Kent Chemical Organising for International Growth

Question: Write about theKent Chemicalfor Organising for International Growth. Answer: Introduction Every business organisation faces the issue of management. This problem of organised and effective management is observed especially in a large organisation where the system of operations and functions is more diverse and varied, becoming complex in the process. As a result, the expansion process of the organisation becomes difficult to control. The case of Kent Chemical: Organising for International Growth is relevant of such instance. The essay strives to explain and investigate the case. An attempt is made to understand the problem of the organisation concerning the implementation of the strategy related to international expansion. Evaluation is observed regarding the organisational changes enforced to resist the problems, along with the reasons of unsuccessful of the changes. Analysis of the recommendations of Sterling Partner is provided. A suggestion is made concerning the possible recommendation of Morales and the decision of Fisher. Body Kent started its consumer products section in 1966 when it first produced Grease-Be-Gone. Targeting the automobile industry, the company gradually started concentrated on the commercial consumer market, producing high-quality household products, such as barbeque, oven and stainless steel cleaners. It is noteworthy to mention that the company apart from marketing its products in the US has spread to other countries as well, such as Korea, Germany, Brazil and much more (Becker and El-Said, 2013, p.71). However, with the expansion strategy, problems and issues concerning management started to emerge. Due to the expansion of the company, the number of people and other partner companies gradually increased in number, leading to the rise of a different management issue. Morales understood this problem when he tried to combine the organisational charts, the chart of domestic business and that of the world operations. In a word, it can be said that coordination became the main problem. When Fisher stated that he wanted to change and modify the strategic approaches of the organisation concerning expansion, Morales was invited for the revitalization process of the international division. Morales found several issues which restricted proper coordination and management of the entire organisational process and operations. Integration problem surfaced. Strategic issues emerged (Becker, 2017, p.6). This refers to the tendency of overseas subsidiaries competing with each other. Corporate targets became haphazard. The subsidiaries thought that the financial targets which were given to then did not have any link with the actual picture of the economic condition of the subsidiaries companies. Several structural issues also came into existence such as the pressurising reporting system, capital allocation, issues concerning the product, along with geographical issues. Controlling the subsidiaries was indeed proving to be difficult as each subsidiary had different problems and demands. The organisation needed to stop duplicative operations and rationalise the overlapping activities. One of the major issues was a lack of appropriate technical and market knowledge of the local or regional staffs for countering the subsidiaries (Betta et al. 2014, p.7). In order to make the strategic management more effective and to bring stability, Morales tried to bring some organisation changes. However, the changes could not achieve much success. In the reorganisation process of 2006, Morales tried to bridge the gap of international relations by appointing three experienced GBDs (global business directors). These directors were responsible for managing three sections of business, under KCI. It was announced that each of the directors would be given the position of VP who would bring a direct report of the functions and operations to Morales. The GBD would possess around 6 project/product managers to whom the former would assign required responsibilities (Botha et al. 2014, p.64). However, problems started soon enough. Each of these directors held different opinions regarding what methods can be appropriate to manage the respective businesses in an effective manner. One suggested that customer-oriented mentality should be injected into the overseas subsidiaries, stating the chief objective should be to fulfil the actual objective of the business. Another suggested that the responsibility of production and maintaining government relations must be given to the regional managers. The third director stated that it was regional managers needed to have their respective operational authority (Burdon et al. 2015, p.23). Hence, after sometimes, it was observed that the system of GBD created further disturbances. Subsidiaries were acting as interlopers while some more than that. Differences created needed to be solved, giving rise to the necessity of meetings, neglecting the daily issues in the process. On the other hand, the subsidiaries felt the GBD were incompetent. The GBDs lacked the cooperation and understanding among themselves. On top of that, the role and responsibility of GBDs were vague and unclear. They did not have the enthusiasm necessary for reorganisation process. It could be said that they lacked the power and credibility necessary to make things happen (Fernie and Sparks, 2014, p.12). After realising the fact that the system of GBD was ineffective, an effort was made to form and introduce World Boards which would assist the GBDs in developing strategies concerning global business. These boards comprised of managers of international and domestic organisations. Functional, geographic and product expertise represented the boards. The idea was indeed novel; however, this attempt of reorganizational changed also experienced failure. Managers who were involved in the boards did not have the sufficient courage and confidence to execute the assigned responsibilities (Jones and Marcoux, 2015, p.13). The chief reason for hesitation, all of them felt that the responsibility was too big to handle, assessing the complexity of the organisation. The reorganizational processes failed due to several reasons. In spite of the attempt to bring improvement and development, application of a proper, clear strategy was absent. An organisation works effectively only when it has the power of unity. However, Kent lacked this factor accelerating the failure of the attempts of Morales. Consolidation existed but only in terms of financial aspect which was not enough to operate the organisation. Inequality among the organisations, between the subsidiaries, the domestic and the global branches was present (Jones and Marcoux, 2015, p.31). The head office of Kent wanted to control and manage the subsidiaries which operated throughout the other countries. It needs to be recorded that the organisation was not happy with the limited amount of power it possessed over the subsidiaries and tried to make strategic movements which would enable the head office to increase its authoritative power over the subsidiaries. Another reason of failure was rest , the problem in sharing. The company wanted to share the information with the other businesses but avoided sharing necessary knowledge related information, for example, how to conduct business in an effective manner, how to coexist and work with a cooperative attitude and so on (Peri? et al. 2016, p.10). Another important factor which needed to be observed, similar identification of the different business of the organisations was not observed. In spite of the different range of business, the organisation needed to maintain a similar ground to execute the functional and operational tasks of the organisation. Considering the problems which surfaced, Sterling Partners recommended certain strategies to improve the management efficiency of the company. The first and the foremost thing which Sterling suggested was the need of conducting an analysis and this needed to be done by a third party. This would help to conduct a neutral analysis. It was recommended that the strategies needed to be made after knowing the market needs (Wang et al. 2015, p.78). Sterling also recommended that without proper clarification of the tasks and responsibilities, the organisational operations cannot be executed and this can be done by using the tool of the decision matrix. The recommendations provided by Sterling had its valid points. Before deciding to implement any organisational change, it was really important to conduct a proper in-depth analysis of the organisational functions and operations. This would be helpful to know the actual source of the emerging problems and issues which the organisation was facing. Apart from this, the analysis would also help to have a better comprehension about the different departments, businesses of the organisation, helpful to prevent confusion, usual in a large organisation (Wong et al. 2014, p.602). Based on the evaluation report, necessary strategies should be made which could enable the organisation to adapt itself as per the changes observed in the internal and external environment of Kent, the market needs and demand along with the needs of the subsidiary businesses. The recommendation or the steps taken by Morales failed chiefly due to the lack of clarified definition of the given roles. Hence, it needs to b e mentioned that the organisation should clarify the roles and responsibilities of each of the respective position holders using the tool of decision matrix (Stark, 2015, p.29). The plus point of the tool, it would be helpful to break down the contributions and responsibility of each party. The shortcoming of the tool was, irrespective of the usefulness, its ineffective regarding the basic issues persisted, and meaning complexity could not be eradicated fully. It should be mentioned that the $1.8 million fee was used to appoint a group of consultants who were given the responsibility of conducting an intense market research. Four consultants and four managers formed a team to conduct the project of research (Stark, 2015, p.28). The team needed to investigate the market condition of Kent, competitive position. An attempt was made to understand the objective of the businesses which worked under the founding organisation. The consultant reached to the conclusion that the organisations tendency to impose uniform solutions in spite of possessing diversified business subsidiaries is creating hindrances for effective growth and development of the company Kent would have to understand the different needs and problems of its subsidiaries and also of the managers and representatives who were assigned to work in different country regions (Saunders and Lewis, 2014, p.71). Global control was necessary. Transnational management could be much helpful for this company. Fisher must encourage transnational management if he wants to make the process of organisation expansion effective. Morales should use this kind of management approach to conducting reorganizational process. National cooperation cross-border integration should be used. National differences should be considered, instead of applying or rather imposing the uniform decision, a decision-making process should be made to interact with the regional and local managers of the businesses existing in different regions in different countries. One of the major positive points of transnational management, it allowed the organisation to bring the forces of international learning and innovation (Pistocchi et al. 2014, p.738). It would encourage forces of international coordination and integration. As a result, it influences the scale of economy and scope in a positive way. It would help to reduce the costs required to maintain the different products. This management would pave the organisation to open new doors of possibilities and opportunities as it would help to liberalise the environment of trading. It could be easily understood that applying transnational management would mean encouraging globalisation. Cultural differences should be considered, national infrastructure (such as distribution channels and technical standards), government demands should be given importance while trying to implement certain changes. Following the report it can be said that the recommendations made by Morales would be in the best interest of the organisation. It has been argued that the organisation could move back to its geographic mode of operations but however with Internationalisation of businesses some form of standardisation is required and therefore the integrated approach needs to be followed. The organisation needs to focus on the integrated approach and needs to simplify the structure of the organisation which will ensure that the communication is more effective and decision making is collaborative. Further, the decision matrix as suggested by the consultants needs to be implemented and to implement this, the organisation needs to train the managers to be able to use this most effectively. It can be stated that there would be irregularities and conflicts, however these conflicts are to be negotiated and agreements are to be arrived upon. Finally, the organisation needs to focus more on the research and development and being a science based organisation innovation in product design should be according to the market needs and therefore the marketing team needs to work in close collaboration with the research and development team Conclusion In conclusion, it could be said that before trying to implement and bring changes concerning the organisational processes and systems, trying to identify and assess the gravity of the problem should be conducted. Apart from addressing the problem, the root cause should be addressed and adequate problems should be made to resolve the core of the issues. It should be acknowledged that rising complexity can make difficult to process the operations of an international company which should not be encouraged. Organisational friction tends to hamper the growth of the company, affecting the productivity in the process. it can weaken the effectivity of strategic decisions. As a consequence, it would lead to the risk of difficulty in the decision-making process concerning people and cost management. Therefore, to bring any reorganisation measures, cooperation and coordination along with understanding should be maintained among all the stakeholders of the company. Reference List Bartlett, C.A. and Ghoshal, S., (2014).Transnational management. McGraw-Hill Education. Becker, K. and El-Said, H., (2013).Management and international business issues in Jordan. Routledge. Becker, K., (2017). Editorial.Journal of Transnational Management,22(1), pp.1-3. Betta, M., Jones, R. and Latham, J., (2014). Being and Care in Organisation and ManagementA Heideggerian Interpretation of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.Philosophy of Management,13(1), pp.5-20. 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