Part A company characteristics
‘corporate culture’ can be characterized as a total arrangement of values, convictions, suppositions, and behavioural designs that hierarchical individuals share for all intents and purpose and that structure the centre character of an association (Strikwerda, 2018). Bulatova (2018) depicted corporate culture as ‘an example of shared fundamental presumptions that was learned by a group as it tackled its issues of external adaption and internal integration, that has worked alright to be viewed as substantial and, in this manner, to be instructed to new individuals as the right way to see, think, and feel according to those issues’. Bulatova (2018) made a clear distinction between three degrees of culture (the degree to which the social culture is noticeable to the observer); artefacts, upheld convictions and values and fundamental presumptions. ‘At the point when one carries culture to the level of the association and even down to bunches inside the association, one can perceive how culture is made, installed, developed, and at last controlled, and, simultaneously, how culture obliges, balances out, and gives structure and significance to the group members (Franzoni, 2013). The subculture of an association reflects national culture, proficient subculture, and the association’s history (Mohamad, 2010).
The organization culture impacts choices by its individuals and how it impacts its individuals’ acceptance or rejection of a decision. That implies when the manager is making a decision, he or she must consider more thing to guarantee the decision can turn out to be proficient. Thus, organizational culture influences the decision process of the company. This is supported by Bulatova (2018) contended that culture influences associations in the decision-making process. Culture influences the decisions that are considered as well as the real decision among them (Strikwerda, 2018). As per Bulatova (2018), there is a developing collection of proof that proposes that culture influences the procedure of dynamic from multiple points of view. An association is proposed to have a ‘solid culture, which is generally characterized to be broadly shared among workers (Biliavskа, 2017). Culture is both a unique wonder that walls us in at all occasions, being continually accomplished and made by our cooperation with others and moulded by administration conduct and a lot of structures, schedules, decides and standards that direct and oblige conduct (Gabriel, 2015). As indicated by Čmelíková (2017) a company’s culture can be a wellspring of practical upper hand if that culture is significant, uncommon and defectively imitable.
In this case, the US boat making has adopted an organizational culture of innovation. Innovative culture can be characterized as the multidimensional climate which incorporates the values, suspicions, and beliefs shared of the members of a certain organization that cause it to be inclined to explore new opportunities and knowledge and generate innovation, to positively react swiftly to the market demands. Innovation stresses an increasingly perplexing procedure and it alludes to a movement whose point is to create, convey, respond to, and modify ideas (Walentynowicz, 2014). Similarly, it is stressed that innovation ought not just to depict with the purposeful demonstration of creating new ideas, yet additionally with the presentation also, utilization of new ideas, all planned for competitive advantage that leads to better organizational performance. Innovative in the working environment has been imagined as mind-boggling conduct comprising of a three-phase process (čmelíková, 2017). In the primary phase of innovative behavior, an individual identifies an issue and concocts new solutions and thoughts, either novel or embraced. After that stage, an individual looks for approaches to advance her or his answers and thoughts, and construct authenticity. An innovative culture involves a lot of knowledge sharing between the employees and also with their seniors. Thus, a suitable decision-making process will be a participative decision-making process. A participative decision-making process will involve each employee to share one’s ideas in every process of innovation. Besides, it involves a lot of interaction between the employees and their seniors and decisions made are accepted wholly by the employees.
The organizational structure of the company is decentralized implying that the employees can easily access founders for collaboration in the decision making process. As such, the time required to process certain decisions is reduced hence ensuring most processes occur swiftly. Furthermore, the organizational structure of the company facilitates the evaluation of company decisions by all employees and founders. This ensures that all employees commit and abide by the set decisions hence working to ensure the goals of the company are effectively realized.
The strategic direction of the company, the mission statement, and the vision take a key interest in the customer and environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the guiding principle of the company’s decision-making process relies on customer-driven designs and environmental sustainability. As such, the decision-making process must evaluate the environmental implications of a specific design and its appeal to its market share. This will ensure that the company products are easily accepted by their target market.
The company aims to penetrate the Indian market due to a large number of fishers in the country. According to the scenario, fishing accounts for 1% of India’s gross domestic product and serves as a potential market for the company’s products. As such, the company has adopted partnering as the ideal market entry strategy. This is seen when the founders of the company met the National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) seeking an endorsement for their foldable boats.
However, the company culture might affect the market entry strategy chosen by the company. First, the company culture sees the founders and the employees as equal. This means that employees actively take part in the decision-making process and their input is taken into consideration. However, partnering with the NFDB will introduce a third party who has equal rights to the decision making process as the company. This means that the founders of the company will have to make decisions that consider the input of the NFDB. Furthermore, the NFDB will only make decisions after consulting the founders and not the employees. As such, some flexibilities awarded to employees might cease hence affecting the working relationship within the company.
Secondly, the organizational culture of innovation might also affect the company’s market entry strategy. According to the scenario, the company has created testing laboratories where customers provide feedback on the design. These laboratories require extensive funding to put up and run. As such, both parties will have to contribute financially to ensure equity in the distribution of profits and the success of the endeavour. incase adequate funding is not sourced by both partners, the market entry strategy will be affected and a new strategy sourced.
The company organizational structure is a decentralized one implying that the employees and the founders’ inputs and opinions are considered equal. This form of organizational structure presents several advantages to the company. First, the structure is cost-effective. According to (Quain, 1), a decentralized organizational structure enables managers to make decisions rapidly which can save the company money. This is because founders empower and trust their managers and employees in a decentralized organization as they understand the daily working processes better. This thus ensures decisions are made rapidly without necessarily involving the founders hence reducing the company costs.
Secondly, a decentralized organizational structure lightens the workload of the founders hence allowing them time to develop strategic plans for the development of the company. According to (Quain, 1), a decentralized structure relieves the founders of problems and conflicts within the organization and thus can formulate major strategies for the future of the organization. This will work in the scenario as the founders will be able to develop expansion strategies in India without worrying about the daily activities of the mother company. Furthermore, a decentralized structure increases communication within the company hence boosting morale within the workplace.
Part B product characteristics
- Characteristics of the emerging market that affect the market entry strategy
- The performance of the fishing industry
Fishing is one of the most important sectors in India especially along the large coastline and within and along inland water bodies. There are well established economic zones dedicated to supporting the over 14 million depending on the fishing industry. The country fishing industry contributes 1% of the country’s GDP and is the producer of 7% of the fish exports in the global market. The company should expect competition for fishing boat buyers from both local companies and international companies. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an innovative product that gives the company a competitive advantage and contribute towards the achievement of an organization’s vision and mission.
- The legal provision for use local plastic to attain endorsement by NFDB
The National Fisheries Development Board plays a pivotal role in regulating the fishing industry in India. Attaining endorsement by the board will give the company the legal, administrative and social backing that is necessary to enter the Indian market. The company, therefore, requires to establish production factories in India as opposed to importing the finished product. It also requires the company to design products based on plastic waste available in India. It offers the company the opportunity to perpetuity its brand identity as a sustainable and environmentally conscious company.
- Improvement of the new product to meet the market new market characteristics
- Product design
As the Us based company introduces a new product design to the Indian market. It must undertake eight major steps before fully introducing the new foldable boats to the market. The steps include:
- Advocacy and Screening the idea
At this stage, the company must way the advantages and disadvantages. The advocacy and screening the idea must take place simultaneously as this will aid in weeding out unviable ideas. Companies are most successful if the evaluation process is transparent and standardized as the employees feel more comfortable contributing their ideas in anticipation of how their ideas could be judged.
- Experimentation
In this stage, the viability of ideas for the US boat making company is put to test at a certain defined time and in a particular environment. In this stage, it is crucial to assess who the customer will be or what he or she will use that innovation. Thus, the company will be able to discover if the great idea is ripe for that particular time or if it is just for the Indian market in this case. Albeit, it is equally important not to interpret the discovery as a big failure, it could be a well-spring for new and more innovative ideas.
In this stage, the US boat making company could implement the new boat design to a few locations in India to see how it will be received. Consequently, if the customers respond in favour of the new fold boat the company can go to the next level and apply the design to all other locations in India. In this way, the company will not suffer any monetary loss or time loss by applying the new idea all at once without knowing if it will be successful as India is a multicultural country with a diverse culture
- Commercialization
In this stage, the US boat making company must look to its customers and confirm if the innovation solves the Indian prevailing problems and thereafter a careful analysis accrued from rolling out the innovation
- Diffusion and Implementation
Diffusion is depicted as a process of gaining a final companywide acceptance of innovation while implementation is a process of basically setting up structures, maintenance and resources to produce it. In this final stage, the company should gauge that the cost of the boat does not exceed the profits accrued. The best production system is lean production as the one it uses in the United States should be replicated in India
Effects of company characteristics on the product design process
- Company culture
The company culture of promoting innovation and providing equal opportunity for the workers and founders in the decision-making processes will profoundly impact the product design processes. It is expected the company will incorporate the ideas and the creativity of staff in the US as well as those in India to design the product. Cross-cultural management and enhancing workplace diversity will be an instrument in designing the product using cross-cultural international collaborative teams.
- Emerging market ethics
The emerging ethical practices in emerging markets such as India requires progressive and sustainable companies to be good environmental and social stewards. The company mission and vision are geared towards environmental sustainability; thus it will facilitate the designing of environmental friendly boats. In addition, inclusivity at all level of company operations should reflect the diversity of the Indian fishing industry. The company must endeavour to promote equal opportunities and improve not only the economic welfare of the stakeholders but also the target market social and environmental wellbeing.
- Global legal systems
The company product design process must be cognizant of the global legal systems in terms of fair trade practices, labour laws, economic laws, environmental laws and economic rights of the potential buyers and indirect user of the final product. The product should satisfy the international standard on emission and pollution of freshwater bodies (Vezzoli and Ezio 26). It must ensure that the rights of workers and the end-users are protected at all times. The procurement of factors of production and the marketing of the product must meet the international trade laws and regulations.
- How the company ethical statement influences the market entry strategy
The company ethical statement, “We will make decisions that are sustainable for customers and the environment”, underlines the company commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability. Consequently, the company will opt to enter the Indian foreign market via the greenfield investment strategy. The greenfield investment requires foreign firms to invest heavily and have well-developed management systems in foreign countries where they want to establish new markets (Carrigan and Ahmad 2). It will require the use of locally recyclable plastic to produce the foldable boats while at the same time mitigating environmental degradation from plastic related wastes. The company plans to endear itself among the local fishing community through the provision of emission-free boats that are easy to transport from home to the fishing ground. More so, the company ethics demands that the company engaged in production and marketing activities that promote environmental sustainability, hence it may necessary to support conservation projects as part of market entry and awareness creation strategy.
Work cited
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