Newell Rubbermaid Case Study
I believe that Newell Rubbermaid’s departmentalization structure puts the company in a strong position for profitable growth. It was clearly stated that the profit of the company stand good after the implementation of the strategy that was on a down trend for the past two years. The efforts of Galli to increase the efficiency of the company to act as ‘one’ organization made to cut the cost of production. Although the effect will not take right after but at least there is an improvement on the profit growth of the company. It is just usual for the effect of any business strategy to take time for the effect to experience so there’s nothing to worry about not meeting the target growth. It is just a matter of time.
Answer to Question #2
I think Galli applied Mary Parker Follett’s guideline on coordination to Newell Rubbermaid by establishing the single corporate headquarters in Atlanta. With this, the top Management, especially Galli, can now get the opinions of the executives coming from the different business units. The implementation of this also made the meetings of the executives easier and more efficient.
The dissemination of information will also be made faster since the executive of one business unit can attend the meeting right on schedule and there will be no more excuses about being late or any kind of delay. With the executives working in one office will give them enough space for interaction that will give them more coordination for the planning and execution of every business direction.
Answer to Question #3
I will suggest to Galli the establishment of a single competent, energetic guiding authority or the formal management structure; since at the very start of the financial crisis of the company, the unification of the business units is the source of the problem of the company; to give emphasis in using the organization to address Newell Rubbermaid’s challenges.
Bureaucracy
This is defined as the administrative structure that uses the hierarchical distribution of authority to every unit of the organization (dictionary.com, 2007). This is used by many businesses in structuring their organization despite of the criticisms that is attributed to this business structure. One of the criticisms of bureaucracy is that individuals are not being aware of the negative effects of their actions in a larger sense since there is an overspecialization of business units.
Red tape is also one of the negative effects of bureaucracy that hinders on the implementation of every business action and makes the decision making process to slow down. It is also said that under bureaucracy, common sense is no longer applicable since they are all guided by the laws provided by the top management. The lower management and the employees have less participation on the planning process under this organizational structure. The above situation will later result on internal problem for the managers because employees might feel that they are not being valued by the management.
Of course there are still benefits derived from using bureaucracy as an organizational structure. One of this is the increase in the efficiency of production because of the specialization of the laborers. The said tactic enables to company to have growth on their profits since there will be more goods will be produce. The imposition of laws will help the employees by guiding the latter on their doings and on the execution of the plans within and outside the business environment.
Top managers are surely highly competitive since they are screened by the other top managers. Since the business transactions are documented, this can be used by the future management as a basis on planning their marketing strategy and other business related tactics. There are still a lot of benefits that can be derive from using bureaucracy as the organizational of every company, only that it depends on the situation on what the company is dealing with.
References
- dictionary.com. (2007). Bureaucracy [Electronic Version] from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bureaucracy.
