Stellar Solutions, Inc. is a small professional engineering services business, founded in 1995 by Celeste Ford. Stellar Solutions, Inc. provides technical expertise and management for noteworthy national and international aerospace programs, they support all stages of space systems development and operation, which includes defense-related intelligence projects, international telecommunications programs, commercial imagery, and NASA’s planetary and earth science missions.
Vision, Mission, and Core Values
From its inception, their vision is to satisfy their customers’ critical needs while realizing their dream jobs. Their philosophy has been significant to their success, by having an effective business model with 100% customer satisfaction and an engaged workforce has placed Stellar on Fortune Magazine’s “Great Place to Work” from 2014 to 2017. Stellar Solutions, Inc. mission is to provide high impact engineering expertise and technical management to meet the critical needs of their customers and partners so that they can deliver successful capabilities and achieve mission success. Their Values are professionalism, honesty, and integrity — do the right thing for our customers, employees and the community.
Besides their commitment to customers and employees, commitment to the community is an important element of the Stellar values system. The Stellar Solutions Foundation supports employee-driven involvement and support of local community outreach efforts. Market share is not a meaningful measure to Stellar Solutions, Inc., their focus is meeting their customers’ critical needs rather than focusing on growth or market. It has resulted in steady growth and sustainability for their company.
Strategic, Financial Objectives, Managerial Strategies
Stellar conducts Strategic Planning from both a top-down and bottoms-up perspective, where SLT engages all employees in planning for the future of the business. As part of the Strategic Planning Process (SPP), each year, the Senior Leadership Team evaluates the Company Vision, Values and Mission to guarantee that they are still aligned with the founding principles going into planning for the upcoming year. Senior Leaders are held accountable for their actions through monthly Convergence Meetings, quarterly Board Meetings, and annual performance reviews. Accountability for the Strategic Plan is driven by the Convergence Process and the Annual and Summer Meetings where business results and progress against the Strategic Plan are reviewed by the entire workforce, as well as at the Board level on a quarterly basis.
In their Strategic Planning Process SLT makes monthly visits to customers and employees to gather up to-date information about the market environment. They hold monthly Convergence Meetings to review results, assess performance against Strategic Plan, and adjust their plan as needed. They also hold quarterly Process Meetings to review effectiveness of Critical Processes and to discuss process Improvements. In 2006 they created an innovative distributed community support process where Stellar identifies its key local communities as all the areas where their employees live, and they can give back to causes that they are passionate about to their strategic plan.
To ensure fiscal accountability, Stellar holds Business Ops meetings with the CEO, CFO, President/COO and key members of the Finance team to review monthly financial statements, key financial metrics and to ensure that the business is fiscally responsible. Externally, Stellar has financial audits and external tax preparation to ensure accountability. In 2013, their revenue grew from a rate of 1.18 to 6.81 percent in 2016. Process improvements and cycle time reductions have led to Stellar Solutions’ profitability growing consistently. The percentage of chargeable employees is consistently higher than 90 percent and exceeds the top 5 percent benchmark of Service Performance Insight, a global research, consulting, and training organization.
Nearly 100 percent of the 150 engineering employee survey respondents agreed that they receive the right amount of management support, that management keeps them informed, and that management makes their expectations clear. Stellar’s commitment to the workforce is demonstrated by extensive health and financial benefits in support of work-life balance, as well as 40 hours of professional development annually for all employees. Stellar Solutions’ system of two-way communication throughout the company is focused on personal interaction with employees. Sector vice presidents meet one-on-one with all employees every month seeking their input and insights on their customers, personal accomplishments, and well-being, and what would help them progress toward their dream jobs.
Objective
Stellar’s Strategic Objectives are designed to address and balance the key needs of the organization to realize the Mission, Vision and Value statements of the business. Their objectives are to deliver high impact for current customers, to deliver high impact for new customers, build customer intimacy / situational awareness, increasing workforce engagement by attracting and retaining key players, pursuing organizational excellence, and enhancing community support, locally, in aerospace, and globally.
Competitive Advantage
Their primary competitors in this market are also their customers and partners. To remain competitive Stellar must identify their critical needs and areas where they would benefit most from their expertise. They also compete with other professional technical service companies such as their partner organizations. They also indirectly compete with their employees to show their partners and customers the value that Stellar brings to the team. It is their experience and niche skills of their stellar engineers that differentiate Stellar’s value from their competitors. Their ability to hire, retain, and place the right talent to work in the right position, on the right team, at the right time to meet customer critical needs keeps Stellar competitive.
References:
Home. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.stellarsolutions.com/
Thompson, A. Crafting & Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage: Concepts and Cases. Retrieved from: http://www.freemanagementresources.com
Stellar Solutions. (2018, April 24). Retrieved from https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/stellar-solutions
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