Analyzing the Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc - Essay Example

Management Analyzing the organization: Module 11 When was your organization founded? Who founded it? What opportunity was it founded to exploit? Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc is a restaurant chain in America, United Kingdom and Canada that specializes in burritos and tacos. The company is famous for its large assembly line of burritos using natural products. The restaurant chain is among the first of fast casual dining businesses in the global market. The business was founded in 1993 by Steve Ells where all the outlets were located in Colorado. In 1998, McDonalds become a major investor causing the organization to expand to over 500 locations by the year 2006. The organization currently has over 1200 outlets located in 42 states and has a staff of over 30,000 workers. The organization was founded to exploit the gap between fast food restaurants and full table service restaurants. The organization does not provide full table services but offers better services compared to fast food establishments. 2. How rapid was the growth of your organization, and what problems did it encounter while it grew? Describe the passage through the stages outlined in Greiner’s model. How did managers deal with crisis it encountered as it grew? The growth of the Chipotle shows that the organization established in 1993 has rapidly grown to be among the most profitable organizations in the global market. The revenue earned by the organization has almost grown by three times since 2006. The problem Chipotle has experienced during its growth stage has been competition from other organizations in the restaurant business. Greiner’s model evaluates growth of the organization through a series of five stages. The first stage is growth through creativity where the organization is unique. The second stage is growth though direction where the organization grows by focusing on its products, then there is growth through delegation. The forth stage is growth trough coordination and the last stage is growth through collaboration as the organization expands its operations. The managers dealt with the problem of competition by increasing awareness by advertising the organization (Jones & Gareth 315). 3. What stage of the organizational life cycle is your organization in now? What internal and external problems is it currently encountering? How are managers trying to solve these problems? The growth stage that Chipotle is currently experiencing can be described as the growth through delegation stage. The organization has growth over a relatively short time increasing the number of outlets. The external problems facing the organization include competition from other players in the food industry and the changes in the economy which has reduced the overall sales. Internal problems include maintaining consistency over all the outlets to maintain the culture of the organization. Advertising the organization and offering economically friendly prices have been some of the strategies used by the managers to solve the external issues. Internal issues are resolved by management training and improved communication in the organization. 4. Has your organization ever shown any symptoms of decline? How quickly were managers in the organization able to respond to the problem of the decline? What changes did they make? Did the organization turn around? A decline in the growth of the organization has been experienced through the decrease in the earnings per share that have been affected by the increasing stock based compensation of the company. The management of the company moved to explain the decline and ways to reduce the effect on the organization. The organization changed its compensation policies to enable the organization to increase the earnings per share. The move has stabilized the earning per share and maintained a high number of investors in the company. Maintaining a high number of investors in the company during the tough financial times has enabled the company to continue growing. The small periods of decline may however be a sign of a possible end to the growth of the organization (Jones & Gareth 317). Analyzing the organization: Module 14 1. What do you think are the likely sources of conflict in your organization? Is there a history of conflict between managers and stakeholders? Chipotle is a rapidly expanding organization that has shareholders and stakeholders that expect the managers to perform in a certain way. Interdependence is a likely source of conflict in the organization. Conflict of interest may also be a major cause of conflict in the organization. The manager’s role is to ensure that the organization attains its goals. The shareholders take in the organization is to ensure that their investment grows. The workers in the organization have an interest of maintaining their job in the company. The issue of conflicting interest is one that affects many organizations and should be addressed to ensure that the company remains operational. Acquisition of the organization by McDonalds may have brought about conflict of interest by the management and the employees due to the change in the management (Jones & Gareth 398). 2. Analyze the source of power of the principal subunit, functions, or divisions in the organization. Which one is the most central subunit? Which is the most non-substitutable subunit? Which one controls the most resources? Which one handles the main contingencies facing the organization? Power originates from the organizations legal and cultural foundation. The power of a subunit is vested in the legal documents of a company determines the power vested in the workers of the organization. The management is the central most subunit responsible for decision making in the organization. The management has the right to control the resources of an organization in a centralized organization which is also vested in lower ranking managers in a decentralized organization. Non-substitutable subunits have special information and no substitute in an organization. A subunit such as the IT unit is crucial in the organization and has no substitute. The managers in the organization control most of the resources in the organization. This can be attributed to the powers vested in the office of the managers by the constitution of the organization. The management also handles the contingencies facing the company ((Jones & Gareth 391). 3. Which subunit is the most powerful? Identify any ways in which the subunit has been able to influence decision making in its favor. Power of a subunit is vested in the constitution of an organization. Power can also be determined by the control over resources in the organization. A powerful subunit can be the subunit that are centralized to work and information flow in the organization. The management of the organization is the subunit that is centralized towards information among other resources thus the strongest subunit in the organization. The management can use this use this to use this power to influence decision making in the organization. The managers can influence decisions that favor them as they have access to information used in decision making. The managers also controls the resources that Used in the company thus may use their power to make decisions that favor this subunit during decision making (Jones & Gareth 393). 4. To what degree are the organization’s strategic and operational decisions affected by the conflict and politics? Stakeholder’s conflicts with management may be as a result of political issues within the organization. Political issues affect the strategic decision making of an organization. The manager’s decisions in the organization should not be affected by the politics to ensure that the organization operates independently. The operations of the organizations are also affected by the conflicts and politics, the magnitude of effect can be determined by the key decisions made by the managers in the organization. Conflicts also affect the nature of relationships in the organization. The relationship between the workers needs to be maintained to enable the organization to operate effectively. Eliminating political influence in the organization can be controlled by setting strict policies against political interference. Conflicts can be resolved by adequate communication between the members of the organization (Jones & Gareth 396). Work cited Jones, Gareth R. Organizational Theory, Design, and Change. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Prentice Hall, 2010. Print. Read More