Marif Fin Mexican Furniture Company Case Study

THE MEXICAN FURNITURE COMPANY

THE PROBLEM:

The problem in this case is to find a remedy for the loose organisational structure and thereby increase the productivity and to match the current market competence. Moreover the Partners have enough money from business and they don't really care about the organisational structure as current employees are not complaining and the business is well going. Company and its board of directors should seek a strategy to tackle the growing competition and the internal company structure

THE FACTS:

MariF Fin is a successful Joint Venture company (Mexican Furniture Company and Finnish Furniture Company )which imports cheap furniture in kit form ,assembles and sell it throughout the country and region. In 2 years the company workforce grew drastically from 4 to 380.some relevant facts and opinions important for this case ranked in order of importance.

Facts:

Economic activity fluctuates over time and follows a general but irregular pattern where periods of strong economic growth are followed by weaker growth or even periods where economic growth falls. Marf Fin while riding high on success with the cheap product range soon saw increase in competition from local players and imports from less developed countries.

Internal company structure is a chaos. Company structure and sub units are decided with quick meeting not giving much room for discussion and Employees holding responsible positions arriving late for a Board meeting called by the directors, and the partners not available for a review with Operational heads and Unit Managers.

Current Company Structure

The Directors formed HR unit under Administration literally a sub unit which reports directly to Administration Department eclipsing it from the Decision making panel.

When there is a Major decision making incident the Top level Executives refrain from attending the meeting citing blocked calendar. No authority has been appointed or delegated for taking policy decisions which results in different functional units not agreeing on a decision. Employee welfare is mayhem.

A proper Market research has not been done which is evident from dropping the trade mark line of cheap line of furniture and planning a new line of executive furniture. Absence of an in-house research unit and dependency on third party firm for market information.

Opinions:

The Directors fill this communication gap with a delegated person eg:Chief Operating Officer for major decision making in their absence who follows and conveys the inputs from directors.

Organisation structure should change