Overview to the Business
Waste Management Inc. is a US based company that is providing waste management and environmental services. The headquarters of the company is located in the First City Tower, Houston, Texas and it was founded in 1893. The area that the company is currently serving is North America where it has created a vast network to serve residential, commercial, industrial and municipal customers. Currently, it is serving more than 21 million customers in US, Canada and Puerto Rico only for environmental services. The network of Waste Management Inc. is comprised of 246 transfer stations, 146 recycling plants, 295 active landfill disposal locations, beneficial-use landfill gas projects, and around six independent power generation plants ("Residential Waste and Recycling Services | Waste Management", n.d.). This is among the largest waste management companies in United States and its truck fleet is considered as the largest of all the companies operating in waste industry, i.e. 26,000 trucks for collection and transfer of waste (2014). The 47 years old company has reported $14.49 billion in revenues in 2017 ("Annual Reports | Waste Management", 2017).
The business is offering waste management, recycling, and environmental services to residential and commercial customers. The company is offering waste collection, transfer, and disposing services to the residents and businesses of the North American region as well as they are also offering the recycling services to their customers. Waste Management is offering a number of services on demand to the customers regarding the management of regular, medical, construction, or hazardous waste ("Annual Reports | Waste Management", 2017).
Organizational Details
Prior to 1971, the company was a family business which was founded in 1893 by Harm Huizenga. Not only it went public, but the company also made some major acquisitions to expand the business. The company has a divisional structure based on two divisions: Northern Tier and Southern Tier. Jeff Harris is the SVP of the North Tier while John Morris is the SVP of Southern Tier. Both are accountable to the CEO and President of the company is James C. Fish Jr. Moreover, the company prefers to work in teams that are made according to the type of a project. Although, currently, the company has no operations on international level, however, in 2009, it purchased a 40% stake in a fully owned subsidiary of Shanghai Chengtou
Holding Co Ltd. The purpose of this purchase was to get mutual benefits in the field of waste management ("Annual Reports | Waste Management", 2017). In regard to points of contact within Waste Management, as a former senior HR and Talent professional for Waste Management I was able to gather information from VP of Talent Acquisition Mel McDuffie and Barry Caldwell the Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs & Chief People Officer.
Progress and Path Forward
There are some issues that the waste management industry is experiencing now; therefore, the Waste Management Company is also experiencing the same issues. The production of garbage is increasing and according to estimation on average an American produces 4.40-pound waste per day. Every year, in North America alone, 33% of which is recycled, 12% is burned, and 55% went into landfills, however, still the garbage production is increasing which needs more resources and man power for disposal ("Waste disposal share North America by method 2016 | Statistic"). In addition to the issue of rapidly growing waste production, the company is also facing issues like the development of new, environmentally friendly and technologically efficient ways for waste management, and the identification of cost reduction ways to become cost leader in the industry. To address these issues, the management of the company already restructured the company in 2013 ("Waste Management Announces Restructuring Plan", 2013), however, still it needs to develop more strategies to cope with these issues. In regard to my level of progress, I am confident that I am able to leverage the current information as well as ascertain further data to complete the project assigned. As for next steps, I will be having a discussion with Linda Garza, who is a long-time analyst for Waste Management to assist me further information as needed.
References
(2014). Retrieved from http://investors.wm.com/static-files/790a72ca-660e-4733-b8f2-53ae2b260210
Annual Reports | Waste Management. (2017). Retrieved from http://investors.wm.com/financial-information/annual-reports
Residential Waste and Recycling Services | Waste Management. Retrieved from https://www.wm.com/residential/waste-and-recycling-services.jsp
Waste disposal share North America by method 2016 | Statistic. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/239670/waste-disposal-in-north-america/
Waste Management Announces Restructuring Plan. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.wm.com/about/press-room/2012/20120726_2012_Restructure.jsp
purplebed
BUS523-WMC.docx
0
