Sunflower Incorporated Synopsis This case refers about a large distribution company which resells products related to snacks. Thiscompany undergoes a change in its financial reporting system which was suppose to increase itsprofits and decrease its cost as well as to compete with its rivals. Issues ? The major issue that this case highlights is manipulation in products in some regions to increase the sale and the profit of the company. ? This manipulation in products is selling low quality products to the consumer which may hamper the goodwill of the company. The other issue is ineffectiveness in implementing change program that Agnes Albanese initiated. ? Even after agreeing with the change program, not a single regional executive bother to send the pricing and purchasing report. Analysis The first question here arises is why the change program that Agnes initiated failed. The reason for this is inadequate analysis and resources, failing to establish clarity of outcomes, inadequate supply of information, and lack of coordination from the regional executive part.
Earlier the organization was running on decentralized organization structure where regional executive had freedom to take decisions of their own but with this new change there authorities were decreased and decision making process regarding pricing and purchasing were centralized. The other thing was that change process was initiated on peak sale season which was also one of the adjacent factors for the failure. The decision of the top management to bring somebody from outside to monitor the pricing and purchasing process was a good step but the initiation of change program from Agnes Albanese side was not at par.
This resulted in fail of her change program. Conclusion and Recommendation Sunflower incorporated initiation for change program was a reasonable step but the process ofchange program was ineffective. Albanese plan and strategy failed because of lack of visual andinadequate analysis. Here… Sunflower Management Case Analysis Analysis of Sunflower Inc. : Sunflower Inc. is a large distribution company with over 5000 employees that functions as a bureaucracy, which needs to formalize its pricing and purchasing practices.
The company purchases and distributes snack foods to retail stores across North America. Sunflower has one corporate office and the company is divided into twenty-two regions. Each region operates as an autonomous small business, which consists of its own leadership. According to Daft (2007), ?? small firms are characterized by emphasis on being fast and flexible in responding to the environment? (p. 324). Even though Sunflower prefers to use the small business approach to increase profits? he company as a whole is ill-equipped to respond to environmental and market shifts, as well as some small companies. This is evident by the company? s inability to stay competitive. Addition, the company is suffering because it has not focused on improving its technology. .Its primary focus or concern is optimization, increasing profits and standardizing business functions. While organizations should be concerned about its bottom-line? it should also focus on flexibility, innovation and technology.
These components are the true essence of a true organization. However, organizational size is not the primary challenge for Sunflower but rather how to simultaneously function as both a large and small company. Joe Steelman, Sunflower? s president understood that the company needed some restructuring if it was going to survive in the then current market. And Sunflower Inc. has hit the formalization stage in its organizational life cycle, hence the implementation of a standardized financial reporting system.
Drat refers to the formalization stage as the installation and use of rules, procedures, and control systems (p. 328). In addition, while establishing… 1. How well did Albanese manage the pricing and purchasing changes at Sunflower? Agnes Albanese, the newly appointed Director of pricing and purchasing may have been a bit hasty in her management approach and failed to follow through with her planned change. Without a comprehensive understanding of company structure and culture, she suggested a solution after a mere three weeks.
After a mere three weeks, she suggested a solution but did not (25) Managers and staff specialists must work with and through people to achieve organizational objectives, and OD can help them form effective relationships with others. Planned change involves four sets of activities ? entering and contracting, diagnosing, planning and implementing, and evaluating and institutionalizing 2a. Were the changes implemented successfully? Albanese’ approach may be typical for many organizations but unfortunately it doesn’t return anticipated results for numerous reasons.
Organizational development theory tells us that change, in order to be effective, must be led and managed. Albanese only provided a quick solution to what she regarded as a simple problem while making no efforts to establish a change plan that would have included such elements as providing the leadership and vision to promote the change, cultural assessment to align behavioral norms, communication and stakeholder management, performance management, training and development, and…
