American Woodmark Corporation - Assignment Example

American Woodmark Corporation of the of the Table of Contents 2 Organizational Overview 3 Leadership overview 3 Company culture 4 SWOT analysis 5 Stakeholder perception 7 Decision making process 7 Changes implemented 8 Recommended changes 9 References 11 Organizational Overview American Woodmark Corporation, with headquarters in Winchester, Virginia, is a publicly traded company, which is primarily engaged in manufacturing and distribution of kitchen vanities and cabinets for the new home construction and remodelling markets within the United Sates (Yahoo Finance, 2014). The company manufactures cabinets under five major brands, which are American Woodmark, Potomac Cabinetry, Shenandoah Cabinetry, Timberlake Cabinetry and lastly, Waypoint Living Spaces. The company’s range of products includes 613 variants of cabinets, encompassing a broad variety of design equipment and finishes. The company sells its products via a strong network of dealers and distributors directly to renowned builders, such as, The Home Depot and Lowe’s. The organization conducts its operations through 9 manufacturing facilities, which are located in Georgia, Kentucky, Indiana, Arizona, Tennessee, West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia. Operations are also managed through 9 services centres situated across the country. American Woodmark Corporation has been listed in the 200 Best Small Companies List, published by Forbes in 2001, 2002 and 2003. It was also ranked among the best companies by Business Weeks 100 Hot Growth Companies list, in the year 2002. The company is immensely proud of the growth that they have achieved over the course of the company’s life and are even more proud of the fundamental performance principles, which have helped it to occupy the position that it is enjoying presently. The company has offered the best value to its customers and has also been the premium supplier to builders, home centres and distributors. The company has managed to achieve a high employee satisfaction level by offering them a friendly working environment. They have also been regarded by their shareholders as the best investment that they have made. Harmonizing these objectives is certainly a steep challenge, but the company has handled the challenge prudently, since its inception. It is just an additional reason behind the fact that American Woodmark is known to be the market leader in the industry that it operates (American Woodmark Corporation, 2014a). Leadership overview The leadership panel of American Woodmark Corporation consists of visionary leaders, who occupy key positions and ensure the fact that the organizational performance is in complete alignment with the organizational objective and that the operations which are being conducted are in compliance with the ethical code of conduct. Till date, the leaders have always focused on achieving a high level of customer as well as employee satisfaction. This is evident from their mission statement, which claims that they are an organization for their employees and shareholders, all of whom have shared their resources in order to pursue a common objective. The leaders have stated their common goal of providing best value to customers by designing superior quality products, which are appropriate to needs and requirements of their customers. Their leadership value is driven by the urge to generate profit, which will later be used to reward their shareholders as well as employees and henceforth, make a contribution towards the community. The leaders of American Woodmark Corporation have been known to follow a team of sound leadership style. This is evident from the high concern that is shown both towards the employees and the production. The leaders have always greatly stressed on teamwork and commitment and have consistently encouraged knowledge sharing among employees. Employees are made to feel as a part of the company-family and therefore, the organization objectives and production needs are clearly stated to them in order to make sure that both the objectives of the company and that of employees are completely aligned. This is the mark of a competent and effective leader and is also the underlying reason behind the company’s consistent stint of success. Company culture American Woodmark Corporation exhibits a very strong and flexible organizational culture. The management of the company have adopted strict codes of conduct in order to ensure that organizational performances are driven by fundamental principles aimed towards taking the company to the pinnacle of the industry. The codes of business ethics and conduct explain principles and policies formulated by the organization, which are associated to the ethical business practices and legal compliances. Each and every member of the organizations is required to abide by the defined code of conduct, besides making sure that the business is being conducted in an ethical manner. It is the responsibility of each and every individual, working for the company, to be informed about the legal and ethical compliances as well as regarding any modifications made in the code. The company expects all employees to read, understand and conduct their activities according to the ethical code of conduct and report any violations. The above statements reflect honesty, integrity and transparency that exist in the organizational culture of the company. The company holds each and every individual accountable for the results, whether favourable or unfavourable and thus, is able to identify areas where they can improve. Nonetheless, even after exhibiting such devotion towards improving the culture, complicated situations do escalate at times, when the organization fails to identify a correct solution for dealing with the state of affairs. Situations like this escalate in majority of the organizations, but what makes American Woodmark Corporation a world-class organization is the way they deal with the same. They believe that it is situations like these, when each and every individual need to stick to the code as closely as possible. According to the perception of the leaders, this always has helped the company to come out of complicated situations and hopefully, it will continue to do so in the future. A robust corporate governance framework exists within the organization, which sets guidelines that ensures that work done by the employees as well as the officers and directors are of high standard. The governance framework has been formulated in order to make sure that each and every individual fulfils their responsibilities and discharges their duties accordingly (American Woodmark Corporation, 2014b; 2014c). SWOT analysis Strength The strength of American Woodmark Corporation lies in the following areas: Visionary leadership panel. Enormous focus devoted to innovation. Wide variety of products that are exclusive and are suitable to the needs and requirements of customers. Robust corporate governance framework. Provides greater accessibility to customers. Superior quality customer service. Weakness The weaknesses of American Woodmark Corporation can be witnessed in the following areas: Lesser degree of physical presence. Limited market share because of a competitive industry. No online retailing services available. Unsatisfactory financial performance (low return on equity and poor profit margin) (The Street, 2011). Opportunities The opportunities for American Woodmark Corporation lie in the following areas: Expansion into the international market by gaining entry into unexplored markets. Expansion of operations over the internet in order to attain a wider consumer base. Expansion into new product category. Threats The threats to the organization are: Highly competitive industry and threats from new entrants. Similar products and services available in the market at a cheaper rate. Probability of an economic recession. Stakeholder perception The management of American Woodmark Corporation has always believed in putting extra efforts in order to meet the expectations of internal as well as external stakeholders. As far as the internal stakeholders are concerned, the company management has been quite focused towards welfare of their employee. This is evident from the leadership style that the leaders exhibit. Their leadership behaviour has fetched them better than average employee satisfaction level and the company has been known to have a good culture and value. It provides a satisfactory work-life balance. Majority of the employees suggest that the company offers them with greater room for growth. The management of the company encourages free flow of information and also, promotes development. Additionally, they let their employees work with full potential and flexibility, thereby serving them a quality working environment that helps them to attain an all-round development. The management also shows high concern towards productivity. This is precisely the reason why they have always adopted efficient strategies and their work mechanism has always been directed towards reducing any lag or inefficiencies. This enables the company to maximise value for their shareholders as well as meet the expectations of their stakeholders. The external stakeholders of the company regard American Woodmark Corporation as a company of high repute due to their corporate social responsibility initiatives. This is also evident from the accolades and recognition that the company has received, over the past few years. The company is known to be heavily engaged in policy development; policies that are intended to bring about an overall development for the organization. The stakeholders rate the company very high because of the professionalism that every individual working here exhibits. The company also scores very high, as far as quality of advice and information shared is concerned. The company has attained greater degree of customer satisfaction level by delivering superior quality products and services. In addition, the company’s services have also been regarded by stakeholders as timely and consistent. All these perceptions add to the credentials of the organization and suggest that the company will be an industry-wide leader in the future. Decision making process The decision making process in American Woodmark Corporation is very robust. The company relies on real-time statistical process control software, which makes the decision making process even more effective. Every individual is held accountable for outcomes of the task that they were assigned to. This enables the company to induce a sense of responsibility within employees, which in turn brings out the best from each of them. Michele Lyle, the president and CEO of InfinityQS, had said that American Woodmark Corporation continues to strive for excellence, even though its competition struggles. This is particularly because the latter recognizes the actual market value of manufacturing, according to the specification provided on a consistent basis. The company has been able to do so over the due course of its life, which is the reason why they have managed to attain higher customer satisfaction level and receive high recognition. This has been possible due to a lucid decision making mechanism, which is followed within the company. The management considers every feedback and idea provided to them by their employees as valuable. They take all of them into consideration and implement the most appropriate one, as far as achieving the organizational objectives are concerned (Bouyssou, et al., 2013). Such is the decision making process within the company. The software platform implemented by the organization facilitates enhanced data analysis, which guides the organization’s decision making process and enables them to tackle challenges associated with natural variation in raw materials. Consequently, the company is able to deliver superior quality product, satisfy augmenting demands of customers and reduce operational costs dramatically (InfinityQS, 2014). Changes implemented Infinity QS International, Inc., the top provider of real-time quality management software solution, announced that American Woodmark Corporation, a company that supplies cabinetry to the new constructional and remodelling industries, has implemented the ProFicient real-time statistical process control software in order to be able to enhance efficiency of processes and reduce the amount of scrap. American Woodmark Corporation will advance its corporate quality missions by combining the newly adopted ProFicient platform into the already existing Six Sigma and lean manufacturing initiatives in order to be able to enhance visibility into input/output association and process inefficiencies. The company said that to be able to achieve the organizational objective of being the undisputed leader in the field of total quality management for their customer base, contractors, suppliers and service centres by end 2013, it is vital that the company lives and breathes quality. The company has adopted InfinityQS’ ProFicient because it not only allows the former to recognize and correct the process inefficiencies, but also provides them with a scalable system that will continue to grow with their evolving needs. The new statistical process control software has been so well-received and appreciated at each of the companys plants that the biggest challenge approaching the company now is to control the excitement for continuous strategic development. American Woodmark Corporation now uses natural materials in all manufacturing processes, which enable the company to create a broad variety of quality characteristics that could be taken into consideration, like, humidity and temperature in the plants and natural abnormalities in the wood. These can have a significant impact on quality of the end product. The company, by implementing the newly adopted statistical process control software to alert suitable operators and quality managers automatically during occurrence of non-conformity, is able to optimize the manufacturing process, thereby leading to cost and time savings, alongside enhancing brand loyalty and high quality production (InfinityQS, 2014). Recommended changes The thorough analysis of American Woodmark Corporation has highlighted numerous attributes of the organization, which have served as a solid foundation, pushing the company towards a level close to success. However, this very research has also set forth few weaknesses of the company, some areas of improvement and quite a few opportunities, which when tapped properly will enable the company to become an industry-wide leader. Firstly, the company should increase its line of products with other variants, apart from kitchen vanities and cabinetries, which is already being produced by the company. This is precisely because being limited to manufacturing and distributing kitchen vanities and cabinetries restricts the number of customers that the company attracts. Thus, a broad variety of products in the inventory will enable the company to attain an even wider customer base, than the existing one. Additionally, by increasing product base, American Woodmark Corporation can also compete with market leaders such as, IKEA, which will take them one step closer to become the industry-wide leader. The company should adopt effective and efficient strategies in order to expand its operations globally. They should strive to gain entry into unexplored markets, such as, the emerging economies, in order to gain a notable competitive advantage. Gaining entry into the emerging as well as other markets, which are still unexplored, will give the company access to cheap labour and at the same time, will offer them with a greater customer base. American Woodmark Corporation can utilize cheap labour available in these economies and increase their efficiency at a lesser cost, thereby generating higher profits and maximising value for their shareholders. With developments being made in the internet technology, the company should also look to expand its operations over the web so as to provide their customers with convenient buying process and world-class buying experience. In addition they need to increase their physical presence by building greater number of service and maintenance workshops, which will also better their productivity. References American Woodmark Corporation. (2014a). About American Woodmark. Retrieved from http://www.americanwoodmark.com/about.asp American Woodmark Corporation. (2014b). Ethics of American Woodmark. Retrieved from http://www.americanwoodmark.com/about.asp?iAreaID=1&iSectionID=5 American Woodmark Corporation. (2014c). Corporate governance. Retrieved from http://investor.shareholder.com/amwd/governance.cfm Bouyssou, D., Dubois, D., Prade, H. & Pirlot, M. (2013). Decision Making Process: Concepts and Methods. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. InfinityQS. (2014). American Woodmark Corporation Selects InfinityQS SPC Platform to Advance Six Sigma Initiatives. Retrieved from http://www.infinityqs.com/press-releases/american-woodmark-corporation-selects-infinityqs-spc-platform-advance-six-sigma The Street. (2011). American Woodmark Corporation Stock Downgraded (AMWD). Retrieved from http://www.thestreet.com/story/11230578/1/american-woodmark-corporation-stock-downgraded-amwd.html Yahoo Finance. (2014). Business Summary. Retrieved from http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=AMWD Read More