Free The Case Of Bobco & Blipco Essay Example

Leadership issues associated with BobCo

Competing in the contemporary uncertain, volatile, ambiguous, and complex environment requires knowledge management systems and a committed group of employees. Knowledge management tools also called the knowledge management technologies plays crucial roles in supporting the knowledge management systems (Abdullah, Selamat, Sahibudin, & Alias, 2005). Knowledge management systems are becoming a significant feature of competitive viability in the contemporary globalized marketplace. The company ought to develop a detailed administration strategy position prior to implementing a knowledge management system. A thorough management strategy position requires the leaders to tie together the efforts and energy of a group of workers to improve their attitude from worse to good. In harnessing the efforts and energy of a team of employees, the leaders within the organization show their expertise in a method that makes the employees have confidence in them. As a result, the employees trust their leaders and align their level of commitment and vision for the betterment of the organization.
BobCo, a Jericho based small family company, is based in several locations globally. The company’s leadership has facilitated the alignment of employees’ obligations and vision for the improved performance of the company. In fact, the company’s leadership was the reason its net revenues remained steady for the previous five years, despite declining in the last two years. Bob Johnson, BobCo’s CEO and President, is the head of the company’s leadership hierarchy. The company has different sections that are headed by vice presidents. Each section comprises of consultants at various ranks including the Program Manager/Director, Senior Consultant, Consultant, and Associate Consultants. The different sections within the company consist of vice presidents, CFO, and CIO. The vice presidents hold regular meetings with their senior staff where the timing of such meetings depends on the staff commitments and the available time. For this reason, the meetings held differ from location to location. In addition, senior staff meetings are held through video teleconferencing on Monday mornings. What’s more, there are meetings that are held four times a year between the senior employees and follow an agenda.

The international aspect of BobCo’s operation

BobCo is a multinational company operating in Barcelona, Milan, New York, Paris, and London. The factors that are exogenous to the home environment of BobCo Company influence the decision-making on the use of resource and capabilities. The political, social, cultural, economic, and technological factors in the different countries where the company is situated influence its operation. The political environments in those countries influence the government rules and regulations as well as the legislation under which BobCo operates. BobCo Company has to abide by the different laws in the various countries where it operates as long as it continues operating there. The economic factors exert massive impacts on BobCo Company. In fact, the company relies on the predictable and stable mechanisms of the countries where it operates. For instance, the rate of inflation in these countries influences the rates of interest and determines the exchange risks associated with the operation of the company. In addition, the monetary systems in the countries where the company functions influence its operations. What’s more, the company’s receptiveness and willingness to adopt the technologies in different countries influences the decision it makes.
As already mentioned, the company operates in various countries hence its culture is not all the same as it employs workers from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds. The various cultures in the countries where the company operates influence its marketing strategies. In addition, these cultures affect the processes of negotiation in the countries where the company operates in different ways. The different cultures affect the price negotiations. For this reason, the company should try to understand the cultural differences to raise its awareness. The cultural differences in the countries where the company operates affect the time management among the different employees. Some cultures in the countries where the BobCo Company operates treat time as abundant while others treat it as limited. Consequently, this explains why the meetings that BobCo Company's vice presidents hold in various sections differ.

Technologies available currently that will act as an enabler

In implementing a knowledge management system, BobCo Company will need to have some technologies. Because the knowledge that will be stored in the company will be distributed on numerous different platforms and applications, the company will require various technologies to retrieve such information and present it to the different users in various countries. The different technologies would play an imperative role in facilitating knowledge management processes and methodologies within BobCo Company. In particular, the company will need intranets, groupware, and agent technology.
The intranets such as the Web server and Web browser will play an imperative role in the knowledge management system within BobCo Company. The internet technology will enable an easy as well as customizable interface to the company’s various knowledge repositories through middle-ware and API’s (Abdullah et al., 2005). The groupware will offer a medium for the employees to interconnect in a non-real-time manner. Specifically, the groupware technologies will improve the exchange of information and, as a result, enhance knowledge sharing. The agent technology will facilitate monitoring the knowledge resources and make the employees aware when information will be changed or added.

BobCo’s organizational structure and impact of Blipco acquisition

An efficient organizational structure enhances coordination among the various departmental employees to facilitate efficient operations and quick decision-making. One of the core factors that influence the productivity of an organizational structure is the platform to share knowledge and expertise among all employees in the company. Organizational structure is an integrated system that defines how activities of a business interrelate through allocation of different activities to various groups of employees based on expertise and their interaction with a common objective to foster productivity and efficiency of products and services. An organizational structure thrives through a coordinated cycle that include leadership, decision-making, structure, people, work process and tools, and culture. Besides optimization goal pursued by most organization, knowledge and information sharing is vital in an organization structure. The knowledge management system emphasizes on improving business performance by integrating business objectives and performance strategies among organization players through leadership, organization, technology, and learning elements that advance effective sharing of performance knowledge in a company.
The organization structure of Blipco international company is more Client-Consultant oriented rather than random based consultation where clients are allocated consultants based on availability and expertise. Unlike Blipco Company where no consultant is reserved for a particular client, in Blipco Company, clients are assigned to specific consultants to work with until the end of the contractual period. Notably, the consultants are deprived of interactive forums to share expertise knowledge or conduct an in-house problem-solution criteria. The essence of allocating master contract clients to specific consultants blocks the interlink age gap demanded by an effective organization structure. For instance, in case the assigned consultant to the client is challenged by a specific task, and there is a likelihood of providing a substandard solution due to the immune nature that inhibits influence from external knowledge. Despite strong bondage developed through specific client-consultant platform, the strategy hinders the innovative growth that may develop if the same client received services from two or three consultants who interacted and formulated a common solution to the client’s problems.
Another issue that curtails effective organization development in BobCo Company is the independent performance by various consultants. In organization structure, learning and knowledge sharing are core pillars in the performance of a company. At BobCo Company, vice presidents hold independent meetings with their staff for different periods based on their respective programs. Hence, the offices rarely share their operation strategies despite working towards the company’s shared vision. The organization structure could be associated with the failed performance in the small to medium based client’s contractual framework. The assignment based medium clients may subject to inconsistent service delivery due to interchange of consultants considering that the consultants operate on diverse criteria. The knowledge sharing gap is a crucial failure to the declining performance trend in BobCo Company. Reluctant by the company to endorse technology platforms for different offices to interact inhibits the integrated performance of the company’s workforce to their clients.
For that reason, an acquisition by Blipco international will require an overhaul of BobCo company organizational structure and accommodate the Blipco company knowledge management system that capitalizes on technology and knowledge sharing among all consultants regardless of the nature of respective client’s demands. In Blipco organization system, senior managers serve as linking partners between the client and the consultants by grouping the resources and expertise of various clients to different consultants. The system is an open-ended system that allows free interaction of consultants, participation of clients in the decision process and promoting continuous improvement of performance strategies through shared knowledge. Therefore, Acquisition of BobCo by Blipco will manifest a positive and assimilated organization structure where clients will be assigned consultants based on availability, expertise and enhance an open interactive network of mentoring, motivation and knowledge’s sharing among all stakeholders.

The impact that key consultants leaving the company would have should BobCo be acquired by Blipco International

In an organization structure, understanding the culture of various participants is an integral aspect of promoting service delivery and efficiency. Cross-cultural management is one of the key challenges that influence the successes of business acquisition, mergers and globalization strategy. Organization culture details how different companies operate their activities towards attaining their objectives. Failure to recognize the disparity in operation culture may derail the anticipation of acquisition strategy in company performance. BobCo Company serves its project-based clients with specific consultants and its small- medium clients with temporal consultants. On the other hand, Blipco operates on partner-based model where any consultant can be assigned to a client upon integrated assessment of resources and expertise required.
An acquisition of the two companies may lead to overlap of responsibilities, conflict among consultants, poor workflow and subsequently demoralization of workers. This is because the operation cultures of both companies do not rhyme and as such key consultants may opt out of the enterprise. Consultants in BobCo company serves as the immediate link between the business and the clients and, therefore, their exit from the company will lead to client and company financial loss. Long-term master Clients who had developed a strong bondage between the consultants may choose to terminate their contract in pursuit of their consultants’ knowledge and sole understanding of their needs. Such a situation could be avoided by the adoption of a knowledge management system that fronts interactive knowledge sharing and decision-making process as the paramount pillar to an organization’s success.
The ultimate effect of consultants exit to the company clients is the loss their information about the projects because other consultants had not shared it. In that perspective, other consultants will be unable to proceed with their predecessor’s work – a factor that could threaten the clients to seek alternative solutions. If the clients choose to stay, the new Blipco Company would be required to integrate BobCo Company employees into their knowledge management system to enable them formulate a common platform to brainstorm and understand their client’s problems and generate feasible and sustainable solutions.

Budgetary issues associated with the implementation of KM as a promotional strategy

Implementing a knowledge management system is a sophisticated process that requires caution in blending it with a company’s organizational structure and operation strategy. Notably, technology implementation is paramount in the efficiency of knowledge management system (Tiwana, 2000). Platforms such as search engine drivers, e.g., Google, communication platform such as the video link teleconferencing and data analysis framework must be installed on the system. The company will have to source for a customized knowledge management software that will accommodate the various operation and organization strategies of the new-formed company. Besides, the knowledge management system would require training of employees on the operation of the system as well as develop a periodic learning framework where consultants and clients can freely interact and discuss various information fronted in the systems information structure.
Additionally, the system requires continuous maintenance and improvement hence would be appropriate to hire an independent expertise to oversee its effectiveness as well as recruit an internal team of staff that will inherit the running of the system in future (Tiwana, 2000). Consequently, implementing the system will require financial investment for learning, software development and maintaining its operations along the company’s set objectives.

References

Abdullah, R., Selamat, M. H., Sahibudin, S., & Alias, R. A. (2005). A framework for knowledge management system implementation in collaborative environment for higher learning institution. Journal of Knowledge Management Practice, 6(1).
Tiwana, A. (2000). The knowledge management toolkit: practical techniques for building a knowledge management system. Prentice Hall PTR.