Studying the Relevance of Larry Greiner’s Developmental Phases to the Future Stability of Maple Lodge Farms
Maple Lodge Farms, a family-owned business awarded the prestige of being one of Canada’s 50 best managed companies, has attained success by employing a number of strategic organizational practices. Since the inception of Maple Lodge Farms, the founders’ commitment to providing various Canadian households with the highest quality chicken products has allowed it to become one of Canada’s leading poultry companies. Initially, the business owners’ main priority was to launch Maple Lodge Farms as a highly recognizable brand capable of sustaining a loyal customer base. This goal was largely achieved through a variety of measures the
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“The next era of growth evolves from the successful application of a decentralized organization structure. It exhibits these primary characteristics: 1. Much greater responsibility is given to the managers of plants and market territories. 2. Management often concentrates on making new acquisitions which can be lined up beside other decentralized units. 3. Communication from the top is infrequent, usually by correspondence, telephone, or brief visits to field locations” (Greiner, 1998).
The owners’ dedication to providing superior customer service has guided every facet of the way their business has been managed. In pursuit of this goal, the company has successfully implemented a decentralized management structure. “We are there every step of the way - we have established a unique integrated development team that includes senior representation from Sales, Marketing, Research and Development, Quality Assurance, and Supply Chain to ensure superior quality and customer-focused service” ("Maple lodge farms", 2011). This structural framework reflects Greiner’s organizational aspect of the delegation stage, as it offers managers greater responsibility in supervising the operations of their plants – fundamentally affording them the freedom to manage these plants as they see
The authors gave us a very compelling contrast between centralized and decentralized organization. A spider epitomizes a centralized organization. Spider has eight legs and a central nervous system. The head controls the movements of the legs. If you cut or damaged the head, the spider will not be able to move and eventually dies. Like most of the company’s that exist today
How does a store like Trader Joe’s grow into a billion-dollar company with great ratings and demonstrate outstanding management skills? This company used the approach to stand out by being different as an effective measure to compete with the bigger grocery stores. Trader Joe’s business model intentionally kept the size of its stores small and holds fewer products than the larger grocers. They chose to frequently place new products on its shelves and revise ingredients to meet the customer’s needs. They also sell kitchen-tested products to entice new customers. They have also employed a creative marketing team to announce new private-label products to provide outstanding value. In addition to their unique way of doing business,
About everyone at some age, at some point or another, and in some country has gotten a sample of American's symbol for fast food through the golden arches of McDonald's. This report will attempt to analyze the external and internal sectors that affect the company's success. The external analysis will provide opportunities and threats while the internal analysis will show indicators of strength and weakness. It will then follow up with critical issues, strategic alternatives, recommendations and implementation. The case studied is found in Appendix 2 of Mary Coulter's "Strategic Management in Action" book.
The organization of power within a corporation is a rigid dichotomy between centralization and decentralization. Substitute strategies can exist anywhere along the spectrum whether they are completely centralized, completely decentralized or somewhere in between. Though Cervus’ methods are substitutable, centralized policies have not proven to be nearly as successful in maintaining
Gordon Biersch had extensive growth plans of opening over 100 restaurants across the nation with in 8 to 10 years. However, the growth they envisioned demanded a lot of time, dedication and expertise. They debated upon three different organizational approaches (1)
The main goal of this Interview is to examine and observe real-life project in industry and gather information/data from experienced perspectives as well as gain a realistic understanding of business operation and Inventory management at Tim Horton's. By having face-to-face communication with the owner, we were able to carry out our analysis and observations effectively because the owner was available to answer questions and also provide further insight about his firm. Since the owner is the one that knows his company firm best and had all the necessary information and details of operations, he was invaluable in to us we got most of our data/information from him.
For the analysis the packaged food company ConAgra Foods, Inc (CAG) was chosen. According to ConAgra 2013 Annual report, ConAgra Foods, Inc. is one of the USA’s leading food companies. It has a strong brand recognition and consumer loyalty. ConAgra 's products are sold both in large supermarkets and convenience stores. Company operates in Commercial and Consumer Foods segments. The food industry is especially interesting for the research as the demand on food will stay relatively stable even during economic crises and is continuously growing.
Canada Goose has experienced steady organic growth as a niche brand, selling their product through independently owned stores. By June 2008 it was selling product in 28 different countries across North America and Europe plus two authorized online retailers. Now it has a significant opportunity to further cement itself as a market leader by placing its product with a national chain. Initially, Canada Goose considered offers from two national chain retailers. One offer came from a Canadian chain called Asmuns Place. Another offer came from Levene’s Menswear. Table 1 provides a high level overview and compares these two offers.
Situation analysis: Ivan Guillen was asked to develop a marketing strategy in Canada to improve the business portion of the Pillsbury refrigerated baked goods category of General Mills (pg 1).
This case study describes an ice cream manufacturer, Compagnie du Froid S.A., founded by Jacques Truman’s father in 1985. It is a major competitor in the industry during summer and has presence in France, Italy and Spain. Compagnie du Froid practices decentralization in its organization, where each region is managed by a competent manager empowered to make business decisions in the best interest of the company.
Decentralization has several advantages. Staffs are encouraged to develop decision-making skills, which help them advance in their careers. The autonomy afforded by this style of operation also increases job satisfaction and motivation. For example, if maintenance staff receives a complaint on a fault by a customer, in a decentralized organization the maintenance staff has the power to fix the problem without getting the approval from the administration. If that same front maintenance staff determines that a customer has been
Other common terms for the idea of organizational decentralization include: team self-management, self-management, shared control, distributed leadership (Lambe, Webb, & Ishida, 2009) and holacracy (Robertson, 2007). While these terms may have small differences they all describe the common theme of distributing power across organizations. Several concepts help to explain why decentralization and the encouragement of teamwork throughout an organization are often superior to traditional management structure.
Before the nineties the Coca-Cola company was having a centralize system of control, but after sometime they realized that if they had to meet the demands of the customers they should adopt a decentralized system in which the authority of decision making is distributed between different managers so that every sector can be managed effectively. This system was implemented in the nineties by the company’s board of directors. Now the organization is having two groups who are responsible for operating:
This report focuses on the United States-based ice cream producer, Dreyer’s, Inc., which used to be the largest ice cream company in America. In order to consolidate the ice cream industry, Rogers and Cronk, CEO of Dreyer’s, carried out some advancing operation philosophies including the launch of a strategic plan named the “Grand Plan” in the year 1994. The report gives a description of the expectations of the “Grand Plan” and their
In a centralized organizational structure one individual is responsible for making all the decisions and maintains control of the company by giving direction. While Decentralized organizational structures often rely on several persons with the authority to make final decision for the company’s well being. Some benefits associated with a centralized organization are as follows: Reduction in cost in the work environment, having a focused vision on one common goal and Reduction in conflict. A Few drawbacks of a centralized organization include, No secrecy because all ideas and decisions are conveyed to all, No special attention and Delay in work. Advantages associated with Decentralization are; Huge relief is provided off the top managers, Greater use is made of employees skills and Decision making is left up to educational and well informed people.