C & C Grocery Stores - Case Study Example

Case Analysis: C & C Grocery Stores Name Professor Institution Course Date Case Analysis: C & C Grocery Stores Table of Contents Case Analysis: C & C Grocery Stores 2 Table of Contents 2 1.0 Introduction 3 2.0 How Organizational Structure Affects C & C Grocery Store Performance 3 2.1 The current structure of C&C Grocery Stores 4 2.2 How organizational structure affects C & C Grocery Store Performance 5 2.2.1 Long chains of command 5 2.2.2 Slow adjustment to change 8 2.2.3 Goal approach 9 2.2.4 Managerial Power or Influence 9 2.2.5 Structural Flaws 10 2.2.6 Employee’s morale 10 3.0 How the New organizational structure would support the change 10 4.0 Conclusion 12 5.0 Bibliography 13 1.0 Introduction A lot has been debated concerning the organization structures. However, there are two significant reasons why the hypothesis has not constantly fit the truth. Although this thoughtful is useful, it does not mention how organizations can in reality change their structure to enhance productivity. C & C grocery store in the past operated under one goal strategy. They were dedicated to customer satisfaction and service. The stores functional goals were realized and the chain has had more than 200 stores operating under its name. For many years general operations for C & C has been excellent and stable. Unfortunately staff development and modernization and change were not given more emphasis and it started to show. Richard (2009) claims that the contingency efficiency strategies are anchored in looking at which divisions of the organization managers regard as most vital to measure. The report analyses the reasons why C & C’s organizational structure to live up to its expectation. 2.0 How Organizational Structure Affects C & C Grocery Store Performance The existing structure at C&C appears to be correlated to the internal process strategies. The internal process strategies look at internal events and evaluate efficiency by pointers of internal effectiveness and health. This is shown in the case by the explanations of responsibilities of different stakeholders in the organization. After examining and analyzing C&C Grocery Stores it is evidently observed what type of business they are and how they can improve their business practices in future. After all, they have to understand and react to the 21st century concerns to thrive in today’s fast changing and competitive setting (Richard, 2009 p 137). A business merely maintaining to its origins and how it has been carrying out business in the past years is a procedure for disaster. In most part of my report I will talk about a SWOT analysis and how C&C Grocery Stores structure affects its performance. 2.1 The current structure of C&C Grocery Stores From the assessment it can be observed the C&C grocery stores structure, the key level of their organizational chart combines both geographical and functional structure. This is because the company was separated into three regions with every region operating seventy stores. Each region is again split into 5 districts with ten to fifteen stores. Then the lower and the middle level of the company organization is divisional arrangement. The word divisional arrangement is what is at times referred to as a product organization or tactical business unit. Richard et al (2010), assets that with this arrangement, the distributions are organized on the basis of individual services, product, product groups, key projects or plans. Therefore in this situation lower and the middle level district of the company are alienated as grocery merchandiser, meat merchandiser, operations manager and produce manager. The C&C grocery stores organization chart is rather centralized; their decision-making is restricted to high levels of authority, the Vice president having much power over every district, while store produce manager reports straight to the division produce authority. Figure 1: organizational structure of C & C Grocery Store 2.2 How organizational structure affects C & C Grocery Store Performance 2.2.1 Long chains of command The original structure of C & C Grocery Store is outstanding for 1-5 stores. The original organization structure of the stores has resulted to disengagement between the store managers, and the produce and meat managers (perishable managers). The produce and meat managers are to report straight to the district managers at their respective departments. On the other hand, the store managers are in charge for the every day operations of the whole store. This disengagement in its own way is a major interruption in efficiency. The District Director is the only individual in the operation breakdown composition that understand what is going on in his district in all sections of each store. At the period where only an individual is familiar with all facets of an operation it turns out to be tricky for that operation to work entirely in the absence of that person. By implementing the realign drawn by the experts it would grants the store managers more power over the store (Jacobides, 2007). This would grant the store mangers the capability of coordinating the on-goings inside their store and facilitate flexibility in making decisions that would allow the store to run successfully. In my capacity as Senior HR Manager, I think C&C Grocery structure is not the best and contributes a lot to its failure. First, the responsibilities of the district store supervisors and the store managers were leading to discontentment. From the look this portrays the long of chain of authority. Since the store operates over 200 chains, it was divided into regions before being divided into five districts each with its director. It was again divided four lines of command causing a lot of confusion. Store Managers hold no influence over Meat and produce Departmental managers. Separate departments were not capable to operate together for the growth of the whole store. This resulted in decision making based on the centralized system which had to pass several vertical linkages delaying the operations (Lim & Griffiths & Sambrook, 2010). One challenge associated with long chain of command is that subordinates don’t understand the system making them bypasses a manager in either the providing of information or the inquiring for a decision. This action undercuts the position and powers of the manager who has been bypassed. If this development is allowed to carry on in a bureaucratically-prearranged organization, morale of the executives is likely to decline as witnessed before in C & C Grocery Store. The need and frequency of these cases may, certainly, mitigate the effects and unsuitability of such commands. A long chain of command at C & C Grocery Store is slowing to making decisions since information have to pass through multiple people involved in management until it finally reaches the CEO who is the top decision-maker. Slow decisions therefore put the business at a competitive shortcoming as compared to businesses that arrive at a decision with no much difficulty. Therefore I would recommend a cut out of the district store supervisor whose role will be taken by operations manager. This is because the morale was low and the cooperation was also poor as observed inside the store. The organization need to understand that morale influences nearly everything within a retail setting as well as store appearance and customer service. Therefore, the more encouraging the better experience every client will want. I would recommend this duty on the store manager as it is their work to guarantee positive support. However, I believe that C&C Grocery Stores is heading to the bright future and with some few twists to their organization structure for instance elimination a line of managers they will once more be in position to compete and employ the chain of authority for their own advantage. Communication flow is crucial in every organizational structure. Some departmental units might, unfortunately, undergo a "culture of dread" a term often applied to explain disempowering business settings where good concepts are concealed fro reason of fear of being mocked. With this kind of centralized structure and long chain of command the organization was destined to fail. This is because subordinates do not know who to report to therefore resulting poor flow of communication (Herold & Fedor & Caldwell, 2007 p 945). This confusion of communication normally facilitates fruitless decision making, subsequent a possible disconnect of equally shared interests. It can then be concluded that the general managerial structure of C & C Grocery Stores slowed down communication and cross training programs for managers. The interruption of communication channel between functional areas of expertise keeps teamwork down and therefore can result to poor implementation of policies. The incapability to be cross guided in multiple practical areas limits their capability for promotion. The structure also made store managers not have authority of their whole stores, and were short of training and progress for higher positions in the management. 2.2.2 Slow adjustment to change Their store structure has always been slow to adjust to change. This is because their centralized organizational structure and their market response to change are dawdling while the reaction between their staff and management is also slow. They did not differentiate department; every department operated in similar way as every of the other department within the store. Daft, et al, (2010), state hat the higher-income and low-income areas had been employing the same strategy in conducting its business (p 135). The current structure resulted to a couple of challenges for C&C Grocery Stores. One of the major challenges I observed is the lack of support or consistency with the managers and district superiors. Every departmental manager appeared to be fighting for department against the other departmental managers inside the store. Instead they ought to have more horizontal communication to aid each other in the operations since they work for one company. The store managers were keen to learn and enhance their management abilities; however they had no one to guide them. The store supervisor at the district, who is supposed to have been advising the store manager, only examined for sanitation. In addition to that, the store manager was confined to operational functions and did not learn a lot concerning merchandizing, produce and meat. It is actually very crucial for a manager to be knowledgeable about managerial and departmental skills in order to make decisions that answer to the clients in their areas. 2.2.3 Goal approach C & C Grocery store structure right appeared to be inclining towards the goal approach given that no one is actually paying attention to the human resources or external environment. The issue with concentrating so greatly on the goal approach is there nature of not assessing the external environment or total productivity with regard to the organization. This approach should however not completely be ruled out, but it should not be the only means of assessing an organization. They require trying and focusing more on issues such as encouraging work climate, decentralization of decision making, communication and teamwork instead of concentrating all operation organization on operational aspect (Lim & Griffiths & Sambrook, 2010). They are to some extent assessing the internal process, other than relating the evaluation to the strength of the organization. The major setback experienced, is how to enhance business with the resources and stores at hand. 2.2.4 Managerial Power or Influence The efficiency of C & C Grocery store managerial team has a far-reaching consequence in the organization owing to the organizational arrangement. Pathetic or unskilled management at any various levels of the organization has always extended all over the company as dreadful managerial decisions in different departments also influence the departments that get involved contact with all them and decreases productivity. Good management will eventually have the conflicting effect, as effective and smart decision-making be able to help enhance efficiency and raise general efficiency. 2.2.5 Structural Flaws Since C & C Grocery Store organizational structure is not created appropriately, information is not capable of reaching where it is required. Because the middle level management team does not have efficient communication channels connecting to the executive team, so the vital company information might take several before it is conveyed to the whole staff (Herold & Fedor & Caldwell, 2007). These structural flaws in C & C Grocery organizational structure leads to breakdowns in lapses or communication which have to to be fixed to ease efficiency. 2.2.6 Employee’s morale Employee morale frequently depends heavily on a powerful organizational structure. Staff tends to feel encouraged and loyal when that the times they are treated with value, have access to various opportunities and feel challenged by their work. The effects has been absent at C & C Grocery store because of organizational arrangement causing negative morale to company employees; if, for example, an organization normally awards departmental heads with increases and bonuses whilst freezing junior member of staff salaries, lower level staff can rapidly become dissatisfied with their work (Robbins & Judge, 2007) This is what has been happening at C & C Grocery store and this has played a very genuine part in the condition of morale. 3.0 How the New organizational structure would support the change C & C Grocery store structure ought to be more decentralized, amend to horizontal structure and divisional structure and be dynamic to adjust the change; this can enhance teamwork and communication accuracy. In order for an operation and stores to run efficiently, departments must engage in continuous communication across all departments. Hedberg et al (1999), argues that to tackle the poor managerial organizational structure, C & C should focus concentrate on raising communication between the grocery, produce, meat and store managers. Through continuous communication across departments, subdivisions must learn to operate together in order to effectively create and change organizational objectives. Positive morale inside a company is one of the vital elements in establishing a businesses’ achievement. Currently, C & C Grocery stores faces challenges that could be dealt with by implementing the job attributes model. In order to promote their opportunities of success, C & C Grocery store should announce the perfection of employee morale as one of their major priorities of the company. Thus, redesigning jobs and incorporating more group events would certainly influence support the success of the entire C & C Grocery as store. To assist the staff grasp the significance of their positions in the organization, the work significance and how it influences the entire organization, C & C Grocery must publicly state how people influences the company. Furthermore, C & C’s administration ought to also create new methods to develop independent tasks to attract that staffs who intends to serve on long-term basis. By assigning duty and granting staff the freedoms to finish their assignments, people think that the managers have confidence in them and believe in their competency while carrying out their responsibilities. In order to determine issues instigated by pathetic decisions at the lower-level management, store managers are supposed to be granted total authority of C & C Grocery Store. Figure 2: Proposed Redesigned Organization Structure 4.0 Conclusion The impacts of organizational structure can extend into almost every sort of measurable performance. A well-prepared, simply flexible structure will help C & C Grocery store thrive in several areas, building a chain reaction of joint support and enhancement. Some of the most significant consequences of organizational structure will be observed in employees’ morale, communications, effectiveness and output. With enhanced training plans, store managers will grow to be better skilled to help manage operations in perishable departments. As a result, the store managers will become allowed to deal with problems at the produce and meat departments. 5.0 Bibliography Daft, R 2013, Organization Theory and Design, London, South-Western College Pub. Daft, R., Jonathan, M & Hugh, W 2010, Organization Theory and Design Cengage, London, Learning Business Press. Hedberg, B., G. Dahlgren, J and Olve, N 1999, Virtual Organizations and Beyond: Discover Imaginary Systems, Chichester, John Wiley & Sons. Herold, D. M., Fedor, D & Caldwell, S 2007, Beyond change management: A multilevel investigation of contextual and personal influences on employees’ commitment to change, Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, p. 942–951. Jacobides., M 2007, The inherent limits of organizational structure and the unfulfilled role of hierarchy: Lessons from a near-war, New York, Organization Science. Lim, M., G. Griffiths, and Sambrook, S 2010, Organizational structure for the twenty-first century. Presented at the annual meeting of The Institute for Operations Research and The Management Sciences, Austin. Robbins, S & Judge, T 2007, Organizational Behaviour, 12th edn. London, Pearson Education Inc. Read More