In narrative essay format, I want you to describe the most intractable organizat

Question

In narrative essay format, I want you to describe the most intractable organizational opportunity or most engaging organizational challenge that you have ever encountered as an employee. The organizational issue can be an opportunity that is just waiting to be leveraged, or perhaps it was indeed leveraged successfully. Similarly, the organizational issue can be a challenge that is just waiting to be addressed, or perhaps it was indeed addressed successfully. You can describe the issue itself, the issue and the approach, or the issue and what approach you would take if you could.

The challenge for managers, therefore, is to apply the theory and practice of management and organizational behavior to address, and perhaps resolve, the issue (opportunity or challenge to deliver persistent and consistent value in the organization.

Explanation / Answer

A business scenario encountered by me was when I was managing sales for a consumer goods organization. Due to poor logistics support we were often caught with short supplies of various products and even stock outs, resulting in loss of customers to competitors, as well as the company image taking a beating. Finally, I prepared a report on the extent of damage caused by inadequate management and control of inventory, in terms of sales, customer base, obsolete stock, inadequate buffer and inaccurate demand prediction due to lack of proper feedback in the form of data collection, recording and analysis, and presented it to the management. The management appreciated my efforts and a meeting was called of all relevant staff from various departments to address the issues and come up with a solution. The management being dynamic with an adhocratic culture practicing inclusive management and appreciating diversity through affirmative action, the meeting yielded positive results with serious brainstorming and consideration of the best ideas from various individuals, perfected by inputs from others involved. The entire unit operated as a team and was delegated the task of implementation of the solutions at the earliest. The leadership being transformational implementing change would be fast and successful, with the strategy of carrying the entire organization along with involvement, engagement, motivation and performance leading to achievement.

One of the conclusions on the basis of analysis of the problem was that the major impact on inventory shortage and stock outs was due to poor performance by logistics with unpredictable transit time and delayed deliveries and not due to orders not being placed in time. Therefore, the solution was vertical integration by integrating logistics within the company the control would be absolutely with the organization. Vertical integration can be forward integration, backward integration or balanced integration. Integration in business terms is the amalgamation of all the processes involved in a business from raw material stage to after sales stage. The type of integration a business should adopt would depend on its business. We opted for backward integration and decided to undertake all transportation of inventory ourselves, which would also result in simultaneous increase in profitability. The strategy to be employed was discussed, whether it should be purchase of trucks and self-operated or through strategic alliance with a service provider. We opted for the alliance on basis of extensive analysis. A strategic alliance is an agreement between two companies with common goals and business to come to an understanding on pursuing a common objective which is mutually beneficial to them.. They do not enter into a contractual or legally binding relationship but just agree to follow a set of guidelines which create a win-win situation for both. Clear cut guidelines were laid out to define the extent of liability and accountability of each party. Request for proposal was issued to all eligible service providers to ensure we could avail the benefit of the most cost effective and efficient service, fulfilling our major requirement of being prompt and maintaining schedules.

The inventory management system was further streamlined as large obsolete stock was discovered in various stores. Inventory management is to be handled by in store logistics personnel, thereby reducing unnecessary management costs and ensures accuracy as the person involved directly in sales also becomes the person managing the inventory and reordering thereby effectively negating many disadvantages such as shortage or excess inventory. The system also utilizes minimum and maximum settings for inventory of each product so that before an item is reordered the minimum stock and the maximum to be ordered at a time can both be verified easily.

Customer service was enhanced to ensure customer retention and loyalty. Feedback was recorded, analyzed and required changes in service or product implemented to the extent possible, for optimization of customer satisfaction. All staff interacting directly with customers were provided adequate in house training on communications and interpersonal skills to enhance customer experience and involvement.

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