Report on Earth Inc.

To: Mr. G.O. Domino, President of Earth Inc.
From: McHeath Associates, Business Analysts
Date: 31st December, 1999
Subject: Final Report on the Financial position of Earth Inc.

Dear Mr. Domino,

  We have completed our analysis and audit of your corporation, and our
results are outlined below.

Executive Summary

Our four year analysis was requested by you to prepare your corporation for the 21st century. In accordance with your wishes, we sent representatives to all of your 240 divisions, examining all aspects of their operations, distribution and resource allotment, and also, at a consolidated level, examined your policies and procedures regarding human resources, marketing, selling, general administrative functions and overall company morale. As you will see below, we have identified several areas within your corporation where drastic changes need to be made, in order for the corporation to keep operating effectively, and to maintain its status as a going concern. Product Basket Earth Inc. currently has not aggressively pursued any marketing strategy for its raw materials, and consequently has no exports at this time. Our understanding is that this is a deliberate move on your part, in order to allow Earth Inc. to operate as a tax loss organization, to offset your profits from other operations. Since we were not permitted access to these other operations, we will assume that this is your intention, and therefore, to a certain degree, your strategy has been successful. We do however, have concerns that Earth Inc. may not be able to continue to operate in any manner for much longer, due to the rapid deterioration of its premises, the low morale, poor internal distribution, and massive over staffing. I must also add that we feel that some of your senior officers were extremely unhelpful in supplying us with information regarding their expense accounts, which leads us to believe that they may be acting in a manner not in the best interests of the corporation. We have expectations that the up coming audit of your corporation by the URS may lead to the entire operation being shut down. There are specific issues which we will now address which we believe you should address immediately. Staffing and Morale There are two main issues here. Firstly, the corporation is massively over staffed. According to Universal Generally Accepted Practices, the maximum staffing level for a corporation of your size should be 600 million, where as you currently have 10 times this figure. This has to change, since it is causing some rather violent outbursts from some of your employees, and indeed, entire divisions seem to be in what I can only describe as a perpetual state of war. In most cases the reasons for this appear to be confusion over who the president of the company is, and I think you need to look at your Public Relations department for help here. We note that your last Senior VP of Public Relations was let go 2000 years ago, and has not been replaced since, and we believe this has led to many of the internal problems we are now seeing. In addition, many of the canteens in some of the divisions are poorly maintained and offer poor menu choices, which we believe is a product of poor distribution and, of course over staffing. Had you come to us with this problem a hundred years ago, we would have suggested at that time that you simply stop replacing retiring employees, since this would have eliminated the bulk of your problems. Your own approach we feel has been a little drastic, and the major staff cuts that you introduced at various times throughout the last century could have been handled with a little more tact. Some divisions feel that they have been left to fend for themselves, and to be honest, we saw nothing to indicate otherwise. It is our recommendation therefore that you take the following remedial steps immediately :

    * Hire a new PR Officer, to ensure all employees know who your are and what is expected of them. * Immediate freeze on hiring of new employees. * Early retirement, on a choice basis, for any employee that wants it.
This policy should be followed for no more than thirty years, but should allow the headcount to drop to more acceptable levels. Building Maintenance The offices of Earth Inc. are in a serious state of disrepair. Some of the major problems we noted were:
    * Two large holes in the roof * Poor, inadequately maintained plumbing resulting in pollutants leaking into the water supply. * Gardens badly cared for, resulting in a reduction of the overall ambiance, and causing low morale and health problems for the employees.
There were many other problems, but the above we definitely feel should be urgently addressed. During our investigation, one of our building specialists noted that this was the worst case of sick-building syndrome he had ever come across, and suggested the whole place be condemned. Our research indicates that this is not the first time you have been told about this kind of problem with your holdings. We found that the two previous planets you used in this system for Earth Inc. were both condemned. They are known by your employees as Mars (Deforestation) and Venus (Global Warming). We also noted that you appear to be building a new office in this system farther out, and we sincerely hope that you are not going to simply abandon the existing premises and start up again somewhere else. We are aware of the high costs of building maintenance, but this kind of behavior would not be tolerated by the URS if they decide that's what you are doing. Executive Board As mentioned earlier, we believe that some of your senior division managers may be exploiting their positions for personal gain not in the best interest of the corporation. We are unable to offer any documentary evidence to support this claim however, since we were not permitted access to their files. We definitely believe that you consider initiating the Internal Audit that your last PR officer proposed 2000 years ago, and you may want to consider renewing his contract to help with the implementation if he is available. Please note our terms are net 30 days. If we can be of further assistance, please let me know, Regards, (Signature unreadable)

© 1996, Vaughan Wynne-Jones. Distribute Freely if appropriate credit is given

Back to my home page