Week 3 - Research Paper Example

Collaboration process Affiliation: Identify and explain the steps of the collaboration process among the functional areas that must be employed to achieve organizational goals, and prepare an action plan to implement the collaboration process.The different functional areas of Kudler Fine Foods which deals with purchasing and supplying the best gourmet foods and wine include the purchasing and supplies department, sales department, accounting department and marketing department. One of the organizational goals of this company is to supply the freshest food and the other is to offer all gourmet food and wine under one store.

In order to achieve this, the above mentioned functional areas must collaborate and come up with an action plan to implement the collaboration process.The first step of the collaboration process is for the purchase department to provide a list of the purchases they intend to make and how much each is going to cost. This list is taken to the accounting department which authorizes release of the expense money. Once the goods are brought and inventory is done, sales department takes over the day and turn over the money at the end of the day for the accounting department to calculate.

The marketing team comes up with strategies to increase customer base and maintain the present customers and this strategies are presented to the accounting department once approved by the management for funding.In order for the above process to run smoothly, they need to have an action plan which should run for several months and if successful, should be implemented. The action plan will involve majorly the accounting, marketing and sales departments. This is because they are important in revenue generation to run the collaboration process.

The marketing department will come up with advertisements of discounts, sales coupons and even points that can be redeemed depending on the purchase made. The account department will release funding for this marketing and finally the sales department will handle the discounts, point redemption and sales coupons. The success of this action plan will not only bring in more clients, but will also increase profits for the running of the collaboration process.Identify and provide an example of the use of lateral collaboration and vertical collaboration within the organization, and prepare an action plan to use lateral and vertical collaboration.

Lateral collaboration happens among people of the same level at work while vertical collaboration is between employers and employees (Bryson, 2011). In Kudler Fine Foods, lateral collaboration is employed majorly in the kitchen department where the chefs hired share their recipes with the other chefs in the various Kudler stores. This is in order to avoid having different tastes of the same food. The kitchen department also shares their excess produce with other stores in order to avoid waste.

Vertical collaboration is used where the top management of the company opens up communication channels with their employees. This is necessary to avoid misinformation or miscommunication which usually happens where the communication is not direct. The employees can therefore air their grievances and suggestions to those concerned directly and this way, decision making also becomes open and ownership of the company by the employees takes place hence loyalty and sustainability.The best action plan to ensure the use of both lateral and vertical collaboration may require training to be provided to both the employers and employees.

The training will be about how the two types of collaborations may be used, their benefit and how to implement them simultaneously in all the Kudler stores. Implementation of this plan will minimize waste, reduce employee turnover to other competing companies and above all customer satisfaction will be ensured since the stores will be the same in quality and quantity (Bryson, 2011).ReferencesBryson, J. M. (2011). Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement.

New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.