Rhodes Industries

1. Would the subsidiaries still be competitive and adaptive in local markets if forced to coordinate with other subsidiaries around the world?

Successful companies take an approach toward their structure by molding it to emulate external environments in a given industry (Daft, 2010). In order to remain competitive, it is important for Rhodes Industries (RI) to compose a specific goal in order to make certain an efficient operation is taking place. Since each international location acted as an independent business, without the overall functional support of corporate, the subsidiary was not operating with the collaboration of the parent location, tasks such as reporting were not being applied as efficiently as possible. Each given location is operating out of a narrow goal of micro-leveled business models.

In order to grow RI into the level of operation it should be it is important for each location to be less concerned with Machiavellian success, but also to be concerned for the success of the corporation as a whole. RI needs to address the lack of research and development. Rather than operate like a multiple franchises, Rhodes Industries needs to focus on centralized decision making in order to grow the entire company into a success rather than operate on a micro-level. Manufacturing ought to be centrally processed in order to focus on bringing all process improvements into a conglomerated level of operation. The overall issues will need to be addressed by taking a global approach towards their multiple locations. The loose structure of each autonomous location makes RI correlate each location's success not with overall company growth, but by the individual location's success.

2. Would Business Managers be able to change the habits of subsidiary managers toward more global behaviors?

Habits are not easy to break. However, in order for RI to become successful and efficient the current level of autonomy makes it difficult to combine financial reports with worldwide locations. This business culture needs to change along with operational processes with the intent of overall corporate growth rather than simply growth focus on each location. The level of communication in RI prevents workers from functioning together between locations, and reduces an opportunity to for process improvements. This was apparent in the case as the manufacturing department lacked an initiative to grow their line of products. In part, this could be due to the lack of direction from top corporate management, and the absence of a research and development team. Rhodes Industries goal should be to create a streamlined level of integration between locations in order to improve not only communication, but also manufacturing processes. The greatest benefit of focusing on high functioning integration is to have the opportunity for management to create a culture of able and efficient

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