Widgets R Us WRU is a mediumsized firm specializing in the d

Widgets ’R Us (WRU) is a medium-sized firm specializing in the design and manufacturing of quality widgets. The market for widgets has been stable. Historically, WRU has had a functional organization design with four departments: accounting, sales, production, and engineering. This design has served the company well, and it has been able to compete by being the low-priced company in the industry.

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In the past three years, the demand for widgets has exploded. New widgets are constantly being developed to feed the public’s seemingly insatiable demand. The average life cycle of a newly released widget is 12–15 months. Unfortunately, WRU is finding itself unable to compete successfully in this new, dynamic market. The CEO has noted a number of problems. Products are slow to market. Many new innovations have passed right by WRU because the company was slow to pick up signs from the marketplace that they were coming. Internal communication is very poor. Lots of information gets kicked “upstairs,” and no one seems to know what happens to it. Department heads constantly blame other department heads for the problems.

Answer the following questions:

You have been called in as a consultant to analyze the operations at WRU. Based on the readings, what would you advise Widgets ‘R Us to do in order to sustain the competitive advantage in the widget market?

What structural design changes might be undertaken to improve the operations at the company?

Solution

Before answering this question, we need to understand what exactly do we mean by a Widget?

Widgets are nothing but small mechanical tools which will help people in their daily lives like a nail cutter, bottle cap opener, hair clipper, candle stand with radium etc and etc.

And, here in this scenario, what we are witnessing is that company was performing well before 3 years. But, unfortunately, due to various internal issues in the company, structural design copany called Widgets R Us from last 3 years is facing critical losses. Important reasons cited here are:

Products are slow to market. Many new innovations have passed right by WRU because the company was slow to pick up signs from the marketplace that they were coming. Internal communication is very poor. Lots of information gets kicked “upstairs,” and no one seems to know what happens to it. Department heads constantly blame other department heads for the problems.

However, if I am being called in as a called in as a consultant to analyze the operations at WRU. Based on the readings, the advise I would be giving to Widgets ‘R Us in order to sustain the competitive advantage in the widget market would be to simply ask them to purchase as many widget samples as possible to study and research the technology used in the widget product that they are being so competetive.

I would also ask the company Widgets R Us to employ special talent like structural designers with a vision, who can actually dedicate their talent on the new widget products. Anyhow, I would also recommend the company to increase the pay for the key employees to make them feel privileged to work and dedicate their talent to the company and also to promise them that, company will highly regard their services and increase the compensation in case products are huge hit in the market.

Not only that, I would also recommend to advance the company to technology based solutions. For example, I would ask the company to create a central information on computer database on everything related to the progress on the new widget products and launches. Also, suggest the company to employ special category people who will jointly work with all departments, i mean they will be kind of central managers of all the departments and they will keep track on various different progress in different departments. In this way, the company will not face any challenges in the coordination between the working nature of different departments and different working sectors.

Also, not only that but, I will suggest the company to assign special category people who have vast talent on media relations and people marketing in order to boost the marketing structure of the widget tools designed and developed by the company at large.

The structural design changes might not play a great role until and unless the internal working structure of the organization is improved. However, there is also a great importance for the new technological structural designs in widget tools through computer based modelling.

To grab the new technological advancement in the widget tools, I will definitely employ highly qualified engineers who can model best widget tool design through a computer. Offcourse, to hire a best desinger, we might have to consider paying good pay initially to see the performance. So, keeping that in mind, we can hire the best qualified design engineer on a contractual basis and also provide enough motivation to the new hires to boost their morales in order to compete with the market.

Apart from all the above mentioned techniques, I would update the theme of the company like a new logo with changes in the companie\'s outlook so as to attract the prospective customers.

Following above given techniques will surely boost the productivity and increase the working standards of the employees in the company, which will inturn increases the quality and standards of the company. All this will surely positively effect on the sales of newly designed widget tools.

Thank you.