Black & Decker - Eastern Hemisphere and the ADP Initiative - Case Study Example

?Black & Decker - Eastern Hemisphere and the ADP Initiative (A) What are Lancaster's concerns about the Eastern Hemisphere organization? Will ADP address those weaknesses? Lancaster is concerned that whereas the Eastern Hemisphere organization is facing brutal competition, the organization lacks the management strength and depth necessary to battle the competition. Lancaster knows that to beat the competition, the Eastern Hemisphere organization would need to build its own internal capacity which starts from the top, its executives. Black & Decker was fully committed to improving the performance of its Eastern Hemisphere as demonstrated by its commitment to spend nearly $80 million to set up its Singapore headquarters and build factories in Singapore, India and China (Morrison and Black 3). Unfortunately for Lancaster, these growth plans would lead to significant increase in employment opportunities whose large percentage would be for management positions (Morrison and Black 4), which was the Eastern Hemisphere’s Achilles’ heel. From analyzing the intensity of competition in Asia, Lancaster understood that the Eastern Hemisphere would require a new kind of managers, those who freely share ideas and expertise across the company, nurture and develop careers for their subordinates within the organization while remaining fiercely committed to business unit performance. Lancaster’s cause for concern was that there was a major disparity in management styles within the Eastern Hemisphere. Moreover, some of the managers were out rightly bad managers. With so many management styles it would be difficult to effectively execute organizational strategies at the lower levels of the firm. Another concern was the apparent lack of opportunities for growth and development made available to staff members. Lancaster noticed that 70 percent of management and supervisory roles were filled by outsiders (Morrison and Black 4). The ADP would infuse into the Eastern Hemisphere several best practices that would strengthen the management function. First of all the 3600 view would give managers more in-depth knowledge of their employees. With this knowledge they will be able to more effectively assist their staff to grow, develop and attain their career objectives while improving the performance of their business units. For example, from the 3600 view would give managers information which they could use to create better teams, identify employees who were ready for more leadership opportunities and so on. This would reduce the need for seeking managers and supervisors externally since the organization will have identified and nurtured talent from within. Secondly, the entire ADP process increases staff awareness of the 14 different performance dimensions. With increased awareness it can be expected that management and other staff at the Eastern Hemisphere would naturally be motivated to improve themselves which would indirectly lead to an overall better organizational performance. What concerns do Asian managers have about ADP? How substantive are these concerns? Asian managers have numerous concerns about ADP. The substantive concerns are the following: culture, language barrier, heterogeneity of the region and scarce opportunities for development. The non-substantive ones are: managers having limited time to handle ADP, presence of many managers who are used to performing their duties in a certain way and notion that it is too radical a change. These are non-substantive because they are often cited as reasons for maintaining status quo. On the other hand, culture is among the most acknowledged and researched challenges for global business. In Asian cultures subordinates are not to question their seniors. This essentially removes the ability of a manager and his subordinate to be either open or criticize each other. The ADP cannot work without this sincere conversation between subordinates and their superiors. Language barrier is huge especially outside Singapore where almost all countries have their own unique dialect. Translating ADP documents on the other hand would be a laborious and lengthy process as language experts would have to be hired to ensure that the gist of the document does not get lost in translation. The alternative to this is to use the English language which very few employees comprehend especially in China, and those who do have below poor comprehension of it. Another substantive concern is the heterogeneity of Asia. Indeed one could say that the United States is heterogeneous but there is a quintessential American-ness in everyone that dwells there. In Asia the heterogeneity goes beyond language and culture and extends to their economies, literacy, and opportunities. For example a manager in China was concerned that even with ADP employees have very few development opportunities the most that they can get is a change in job title (Morrison and Black 9). Lack of opportunities would definitely lower the motivation to develop oneself, which is the objective of ADP. Another manifestation of heterogeneity is in the employment opportunities. One manager, Milind Kapoor, the Group MIS Manager for the Eastern Hemisphere, juxtaposes the situation between Singapore and India. In Singapore, there are numerous job opportunities such that it becomes difficult to motivate employees who if they do not receive a pay rise regardless of their performance they can easily seek another job. According to Kapoor in India the lack of jobs would make ADP too competitive a process to do any good. Finally, though not stated as such in the case, Sharon Seng raises the issue of the MTV generation. It is true that this new generation of youthful well-educated and probably travelled Asians would be open to ADP. The problem however is that its attractiveness to the youth could be misunderstood by the older generation who are in the management positions. What action should Lancaster take and why? Lancaster should follow Anita Lim’s advice and implement the hybrid plan. For starters, the Eastern Hemisphere Group’s year-end results were disappointing which implied the need for change. This removes option of retaining status quo. However, in as much as the organization’s poor performance called for change, Lancaster was new at his position and did not fully understand the Asian culture. Also we are informed that IBM, the only other company that tried to implement the 3600 view in Asia, had a bad experience and reverted to the 1800 view. Thirdly, for ADP to be effective Lancaster knew that it had to be accompanied by a huge commitment to training and development which in the Asian culture would imply that the company bears the entire burden. We are informed that in Asia the onus for training and development is not on the employee but on the employer. These three reasons heavily weigh against the option to jump right into implementing ADP. The better bet would be to implement the hybrid plan. As Lim stated to him, a stepwise introduction of the ADP would allow employees to gradually buy into the idea while simultaneously allowing for modifications to the plan as called for by emerging cultural realities (Morrison and Black 12). By doing this, Lancaster will have assured headquarters in the United States that action has been implemented with regards to improving the performance of the Eastern Hemisphere. This stepwise implementation would also allow the Eastern Hemisphere to utilize some of their resources on other core activities such as building sales and figuring out the external market place. Most of all, it would give Lancaster time to experience the differences between America and Asia firsthand. Works Cited Morrison, Allen, and Stewart Black. “Black & Decker - Eastern Hemisphere and the ADP Initiative (A).” 1998 : n. pag. Print.  Read More