Discussion with a manager of an organization

Résumé du document

XXX is a commercial company, established in 1994. The company has, as a main object of activity, the distribution of construction materials, with 3 warehouses in Olt county. The juridical form of the company is a limited liability company, with a social capital of 100,000 RON, having 2 associate owners with equal rights and contributions to the registered capital. The executive and administrative responsibilities go to the 2 associates who are also the managers of the company. At the time being, the company has 45 employees with labor contract for an undetermined period. From the beginning until the present, the activity of the company has increased and diversified continuously, a fact which is also reflected by the financial results gained, meaning a constant increase in the turnover, respectively (in the last 3 years). Today, the company has stable traditional relationships with its business partners, either suppliers, such as Lafarge Romcim S.A. Bucharest, ElPreco S.A. Craiova, etc. or clients, such as Pirelli-Cables and Systems S.A. Slatina, Alro S.A. Slatina, etc. For the future, the company pursues the constant increase of the volume of activity and its diversity, as well as a rise in the quality of the services offered and the implementation of different programs regarding the achievement of an efficient and effective activity of the company. In order to get a better view on the management approach of the company, I decided to interview the general manager.

Extraits

[...] Which is the prevalent decision-making model, why, and which are the consequences? How does the organization cope with environmental uncertainty by its policies and strategies? Does this organization strategically, or some other, revolute, models are in place? How do all these elements, planning, decision-making, policies and strategies, input to the organization's success (and what is meant by “success” in that particular organization)? XXX LTD. XXX is a commercial company, established in 1994. The company has as main object of activity the distribution of construction materials, with 3 warehouses in Olt County. [...]

[...] In other words, planning and decision-making models give us a view of the mission of the company and the targets it has to accomplish, and on the other hand, policies and strategies offer solutions, directions and models on how to approach effective progress. 10) What do you mean by “success” in your organization? It would be irrational to state that the goal of our company is not to obtain profit, so the first objective we focus upon is to constantly increase our activity. We consider ourselves a successful business whenever we see an increase in the turnover and cash flow, when all the targets have been reached in due time and when profitable investments have taken place. [...]

[...] Most of the time we go for a heuristic model as we try to use in a natural way the experience we have in the business until the present moment in order to find similarities with the problem at hand. Moreover intuition plays an important part when following a certain direction in search of solutions for the decisions. We use, of course, a linear model too, when we deal with decisions taken at the top management level or decisions that involve plans in the long run. Why did you choose these kinds of models and which are the consequences? [...]

[...] Because we work with construction materials and the sales depend very much on the season we are in, we have different types of time span of planning. Thus we may speak about plans which have as deadline one month for the basic targets or 3 months for obtaining regular discounts from suppliers and one year or even more for the overall activity of the company or plans involving long term investments. How do these time spans of planning relate to the market conditions? [...]

[...] Environmental uncertainty in our sector of activity is mainly given by lack of information regarding suppliers or competition and also by the unpredictable changes in types of products and their prices. For instance, if you are not doing constantly market research to see which is the best approach you should adopt in the sales department or which are the new products that appeal to customers, then you may find yourself “outdated”. How does the organization cope with environmental uncertainty by its policies and strategies? We are always opened to the suggestions made by our suppliers and clients. [...]