Blue- Line Company management situation
Blue- Line Company is one of the best Australian consulting companies in matters pertaining to indoor environmental health and safety. The Company focuses on providing its customers with pieces of advice and solutions regarding the quality of air, water, and mold together with lead exposure issues. The Company was established in 2010 and has employed close to 200 employees with its headquarters in Australia. The main aim of the Company is to assist its clients to establish healthy homes and workplaces. Their services range from testing to problem resolution, assessing the problem, analyzing the root cause, and issuing independent recommendations to their clients. In the last 9 years, Blue- Line Company has grown rapidly to be the leading Company for providing solutions towards achieving a healthy indoor environment and has the desire of reaching out to more countries in the broader region of Asia market including India, which has got a similar climate and shares the same air quality problems with Australia. Blue- Line Company believes that by entering the India market, it would be in a position to increase their annual sales. The Company has offered solutions and services to more than 35% of Fortune 100 companies and has completed over 7000 projects as well.
The immediate strategy for Blue- Line Company has been to improve the already existing business and also strive to maintain leadership within the numerous numbers of industries that they are in. They are looking forward to unlocking all the efficiencies across all the businesses involved by increasing the effectiveness of their operation as well as reducing cost and at the same time, delivering projects that have high-quality growth (Schuler & Jackson, 2002). The Company plans to use mergers and acquisitions as a strategy for entering into the Indian market. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
The use of mergers and acquisition (M&A) often cause acceleration of growth of a well-established business strategy as it offers the organization the potential to enter new markets, access top talent as well as reduced costs. Moving Blue-Line Company overseas through either merger or acquisition is expected to face some uncertainties as the Company finds itself in a new and unfamiliar market (Schuler and Jackson, 2002). Although there are significant opportunities that come with the merger, there are also new levels of risks that are likely to face the emerging international Company. Therefore, it is important to conduct some modification to the Company as it goes abroad in order to remain competitive, grow bigger, create synergies and economies of scale (Schuler & Jackson, 2002). This is the management and organizational situation that is currently being faced by the Blue-line Company.
When Blue- Line Company, for instance, merges with or acquires another company in India, some changes and modifications are likely to occur, such as eliminating redundant positions or combining teams and departments. Nevertheless, some of these modifications ought to be done carefully as they involve complete alteration of the normal Company’s operation as well as employees. The Company will be expected to retain its key employees, especially the senior executives such as the CEO, as he or she serves as a beacon of the Company who carries the values of the Company at heart.
Schuler & Jackson (2002) argue that choosing the right mode of entry is very critical for any company that is interested in expanding its market to the international level because the choice has a significant influence on the success of the business. Depending on the selected strategy, there could be effects on company performance. Bhagwat, Brogaard, & Julio (2017) explain that entry strategies can significantly affect performance through the determination of the control level, levels of risk, and the Company share in foreign markets and eventually result in either a company becoming successful or failing. The definition of entry mode performance is given based on profitability or efficiency. Interventions that are believed to be non-profit are assumed to be reflected in long term profits; they include knowledge and resource development or strategic moves against competitors.
As a result of its foreign investment to India through a merger, Blue- Line Company is likely to face numerous changes regarding communication, management, recruitment, new production methods, restructuring the organizations, and other operational aspects. Making such changes without lying a carefully though plan and process would lead to chaos (Bhagwat, Brogaard, & Julio, 2017). Strategic change management, therefore, allows Blue- Line Company to organize, plan, and execute changes. Strategic change management refers to the process of managing organizational changes in an organized way, such to ensure that organizations achieve their short and long-term goals. The method may include communicating the proposed merger and foreign investment, costs, timeline, and how an employee would be trained before or during the change.
Management recommendations for Blue- Line Company
Strategic planning and management
Hayes (2018) outlines that organization strategic planning usually legitimizes the program of change. The triumph of strategic change management depends explicitly not only on the ability of the organization to come up with the new process and relevant structure but also on the capability of the organization to plan for its new mission and vision in the new business environment. Changes within an organization usually have two distinct dimensions, people and business dimensions. Proper planning by management helps the organization to achieve her long-term goal of going international. The strategic planning by Blue- Line Company should address a number of issues that include change process, strategy, structure, systems, implementation as well as post-implementation of the proposed change (He, 2011). Organization planning, more also in relation to moving into the international market, starts with a proper analysis of the already existing condition in the home market to understand the actual call for the transformation and the general ability to move overseas.
The specific goals, relevant data, and the whole change procedure have to be planned for. Blue- Line Company has to plan for her international operational competence, financial outcomes, and relevant leadership obligation. Hayes (2018) states further that while change is a kind of steady experience, awareness and acquaintance regarding the important issues that are related to the administration of the change cannot be established within those who are held accountable for the whole progress. Therefore, if the Company is going to realize a higher level of success in its changed development strategy, leaders, managers, as well as executives have to have some proper plan on how to recruit employees overseas, their compensations, training, and marketing strategies to be employed.
Organizational structure and design
As a result of international growth, structural reforms occur, and this also changes the design functions of the organization. There are three structural, organizational forms that Blue- Line Company may choose from as their move abroad. They include; centralized, decentralized, and transition structure. The centralized structure is mainly characterized by a situation where power rests on the organization’s top management. Under this structure, the key role of the Company’s executives will be to maintain control over the global level management position such as divisional and subsidiary managers so that operation of the oversea branch is under central control in the home country (He, 2011).
Additionally there is also decentralized organizational structural where companies devolve responsibilities to small groups of managers at various company branches who confine their roles to senior management at corporate headquarters (Dowling et al., 2017). In this type of structural design, the branch managers are allowed to make a business decision on behalf of the Company as long as they communicate such decisions back to the headquarter. Conversely, transitional organizational structural form applies in companies characterized by medium-size corporate staffed by a relatively small group at corporate headquarters. Companies that apply this structural form are operated in a decentralized and product-based structure (Kraus et al., 2017). The Blue- Line Company should consider adopting decentralized structural design as it moves overseas. This is mainly because the merger or acquisition relies on a team environment at different levels in the Company. Moreover, it should utilize individuals with a variety of expertise and knowledge at each level for running the business.
Other than the organizational structure, there are four approaches to international staffing that Blue Line Company is likely to develop. These four approaches include ethnocentric staffing, polycentric staffing, geocentric staffing, and regiocentric staffing. Ethnocentric Staffing involves staffing the most valued positions into foreign subsidiaries with expatriates from the local country (Dowling et al., 2017). This is because expatriates are strongly believed to better represent the interest of the home office in a foreign country. The expatriates, in this case, are chosen from the current employees based in the home country and only get relocated to the foreign subsidiary. The apparent advantage of ethnocentric staffing is the alignment of interests and the general perspective of the home office (Dowling et al., 2017). It is possible to relocate employees who have a clear record of excellent performance. This would be the ideal staffing structure for Blue- Line Company.
The other option available for Blue Line Company is to adopt a kind of polycentric staffing, a situation in which a company employs host-country nationals for a position within the Company, from the junior staff to the organization’s top leadership. This type of staffing can be advantageous as the nationals of the host country will be in a position to properly guide the Company on conditions of the local market, laws, politics as well as culture in every foreign location (Dowling et al., 2017). Local employees are equally cheaper, and there is no form of relocation expenses that the Company will undergo. However, relying on the local staff may means that the Company disconnects with the interests and perspectives of the home country in Australia.
The third option is the regiocentric approach. Scholars argue that the regiocentric approach to the recruitment process means that the Company hires or rather transfer people found in the same region to fill up all the vacant positions (Dowling et al., 2017). For instance, employees are only transferred from one region to manage the international branch. This might not be the best alternative in the case of Blue- Line Company.
Geocentric staffing is another approach of staffing in which the Company hires people to fill the relevant positions without considering where they originate from or where they are living (Dowling et al., 2017). This comprises of hiring remote employees, and relocating employees. For Blue- Line Company to apply the geocentric type of approach, it has to develop a kind of global outlook, which is presently not the case.
Managing organizational change
Strategic management utilizes systematic means and processes to manage the strategic changes proposed by an organization. The process is carefully thought and executed to ensure a smooth transition into the next stage. The process runs for a specific period and is expected to yield the outcomes predicted during the onset. The success of a strategic change management program for Blue- Line Company relies on the ability of the firm to device new procedures that match organizational goals of going overseas. It also depends on management’s ability to come up with new goals, objectives that blend with the strategic goals, and projected change outcomes (Fernandez et al., 2017). Change management may take two dimensions; the business dimension or the people’s dimension. Managing business dimensions requires Blue- Line Company to look at several key things.
Most importantly, they need to have a strategy, lay down the change process, procedures, and implementation structures. Effective management of business dimensions requires managers at Blue- Line Company to synchronize all the internal and external factors that may limit their desire to go overseas (Hayes, 2018). On the other hand, Peoples’ dimension requires managers at the Company to address skills, abilities, and additional reinforcements. Management at the Blue- Line Company may also need to access employees’ attitudes, desires, and personal goals towards the transition into a foreign market.
References
Dowling, P. J., Festing, M., & Engle, A. D., Sr., 2017. International human resource management (7th ed.). Hampshire, United Kingdom: Cengage Learning.
He, S., 2011. The Influential Factors on Internationalization of the SMEs in China: on Wenzhou¡¯ s Shoe Industry and Policy Implications. Research in World Economy, 2(1), 48-57.
Kraus, S., Mitter, C., Eggers, F., & Stieg, P., 2017. Drivers of internationalization success: a conjoint choice experiment on German SME managers. Review of Managerial Science, 11(3), 691-716.,
Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.
Fernandez, S. and Rainey, H.G., 2017. Managing successful organizational change in the public sector. In Debating Public Administration (pp. 7-26). Routledge.
Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave.
Bhagwat, V., Brogaard, J. and Julio, B., 2017. A BIT goes a long way: bilateral investment treaties and cross-border mergers. Available at SSRN 2872989.