Overview of REI and its Leadership and Management Challenges - Case Study Example

Case Analysis: REI Introduction The measurement of organizational effectiveness is quite essential for different business organizations for their survival in this competitive business world. By measuring the effectiveness of various business components, the organizations can identify their scopes to increase their earnings and to improve their profitability for accomplishing an apparent and sustainable competitive position over their chief business market competitors. It has been apparently observed that there lie several ways to measure organizational effectiveness. The different ways might include business growth, productivity, stability and turnover among others. In this similar context, the business leaders play an imperative part in measuring organizational effectiveness. The business leaders of different organizations frequently play a strong leadership role in order to measure their organizational effectiveness. They recognize the business areas where topmost priorities would be given for effectively utilizing the valuable resources along with adopting significant business policies (Burns, 2012). In this discussion, a brief introduction of REI along with its leadership and management challenges will be taken into concern. Various aspects which include strengths, challenges, missions, business values and culture prevailing in REI will be discussed. Furthermore, certain specific recommendations for change or process improvement in order to sustain the organizational effectiveness of REI will also be portrayed in the discussion. A Brief Overview of REI and its Leadership and Management Challenges Recreational Equipment Inc (REI) is an American based retail business corporation which sells remarkable sporting goods and gears for outdoor recreation to its large base of customers. The corporation also offers outstanding gadgets, luggage bags, helmets and apparels for both women as well as men. Furthermore, apart from the aforementioned product offerings, REI also provides valuable advices to its customers relating to any adventure and outdoor trips. The corporation realizes the significance of quality standard gears of outdoor recreation and thus emphasizes upon modernizing its technological processes. One of the imperative leadership and management challenges which is faced by the organization is regarding its basic logistical and business communication procedures. Despite the fact that the different products belonging to REI are produced by maintaining the sustainability aspects, still the corporation faced the challenge of non-compliance with the sustainability features relating to its logistical support. However, REI resolved the problem with the active support of its workforce (Recreational Equipment Inc., 2012). Furthermore, the other leadership and management challenge faced by the corporation is about limited visibility of search engine. In this regard, the company had successfully developed an online store for effectively marketing its various products but they had a problem regarding search engines. It has been recognized that the web-pages of the online site of REI had diminished visibility of the products. Moreover, in relation to the problem of search engines, the other significant problems were also recognized which include inexplicit page titles, disorganized site structures and page contents. Nevertheless, the corporation encountered this significant challenge by working with a technology development company named Netconcepts which assisted the company to develop its search engine. The involvement of Netconcepts in developing the search engines ultimately contributed in growing the visibility of the products to its huge base of customers and most significantly in increasing the sales of its products through online mode by a considerable level (Covario, 2012). On the basis of the above discussion, it can be stated that though REI faced numerous leadership along with management challenges, the corporation encountered the problems successfully by adopting inclusive managerial approaches. A Brief Discussion of the Strengths, Challenges, Mission, Values and Culture of REI One of the major strengths of REI is that the corporation possesses a strong as well as a positive brand loyalty. Besides, the company is quite philanthropic and active in performing various significant activities which include green building, managing wastes, paper sourcing and climate change. In this similar context, it has been viewed that in order to perform the aforesaid important activities, REI establishes and implements chief business strategies such as effective utilization of the valuable resources and substantially invests in innovative technologies. In addition, the other strength of REI is that the corporation maintains strong association with its workforce by broadly valuing their ideas and suggestions. The corporation believes that its ultimate source of success in this competitive business environment is the formation of strong association with the working staff. Apart from the strengths, REI also faced certain crucial challenges. The challenges include ineffective search engines relating to the business operations performed through its own online website, unstructured logistical support, limited number of stores throughout the globe and unsuitable store locations (Recreational Equipment Inc., 2012). The mission of REI is to work hard and earn superior business reputation along with accomplishing an apparent and sustainable competitive position over its chief business market competitors by maintaining its quality products. As the corporation realizes the significance of delivering quality standard products of outdoor gear to the customers, it intends to support conservation efforts through introducing and developing effective business practices throughout the corporation. In this regard, REI develops various significant sustainable operations in order to earn better business reputation as well as improve its productivity by a greater extent. The various sustainable operations include lessening of the emissions created by the greenhouse gases, proper paper usage and efficient utilization of energy (Recreational Equipment Inc., 2012). Organizational values and culture of REI serve as a basis about how the corporation conducts its business and treats its entire workforce. It has been viewed that the prevailing organizational culture of REI supports the business values and goals of the corporation by concerning certain important aspects. The aspects include authenticity, quality, respect, integrity, service and balance. The corporation strongly believes that by maintaining these important aspects, it can attain its expected business objectives and also can prosper in this competitive business market (Recreational Equipment Inc., 2012). The aforementioned challenges which are faced by REI require to be addressed in light of the mission, values and culture of REI because the challenges might restrict the corporation to accomplish its expected business objectives. The challenges regarding logistical support and search engines which are faced by the corporation can broadly affect upon different aspects in relation to the organizational values of REI. The aspects comprise maintaining the quality of the products, promoting excellent service to the customers, valuing diversity in the place of work and delivering respect towards the opinions as well as the ideas of every individuals belonging to REI. Moreover, the challenges which are faced by the organization can also restrict REI to protect its workforce from any kind of harassments made by any member of the workforce or the customers (Recreational Equipment Inc., 2012). Thus, on the basis of the above discussion, it can be stated that the challenges which faced by the organization requires to be addressed in light of the REI’s mission, values and culture. Recommendations In order to sustain organizational effectiveness, REI needs to make certain significant changes as well as to improve its different operational procedures. According to Kotter (1996), change in the operational procedures of different business organizations has grown significantly during the last two decades. The organizations require making changes in their operational procedures for the purpose of lessening their operational expenditures, enhancing the standard of their different products, growing new business opportunities and most importantly increasing productivity (Kotter, 1996). In this similar context, REI should desire to make certain major changes or improve its operational functions in order to accomplish the aforementioned results. For the motive of sustaining organizational effectiveness, REI needs to improve the quality of its products by delivering trustworthy goods as well as services to the customers. The employees belonging to the organization should aim to work collaboratively in order to test the different products of REI which can live up to the commitment of REI to produce quality outdoor equipments as well as inclusive customer services (Kotter, 1996). Furthermore, in order to improve the quality of REI products for the purpose of sustaining organizational effectiveness, the corporation would have to invest substantially in establishing as well as developing training programs for its entire workforce. Moreover, apart from establishing comprehensive training programs, the corporation needs to employ innovative as well as improved technologies for manufacturing of its several valuable products. In addition, the corporation should incessantly develop its operational excellence based instruments as well as techniques along with effectively designing its business procedure in order to enlarge the standard of its products (Kotter, 1996). With the help of these significant aspects, REI can sustain its organizational effectiveness by a considerable level. The other specific recommendation on behalf of REI for making changes or process improvement in order to sustain organizational effectiveness can be the need to perform effective leadership role by the business leaders of the corporation. According to Northouse (2009), the notion of leadership is fundamentally described to be an influential procedure which assists every member or individual belonging to any organization to attain assigned goals. As stated by Northouse (2009), sustaining organizational effectiveness emphasizes upon the business activities and the results of an organization. The key business activities are mainly performed by the business leaders of any organization. The business leaders possess a comprehensive understanding about the marketplace in which their organizations must compete to attain better outcomes. Moreover, the business leaders introduce, develop and implement effective business strategies in alignment with the requirements of the marketplace as well as the customers. In addition, the business leaders of any organization make effective decisions for the purpose of sustaining their organizational effectiveness. The various significant leadership roles played by the business leaders in different organizations include generating broader customer focus, composing strategic plans, managing the human resources, measuring organizational success and most importantly properly implementing valuable operational techniques or procedures (Northouse, n.d.). For the purpose of change or process improvement to sustain organizational effectiveness, the business leaders of REI should create an organization-wide based approach which tends to enhance the overall procedure of delivering standard products to the customers and facilitate the organization to surpass the anticipations of the customers by a considerable level. Moreover, the business leaders of REI should also remain quite consumer focused in order to comply with their requirements by collaboratively working with the teams. By emphasizing upon the aforementioned recommended business practices, REI can improve its profitability, raise the retention of the customers, augment market share, decrease customer complaints and most significantly sustain organizational effectiveness by a considerable level (Northouse, n.d.). Conclusion After acquiring a brief idea about the importance of organizational effectiveness, it can be stated that the effectiveness of an organization broadly impacts upon the productivity as well as the profitability of the business organizations. In relation to the case of REI, it has been viewed that the corporation faced major difficulties while performing its operational functions. These particular challenges need to be addressed in order to sustain organizational effectiveness. In order to sustain organizational effectiveness, REI needs to deliver trustworthy products to its valuable customers. Moreover, the business leaders of REI would have to generate an organization-wide based approach which might support the corporation to improve its operational procedure of delivering quality products to its valuable customers. These business practices would help REI to increase its productivity, market share and most importantly to sustain organizational effectiveness by a significant level. References Burns, J. M. (2012). Leadership. New York: Open Road Media. Covario. (2012). Case study: REI. Retrieved from http://www.netconcepts.com/rei-case-study/ Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Massachusetts: Harvard Business Press. Northouse, P. G. (2009). Leadership: theory and practice. New York: SAGE. Recreational Equipment Inc. (2012). About REI. Retrieved from http://www.rei.com/about-rei.html Read More