Jenkins Goes Abroad Case (Modified – C)

Jenkins Consulting is a national firm based in Boston, MA, that helps companies improve their performance and effectiveness by advising on all aspects of business management and operations. Companies hire consultants from Jenkins Consulting for various projects, such as assisting with company-wide cost reduction initiatives, revenue growth initiatives, improving supply-chain management, and/or improving

individual departments such as information technology. Jenkins employs consultants in 25 offices across the United States.

A company located in Delhi, India has asked Jenkins to take on a significant project that will be based in Delhi but will require semi-annual trips of about 2 weeks to Mumbai.

Jenkins will assist the company with an organization-wide effort to restructure and reposition the company to succeed in a market that is becoming highly competitive. To undertake this project, Jenkins will open an office in Delhi and assign five full-time management consultants for a term of two years. Jenkins has decided to relocate the consultants selected initially to Delhi for the project’s duration. Because Jenkins sees this assignment as an opportunity to expand its operations internationally, Jenkins will also hire a local national as an Office Manager to answer the phone, prepare documents, file related paperwork, and be a source of local knowledge to the consultants.

Dale Kugar, the human resource director at Jenkins, must identify the consultants for this project and prepare them to transition to this new assignment within the next 60 days. This is the company’s first exposure to expatriate management. Hence, Kugar intends to select the first wave of consultants from the Boston office to have better

control over Jenkins’ first overseas venture. However, he is concerned about the

consultants’ interest in taking on the international assignment. Some of the consultants with whom he has had initial conversations are concerned about the impact the assignment might have on their families and their careers. As one consultant put it, “Out of sight; out of mind!”

In addition to selecting the right persons for the expatriate positions, Kugar wants to ensure that the consultants who accept the assignment are compensated appropriately. The compensation package needs to ensure that the expatriates are not concerned about financial matters during their assignment but also minimize costs to Jenkins. He initially thought to maintain their current benefits, including health care insurance, 401(k) retirement plan, vacation, and related benefits, but to alter the compensation. The two issues he needs clarification on are how to develop a compensation package that considers other aspects of pay and ensuring that the consultants are not disadvantaged professionally by taking the assignment in Delhi. All the potential expatriates Kugar has talked to thus far are not married, which would likely make the assignment less costly to