and were
separate units in the Consumer Division. Marketing is a strategic function while Sales’ role is to
knock on doors and sell,’’ Cahill said. As part of this re-organization, Cahill appointed Kavita Patel, a
colleague from the Consumer division, as Director of Marketing and retained Bryant as head of Sales.

Another high-profile move was consolidating the division’s non-manufacturing employees by
relocating all Austin-based corporate staff and the Shanghai-based Director of Manufacturing to
Waltham headquarters. ‘‘I needed all my leaders in the same time zone,’’ said Cahill. ‘‘I didn’t like
isolating manufacturing leadership halfway around the world. I’d even move the plants to Waltham
if that wouldn’t kill my margins.’’ He also decided to hold Manufacturing, not Sales, accountable for
meeting delivery dates.

These changes were not without controversy. He lost some key staff members, including the
incumbent Manufacturing Director, who refused to relocate from his native China; Cahill named
Kevin Cheng, previously the Shanghai plant manager, to this position.

Cahill’s reports perceived clear differences between their new boss’s leadership style and that of
predecessor Jim Harrison. ‘‘Jim could be kind of overpowering, and people became more protective
and political because they felt intimidated and unable to disagree. But you always knew where he

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stood.’’ said Karl Melzer, Director of Product Development. ’’Roger, on the other hand, is a great
guy. He is much more open and generates trust and involvement, but I think he’s a scientist at heart,
not yet a general manager. I’m not sure why he’s making all these changes.’’ Cahill’s vast technical
knowledge sometimes overwhelmed his colleagues. Kavita Pavel said, ‘‘When Roger gets rolling,
watch out. I had a meeting with him to review our 2012 forecasts and he spent the entire hour talking
about a new design technique that would increase NAND capacity. His expertise is incredible, but it
didn’t help me with my forecasts.’’

Mobile Division Units

Manufacturing

Each of the division’s three manufacturing plants operated as its own profit center and was
evaluated on gross margin and manufacturing-specific metrics such as quality, on-time delivery, and
inventory management. New Manufacturing Director Kevin Cheng, promoted from Shanghai plant
manager, was an American who joined BoldFlash in 1995 as a quality control engineer after receiving
a dual graduate degree in business and engineering. ‘‘Like my old boss, I didn’t want to move from
China and thought about leaving the company,’’ he said, ‘‘but I like working in an environment that
challenges me intellectually. I don’t always agree with my colleagues, but for the most part I respect
their intelligence——especially Roger’s.’’

The managers of the plants in Austin and Ontario were Americans and BoldFlash lifers; the new
Shanghai plant manager was a native Chinese who had attended a top engineering school in the U.S.
The three managers were a competitive group and often compared their results during their monthly
conference calls. Managers at the plant with the lowest margins were subject to sometimes good-
natured ridicule from their peers, but results were serious business. ‘‘I want to encourage a high-
performing culture,’’ said Cheng. ‘‘Knowing we’ll be held accountable makes everyone work harder.’’

Because BoldFlash no longer manufactured anything at corporate headquarters, employees at the
plants could feel isolated. ‘‘I can’t tell you the last time we saw anyone from corporate up here,’’ said
the Ontario plant manager. ‘‘The top people in the States don’t ask us for much input. They mainly
tell us what to make and how much by when.’’ Likewise, Product Development also caused
headaches for the plant by making frequent special requests to run trials of new products on the
manufacturing lines. This lowered efficiency and margins and jeopardized delivery dates. ‘‘Product
Development doesn’t consider the line set-up when they design the new chips, and that leads to costs
that are wrecking our margins,’’ said the manager of the Austin plant. ‘‘It’s very frustrating. All they
have to do is ask and we’d tell them exactly what we think and what they should do. But they rarely
ask. Their actions send us down the wrong track with products that we could have told them cannot
be manufactured at the cost required to make a profit.’’

Manufacturing also frequently butted heads with Sales, which they saw as selling products at any
price they could in order to meet their revenue goals regardless of the impact on margins. Cheng
recalled when they were trying to rush a chip for a new phone model to the market: ‘‘Sales promised
one of our best customers a high level of product at a low price in a short timeframe. To avoid
disappointing the customer, my Ontario plant had to deliver as promised. We lost money on that
deal. Sales got credit for a fifty-million dollar sale. We were mad and let Sales know about it in no
uncertain terms.’’

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Marketing

The Marketing group’s responsibilities included sales projections, long-range market planning,
and exploiting new markets. The group’s most important activity was market development——
identifying and managing the development of new product opportunities. Marketing Specialists
were currently were working on a dozen new products they were responsible for introducing. They
found they had to coordinate the activities of the other functions in order to move the product
development process along. Marketing Specialists were recent graduates of business schools, and
although they were smart and analytical, they lacked experience in the activities they were trying to
coordinate. Moreover, the role and authority of Marketing Specialists, who were in effect operating
as new product development project leaders, had never been clearly defined. Consequently they
found it difficult to get people in Product Development, Sales, and particularly the manufacturing
plants to adhere to commitments that the heads of their functional units had made in the quarterly
product development meetings. There were other problems as well. Patel said ‘‘We’re supposed to
suggest new products, but PD does that too. We’re supposed to make projections, but so is Sales.
We’re a new group, but I wish our role had been better defined before we were spun out.’’

Because new mobile devices were constantly coming to market, each requiring more storage at a
better price, the flash memory market was highly volatile, which made it difficult to predict long-
range revenues and profits of new products under development. Revenue and profit projections for
new products did not always materialize, which reduced the credibility of Marketing Specialists and
the Marketing Department as a whole. The group sometimes felt that their colleagues failed to
appreciate the difficulty of their mission and had unreasonable expectations. ‘‘We take a very
rigorous approach to our projections, but this is not an exact science. There is no ‘right answer’ to the
equation, and it can be difficult to explain that to an engineer or operations manager,’’ said Patel.

Other division leaders also struggled to understand Marketing’s mission. Manufacturing’s Kevin
Cheng said, ‘‘They should be listening to customers instead of writing so many reports——I don’t even
read them half the time.’’ Karl Melzer, head of Product Development, agreed: ‘‘Last year we
developed at least 15 product variations and Marketing couldn’t find buyers for the majority of them.
They just don’t understand the technology and how it can benefit customers.’’

Sales

Chip Bryant had spent three years at FlashForce, a larger competitor, before joining BoldFlash in
1999. Like Marketing, Sales had a substantial number of new employees. Because entry-level sales
positions in this group were seen as stepping stones to other internal roles and to other technology
companies, new college graduates actively sought them out. Competition for entry-level roles was
fierce, and expectations of rapid upward mobility led to high turnover in the group. ‘‘It’s hard to keep
a cohesive team when your top producers keep leaving because they didn’t get promoted fast
enough,’’ said Bryant.

The group developed sales projections for individual customers largely by applying ‘‘educated
instinct’’ to information it gleaned from existing customers. This approach faced frequent criticism
from colleagues in other departments, such as this observation by Marketing’s Patel: ‘‘Sales basically
has tunnel vision. I saw it when I went to our industry’s big trade show last year. Our salespeople
stayed in our booth, when they could have done some good ‘walking around’ research by visiting
our competitors. They missed a great opportunity.’’

Each of BoldFlash’s three manufacturing plants had at least one on-site sales representative to
facilitate on-time delivery and customer service. However, although Chip Bryant and Kevin Cheng
were close friends outside of work, that goodwill did not always extend to lower-level staffers. The

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manager of the Austin plant said, ‘‘Our sales team rarely consults with us before sending out
proposals, even though we have someone on-site. Even worse, they don’t listen when we try to tell
them they’re wrong. Last year, I tried to tell Sales there was no way we could make as many chips as
they had promised in just two weeks. Jim Harrison ordered us to ‘do it anyway,’ so we did. Well, the
system overload crashed the software that runs the line and we had to shut down for almost a day
while we waited for someone in engineering to fix it.’’

This Sales group’s performance metric was very straightforward——revenues. Incentives, not
offered to all groups, were based on performance against revenue targets.

Product Development

This science-oriented department developed advances in technology leading to new products as
well as extensions to existing product lines. Inside the Mobile Division, they were known as the
‘‘geeks.’’ Many were lifelong BoldFlash employees. All had scientific backgrounds, and over two-
thirds of managerial-level staffers held PhDs. All of the division’s patents came from the Product
Development team. Led by Dr. Karl Melzer, a native Austrian who joined BoldFlash in 1985 after
finishing his doctorate, the group tended to keep to itself. ‘‘I’ve been trying to meet with Karl to talk
about a new product launch, but he’s always off presenting at some conference,’’ said Sales Director
Bryant. ‘‘I know he’s a legend in the field, but sometimes he stays up in the clouds.’’

Product Development likewise sometimes experienced trouble communicating with both Sales
and Marketing about product development initiatives. ‘‘Anytime I ask Chip for anything, he says
‘Ask Kavita.’ When I ask Kavita, she tells me to see Chip,’’ said Melzer. ‘‘At this point I have stopped
asking. I just talk to Kevin Cheng or one of the plant managers and somehow we make it work. Kevin
can really get things done when he needs to.’’

Product Development was evaluated on a number of mostly academic criteria, including the
number of new patents approved, presentations made at industry conferences, and academic papers
published in peer-reviewed journals. These criteria hailed back to the Jim Harrison days. ‘‘When Jim
was here, our big successes came from research driven by technological curiosity, not a business
mandate. He didn’t want us worrying about day-to-day business concerns and always kept them
away from us so we could focus on our research,’’ said Melzer.

The Current Product Development Process

Mobile’s product development process mirrored practices in other BoldFlash divisions whose
markets did not change quite as rapidly as that of the Mobile Division. On paper, the process
appeared fairly structured. Four times a year, about 20 division leaders met off-site for two days to
review financial results, set sales projections, and make plans for new product releases. The head of
Market Development presided. Attendance had grown to accommodate the next level of managers
because the heads of functional departments lacked the information they needed on each new
product development to make decisions.

With the mandate from his CEO entrenched in his thinking, Cahill felt his presence would be
critical to improving his division’s results. When he attended his first meeting in November 2011, he
said little, observing and assessing instead. He later followed up with his four functional leaders and
was surprised at what he learned. Cahill said, ‘‘It turned out that the meetings were not very
effective. When a functional department missed its objective with regard to a given product
development the underlying reasons were never confronted. Participants often met afterwards in
small groups to talk about problems that had not been resolved. Meeting progress was slowed

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because people who were up top speed on a given new product development project had to be called
by phone for the latest information about progress in developing the new product — this despite the
fact that the meeting had grown to include the next level managers. Karl told me that in 2009 the
team had a critical discussion centered around the next generation of NAND chips, yet the Product
Development scientist in charge of that product wasn’t even invited and was actually on vacation
during the meeting.’’

The lack of structure around the product development process bothered others on the leadership
team. ‘‘This process lacks discipline and focus,’’ said Karl Melzer. ‘‘I get very frustrated every time I
have to sit in one of those meetings when I could be working on my research. I hope that Roger will
hold us to our goals instead of moving the finish line if we don’t make them.’’ The head of Market
Development, who chaired the product development meetings, confided to Cahill that he often had
sleepless nights before meetings because of the difficulties in resolving issues.

To address some of these concerns, Cahill had decided to chair the next meeting himself.
However, he was unsure how to balance the need for discipline with maintaining positive
relationships with his leadership team. ‘‘I guess I should just go in and take control, but I can’t take
the chance of alienating people,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m still not sure if I’m doing the right thing——I know that
I’m a competent scientist, but many aspects of leadership are new to me. I’m going on instinct here.’’

Conclusion

Cahill looked back at Harrison’s boxes in the corner of his office and wondered what his
predecessor would have done. ‘‘I put together a great team, so this shouldn’t be happening,’’ he
thought. ‘‘Why can’t these smart people all work together?’’ The miss in the tablet market had really
devastated the group. Morale was low, margins were squeezed, and tempers were starting to fray. If
Cahill’s group didn’t introduce successful new products quickly, the division’s future would be on
the line. It might not survive its next miss. He wondered whether the changes he had already made
and his decision to chair the next quarterly product development meeting would solve the
coordination and collaboration problems undermining the product development process. If not, what
additional organizational changes would be needed?

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4438 | BoldFlash: Cross-Functional Challenges in the Mobile Division

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Exhibit 1A BoldFlash Corporate Operating Results ($ thousands)

2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

Income
Total Sales 3,928,710 3,591,432 3,300,964 2,699,623 2,871,092

Expenses
Cost of Goods Sold 2,317,939 1,964,513 1,950,870 1,630,572 1,722,655

Gross Profit 1,610,771 1,626,919 1,350,094 1,069,051 1,148,437

SG&A Expense 245,544 222,669 198,058 156,578 175,137
Research & Development 628,594 628,501 524,853 377,947 367,500
Amortization/Depreciation 243,580 193,937 234,368 143,080 235,430
Total Operating Expense 3,435,657 3,009,620 2,908,149 2,308,178 2,500,721

Operating Income 493,053 581,812 392,815 391,445 370,371

Interest Income 280 200 170 102 145
Interest Expense 94 80 65 54 37

Net Income Before Taxes 493,239 581,932 392,920 391,493 370,479
Provision for Income Taxes 88,783 87,290 74,655 54,809 62,981
Net Income 404,456 494,642 318,265 336,684 307,497

Exhibit 1B BoldFlash Mobile Operating Results ($ thousands)

2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

Income
Total Sales 1,579,000 1,564,000 1,582,000 1,518,000 1,584,000

Expenses
Cost of Goods Sold 931,610 855,508 934,962 916,872 950,400
SG&A 98,688 96,968 94,920 88,044 96,624
Research & Development 314,297 339,390 304,415 192,753 191,100
Total Expenses 1,344,594 1,291,866 1,334,297 1,197,669 1,238,124

Net Incomea 234,406 272,134 247,703 320,331 345,876

a Amortization, depreciation, interest, and taxes are reported at the corporate level.

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HARVARD BUSINESS PUBLISHING | BRIEFCASES 9

Exhibit 2A BoldFlash Organization Chart

Vice Preside

n

t

Consumer Division

Vice President
Mobile Division

Vice President
OEM Division

Vice President
R&D

Vice President and
Chief Financial Officer

Vice President and
Chief Operating Officer

Vice President and
Chief Administrative Officer

Vice President
Internationa

l

Vice President
Marketing and Sale

s

President
and CEO

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For the exclusive use of R. Valldas, 2022.
This document is authorized for use only by Rishika Valldas in TCM 710-898 Project Leadership-Spring 2022 taught by RICHARD CALLAHAN, Missouri State University from Feb 2022 to Jun
2022.

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