As a private company, Galanz consists of 14 production facilities that operate across China. It is one of the largest companies in the world in the microwave business. The structure of the company is based on three main segments. The first structural segment deals with Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM). It helps in the production of most of the microwaves that foreign brand owners outsourced to the company due to its low cost of production. The second structural category is the Original Design Manufacturing (ODM) which deals with the production of the company’s original microwave products. The last segment of corporate structure deals with the Original Brand Manufacturing (OBM) for the local market.
The company has successfully applied the low-cost strategy for its product to command the global microwave market. Despite a humble beginning, the business strategies involving partnerships with international and local companies have stabilized the production, distribution, and logistics for the Galanz Company. The company is currently facing the challenge of market sustenance, expansion of production, sustainable innovation, and remaining competitive within its low-cost pricing strategy despite the high quality of its products.
Galanz’s current business strategies
Sustainable development is vital in a business environment. Reflectively, this concept defines the feasibility of a company and its solvency within a specified period. In contemporary society, the term sustainability refers to the ability to survive within a profitability model. In a business environment, sustainability is affected by forces in the market, decision science, corporate structure, and real financial management, in the short and long term. A properly designed operations management system labors to embody business process aspects and simultaneously assemble them as a single unit that operates efficiently within a stringent procedural code. Therefore, a business organization must put in place stringent measures and strategies aimed and monitoring expansionary modules within feasible levels.
Galanz Company has efficient knowledge and experience in the uniqueness of products and services in terms of their requirement to produce high-quality products in its local and international business system. The main variables of its business operations are connected at the central point of strategic planning which encompasses cost, speed, quality, flexibility, and dependability to create a smooth continuous operation tracking model from one segment to another. For instance, the company has been in a position to establish global microwave manufacturing leadership besides establishing more than 14 production lines within a decade.
The major part of the success puzzle for the Galanz business management delivery operates on the periphery of the soft skills involving the timeless vision of organizational principles, defining the value of the business, determining requirements, clarifying the vision, building teams, mitigating task, resolving issues, and providing direction as incorporated in the operations management system of the Original Equipment Manufacturing and the Original Design Manufacturing segments. This strategy besides the low-cost pricing has ensured that the company maintains dominance over other local and international competitors such as Toshiba, Sony, and Samsung among others.
The management of the company through the senior and junior Liang and other management realized that its success rested in the credo and corporate strategy on these values. The corporate strategies of the company were then based on production, marketing, human resources, and efficiency monitoring units. Being a company that manufactures a home appliance product, its main objective was to ensure that they produce a product of high capacity and quality. Continued production of the microwaves has made the company increase its revenues six times as generated from its main brands.
The second corporate strategy of the management was to create a decentralized system in terms of a production line for the much-needed magnetron which is a key component of a microwave. The approach adopted by the management was to ensure that the decision-making process is shortened thus, avoidance of the bureaucracy in its product lines. Furthermore, the adoption of decentralization by management was to ensure direct contact with customers who proposed a reliable contact point.
Current problems Galanz is facing
Sustainability of the low-cost pricing strategy/Inventory management
The company is not sure of the sustainability of the low-cost pricing strategy in the long term operation focus since this inventory management strategy is likely to reduce its revenues. Despite having penetrated the market with the strategy, the company must take care of the logistics and customer care despite selling its products at a price which is thirty percent below the market price. The company is facing the dilemma of maintaining its OEM and OBM segments for the overseas and the local markets respectively.
The management is in a dilemma of balancing both the short term and long term consideration towards decision making. The management has to ensure long term obligations are fulfilled and must consider mostly the role played by resources invested in technology, continued innovations in the production of new products, and conducting intensive researches in the market to identify fresh market niches.
Customer satisfaction sustainability
Customer satisfaction is the focal point of the company in attaining a competitive advantage in the market above other players. Specifically, operations systems are employed in the Galanz Company to monitor and increase productivity at the minimal error and poor quality is not satisfactory since the company has very little activities aimed at customer satisfaction assurance. This has not been possible because its model of running overseas customer assurance strategies does not allow for customer preference tracking. Besides, it does not monitor the wrongful use of resources or misappropriation in the customer after-sales service strategies in the overseas segment.
Besides, the company’s customer overseas service strategy is not based on people and their values, rather, it functions on the assumptions of the cultural dynamics of the local market in China. The success of the strategy is made through investing in the communities and its stakeholders. The company has done very little on this in line with the overseas market.
Unstable system monitoring
Galanz’s existing forms of system monitoring should be periodically upgraded to introduce multiple operating system models such as ratio analysis in operation management that is compatible with tracking and analysis within and without the company across the three major segments. Currently, the company has a centralized monitoring system controlled by a few managers despite having a workforce of more than ten thousand employees.
The current system is not inclusive of the scientific aspects such as a technical process of understanding the operations involved in operations management, their application, and evaluation criteria which are monitored by the support department. Despite having this efficient operations management system, the company has not fully established a mechanism of monitoring progress at the micro-level and depends on macro auditing in decision making and still has to deal with the risk of product rejection. This is even worse in the overseas markets since employees are mere spectators rather than part of the product development and modification process.
Centralized communication and narrow decision-making organ
The ideal strategy for performance measurement should be aligned with the communication channel in the company. For the implementation of the strategy, the management of the Galanz Company does not balance the short term and long term consideration towards decision making. Management that ensures long term obligations are fulfilled and considers mostly the role played by resources invested in technology, continued innovations in the production of new products and conducting intensive researches in the market to identify fresh market niches. Unfortunately, Mr. Liang and his son only rely on the top management to make decisions and function in a centralized communication system which is characterized by series of communication breakdowns between the top and lower members of the organization hierarchy.
To be able to carry out organizational psychology assessments based on centrality, research and statistics are needed to understand the various behavioral patterns that exist within the scope of an organization for this role. This self-guided approach is based on collaborative procedures that involve designing specific learning experiences to teach an organization how to monitor automatic behavior; recognize the relationship between these behaviors and cognition, ways to test the validity of the relationships, and measures to substitute the distorted thoughts with more realistic cognitions. The centralized system of communication and decision making is very limited since a lot of talent goes unnoticed in the company as employees are not allowed to proactively participate in the production process.
Recommendations
Improving system monitoring/organization structures
Although operations strategy experiences constant metamorphosis as a result of short term, midterm, and long term goal planning, no company can operate efficiently without quality system functioning. Thus, the quality will quantify the optimal functionality of the Gilanz within a competitive advantage parameter. To achieve this, the existing forms of system monitoring in the company should be periodically upgraded to introduce multiple operating system models such as ratio analysis of the actual demand in the overseas market.
Besides, the standard operations strategy system acts as the engine that supports implementers of business strategy to comprehensively verify rationale for supporting current, predicted, and actual results for every step upon introduction of a functionality. Therefore, the probability of success is far much better than that of failure when the system is properly designed within the production function at Gilani. Success variables are achievable through value delivery, value addition, and creativity in the supply chain, quality control, and strategic management departments. Reflectively, these concepts are techniques and tools essential in the art of sustainable business management.
The efficiency of the soft skills
The success puzzle for Gilanz’s operations management strategy should be designed to operate with the efficiency of the soft skills involving a timeless vision of organizational principles, defining the value of the business, determining requirements, clarifying the vision, building teams, mitigating task, resolving issues, and providing direction that just servicing the market demand. A quality and strategy management system at the Galanz should be modeled to incorporate these principles into the operations.
Moreover, there should be a balancing act between having to perform optimally at minimal operation and overhead costs of the company to ensure that the fast-tracking of the development strategies are sustainable in the local and overseas market segments. Thus, the success of the final strategic management system will provide a balance between soft artful skills, which are part and parcel of system management, and hard skills.
Efficiency in the value maintenance
Reflectively, relaying information on the success of a product is dependent on operations strategy for value maintenance. In the process of balancing the act, the value management system of the Gilanz should be modified to be capable of applying the scientific skills artistically through informed and perfectly framed use of soft skills to address technical aspects of production management. For instance, the successful application of value maintenance for the company will guarantee continued market expansion for the company is already in the business of providing affordable brands of the microwave. Generally, a quality value maintenance strategy is that which satisfies requirements within the budget and schedule without disintegrating initial goal projections.
Maintenance of the low price strategy
Generally, corporate strategies proposed by the management are to ensure long term operation. For the implementation of the strategy, the management of the Gilanz Company should be able to balance both the short term and long term consideration towards decision making. Management strategies that ensure long term obligations are to be fulfilled independently of the short term obligations in an organized manner.
They should consider the role played by planning for resources in technology, continued innovations in the production of new products, and conducting researches in the market to identify market niches within the customers to sustain the low price strategy, since increasing the prices would interfere with the local and the international markets. The proper matching of short and long term goals such as organizational effectiveness, leadership, decision making, problem-solving, creativity, flexibility, and team building would facilitate proper focusing and management of any extra costs above its budget. The company is likely to benefit from maintaining the low-cost strategy since it will keep the already existing market while conquering new territories.
The success and failure of the Galanz’s international business entity are dependent on the effectiveness and quality of the operations management since it determines planned, integration, implementation, and control. To strike an optimal performance balance, the process of designing a quality long term and short term management system should commence with a clear overview of budgeting, objectivity, and scheduling.
Also, this part should include control procedures and assessments. To come up with a viable operating system at Galanz, it is of the essence to include quality control, communication with stakeholders, progress measurement, and flexibility in planning to accommodate any eventuality such as the incidence in Argentina where the government sued the company over monopoly claims.
Proper coordination of the business logistics in the inventory management
Scientific management design determines the success of goal planning and analysis. The Gilani should create a logistics management department to work alongside its R&D segment to ensure smooth operation and coordination of different production and marketing functions simultaneously in its business chain. The success of a business is determined by the communicative, scientific, and artistic components of an operations management system. Irrespective of the size and nature of a business entity, quality in logistics management is a major verification factor for the success of a short term, middle term, and long term projections.
Among the new development elements that should be incorporated to build trust at Gilanz are the establishment of a strong distribution, fair retribution process, and passing accurate information to target audience to restore confidence within the business networks. Customer retention is therefore achievable through the creation of a reliable and affordable marketing channel that is essential in monitoring a matrix that maps out potential competitors and identifies the weaknesses and strengths of the clients. Moreover, the reporting criteria will reflect the success of the marketing calendar and set targets generated from time to time.
Organizational change
Improved communication channel
Managers leading production implementation strategies may record dismal performance due to lack of insight to integrate micro-decisions alongside the macro decisions made by the company’s board of directors. Therefore, the success of the Galanz operations management system is directly dependent on creativity and communication in addition to technical aspects such as management principles. Moreover, from the above analysis, the aspect of localizing labor and factors of production will play the most important role in the operations management strategy. This is because of the aspect of cultural relevance in terms of language, preference, consumption pattern, and unique policies that might be in the target market.
Decisions made should be dependent on available resources such as investment portfolio, infrastructure, personnel size, experience and efficiency for a specialized high skill assignment requiring specific qualifications. These activities would provide an in-depth estimation of the distribution of probability for future expected returns.
Employee training
In line with the main objective to determine the forecast density closest to the actual value, it is of the essence to resonate upon the principles of the relative performance of different competing forecast densities as part of the operating system at the Gilanz Company. In computing this, higher scores are given more priority since they are prone to give positive values. Besides, this model distributes a higher probability of values observed.
From the different densities realized and those forecasted, the sequences of observed results on densities of return are compared with the baseline of an average score. For consistency, the parameters and variables used are aligned to ensure that the threshold on model-independent is achieved within competing models. To address the underlying issues in stochastic volatility estimation, the parameters should revolve on the periphery of relevant information which is consistent with the real and expected parameter matrices such as the sales volume in the overseas market segment.
Supply channel and marketing remodeling
This company should adopt the pseudo marketing strategy to further penetrate the market and sustain its captured market. Accessibility and transition in the marketing plan will ensure efficiency and proactive response analysis to further improve on the demands of prospective clients. To increase credibility and maintain professionalism, the overseas marketing plan should encompass processes and features that flawlessly facilitate healthy and lifetime relationships between the business and its clients. The Gilani Company may undertake the following.
Logistics outsourcing
Logistics outsourcing relieves a company of fixed costs irrespective of seasonal trends and market demand. Through a competitive process, the outsourced unit will develop a balanced control system for a sustainable level of efficiency, and dependability through value delivery, value addition, and creativity. The outsource logistics team will have the responsibility to rationalize the scientific aspects of the supply chain such as the use of market behavior and evaluation criteria in monitoring and managing any changes. When the outsourced logistics regulator is properly balanced, efficiency in the supply chain management is achievable.
Benchmarking of the mapping, executing and managing processes
Benchmarking of the channels for planning and execution of production and distribution goals has the effect of reducing costs of supply chain management since the company will be in a position to monitor all the control systems and their logistics. Thus, the major part of the success puzzle for the supply chain control system should be operated on defining the value of the business. Besides, building teams and mitigating tasks in the production-distribution channels for the Gilanz’s products will restore efficiency in the supply chain management. The OBM component will stabilize since the company will benefit from increased sales in the local and international markets from the current 5 million units.
When this strategy is properly implemented, the company will be in a position to balance the demands of the international companies that currently benefit from the OED component. Despite the higher performance of the OED at 7.54 million units as compared to the 5 million units in the OBM, the company is better off concentrating in the OBM since this market is more sustainable and will help to promote the brand of the company in the local and international markets.
Organizational change management
Change is relative to a thread. It is intertwined into both professional and personal components of lives. It can steadily occur within the environment mankind dwells in and even beyond. The senior managers at the Gilanz Company are obligated to ensure production, employee culture, and marketing changes are aligned with strategies that will ensure that there is a need for such a change to take place instead of simplifying the benefits expected from such changes. The change agents of the company should take up the role of ensuring that they offer assistance to others to embrace inclusive change in their organization.
Given the change to occur in the Galanz organization, the managers and other employees must be able to analyze the system that they will effectively operate and function in. The elements of that change should act on the will to move towards the desired direction. The speed at which such changes take place in an organization should be continuous. One way to effectively implement a successful organizational change in the parameters of employee motivation and optimal performance is through seminars and workshops for the Galanz Company.
Effective implementation of production blueprint changes at the company requires the full involvement of the stakeholders at different levels. This makes the agents and targets of a change element to understand the reasons behind their involvement and benefit from such changes.
Summary
There is always a risk involved in any business decision. There are no risk-free decisions for the company. Even if there are strict credit policies, uncertainties will always exist in any business environment and this causes some debtors to default payment agreements. The proper matching of soft skills in the Gilanz Company such as team building, organizational effectiveness, leadership, decision making, problem-solving, creativity, flexibility, and team building are essential in measuring the quality and performance of a business. The company should remodel its inventory approach in the international market by investing in research and design to serve the preference of the international market while maintaining a low-cost strategy to survive competition in the global microwave market.