Strategic Analysis of Harley-Davidson - Case Study Example

Strategic Analysis Introduction An organisation is a blend of prevailing culture, values, design and behaviour of personnel. Organisational culture is an important element to form a strong leadership among managerial personnel. Notably, organisations have been involved in forming their own culture for developing a unique image among business field. In precise, organisational culture refers to the principles, beliefs and values that an individual maintain to ensure professional success. Contextually, organisational culture tends to establish unity, loyalty, direction, identity for its employees and workplace. In the modern scenario, to maintain sustainability in the global market, every organisation tends to form a basic company objective, vision as well as mission. Organisational culture has certainly created the need of following certain principles for attaining predetermined targets. These principles often help the employees to reap varied significant benefits like improved level of operational performance of the personnel. By taking into concern the present business market conditions, it can be affirmed that two vital factors including organisational culture and leadership are deemed to be quite important for any company that can assist in fulfilling desired objectives. A correct form of organisational culture and varied leadership practices may contribute in securing the future of the companies by a considerable extent (Wilson, 2005). Organizational Cultural Evaluation of Harley-Davidson Harley-Davidson (H-D) is a renowned American based business corporation, which deals with manufacturing motorcycles. It is regarded as one the oldest brands as a motorcycle manufacturer. It can be apparently observed that the company has strived to maintain organisational culture for fulfilling its desired targets. One of the main objectives of H-D is identified to offer quality products at a promised value. From the preceding few years, the company focused on changing its product design to gain more customer attention. In its long journey, H-D faced numerous difficulties in terms of finance. This can be justified with reference to the fact that the company experienced tremendous fall in market share due to the reason of having certain problems with one of its Japanese manufacturer. By taking into concern the trend of organizational culture prevailing within H-D, it can be ascertained that the company has produced new models with the increased level of improved operational performance of its employees. In the year 2003, H-D faced the challenge of severe decline in product demand, due to which, its share price also fallen in an extensive manner. Thus, in order to cope up this situation, the motor company withdrew profit from its employee stock options. Besides, in the year 2007, H-D also faced the issues relating to the collapse of production department because of strikes held by the personnel attached with the company. The prime reason for the strike can be ascertained as the refusal of H-D towards paying wages and health benefits to its contractual labours. This kind of unprofessional behaviour by the company certainly developed a negative attitude amid the bottom level employees (Rogel, 2014). In an organisation, the formation of an appropriate culture is necessary, which has the capacity to improve the motivation level of the top to bottom level employees. In this regard, to achieve the business goals, the managerial team needs to become more organised. To form an effective culture within an organisation, certain cultural attributes including respect/fairness, change/adaptability, result orientation, teamwork, employee engagement, learning opportunities, proper communication, Team Work and decision making need to be taken into concern. Contextually, it can be found that the current organisational culture prevailing within H-D is not catering to all the aforesaid cultural attributes (Rogel, 2014). By taking into concern the above stated problems faced by H-D, it can be asserted that the team members of the company must maintain fairness in implementing varied organisational policies, which will certainly develop faith amid the bottom level employees. The managerial team should also implement change and promote employee engagement related programs for building effective communication amid top-bottom level employees. It can be seen in this similar concern that the top-level management of H-D Harley-Davidson does not involve its middle and bottom level employees in its decision-making procedure or while conducting other organisational activities. In this regard, the managerial team of H-D need to redesign its organisational culture in such a way, which will cater all the above discussed cultural attributes. By catering such cultural attributes, a greater level of trust needs to be formed within top to bottom level employees by strengthening the communication procedure. It is projected that with the help of promoting employee engagement programs and adaptability, a positive working environment can be formed within H-D. For any organisation, gaining higher productivity is an ultimate stage, which can help the organisations to achieve their respective goals. Thus, if I were the part of the management team at H-D, I would have implement change management strategies, forming along with developing proper communication within every organisational member and engaging employees in decision-making procedure as the motivational techniques for making the team of the company successful(Philips, 2014). Organizational Design for Harley-Davidson In order to attain predetermined goals and strengthen the sustainability factor of H-D, it can be affirmed that the managerial team of the company need to adopt a change process. With the help of change process, the managerial team can improve the productivity level of each of the operational department. For better improvement in the organisational structure, the managerial team can adopt team-oriented process in various departments rather than following traditional or functional structure. As per the researches conducted, team-oriented approach is a framework, wherein employees of various departments work together. Team-oriented approach has generated greater opportunities amid the employees, which aided in attaining set goals more adequately. Presently, H-D need effective business plan to tackle with varied challenges that face by the company while operating in the motorcycle industry. Moreover, the stated approach has become increasingly prominent in workplace (Jenkinson & Sain, n.d). It is worth mentioning that team-oriented organisational structure improves productivity and most vitally minimizes intra- team as well as inter-team conflicts among the organisations. In recent times, due to intra and inter- team conflicts, H-D is experiencing decreased level of productivity. Team-oriented structure generates a positive atmosphere within top-bottom level employees. It can be apparently observed that most of the workforce of H-D’s production department is hired on contractual basis. Specially mentioning, for enhancing the productivity level of the production department, initially, the managerial authority of H-D need to arrange a discussion with contract labours and set a permanent wage limit for them. With the help of team-oriented structure, the company can get best solution to reduce problems persisting between workforce and management. With the help of employee engagement in production, the company can attain its predetermined objectives. Minimum inter and intra-team conflicts might generate a positive environment in the workplace, making the employees to work more efficiently (Bauschard, n.d.). To improve the production quality, the company i.e. H-D may use team-oriented structure by a considerable extent. Hence, the managerial team of the company need to be more focus about determining appropriate employee wages and benefits of contractual labours. Management must make plan in structuring wages such a way so that the employees can obtain maximum benefits timely and make organisational culture and policies more transparent for future development (Bauschard, n.d.). Leadership Traits In corporate sector, several business leaders are found to be competent but few of them qualify as remarkable. According to varied management concepts, the aspects entailing awareness, decisiveness, empathy, confidence, accountability, optimistic, honesty, focus and inspiration are regarded as the most common leadership traits. To motivate the workforce of H-D, the managerial team of the company need to follow the above stated leadership traits. Moreover, the managerial team of the company need to remain much aware and confident about the performance of work force. It is worth mentioning that without leadership traits, managerial leaders cannot motivate its employees to perform better in corporate industry. Every leadership trait develops a quality among individuals. Thus, the managerial team of H-D must adapt to such leadership traits for motivating its employees and likewise achieve future goals (Economy, 2014). Ethical Organization Characteristics In an organisation, there exist certain ethical characterises that make it more improved and strong. These facets can be ascertained as leadership, values, respect, loyalty, concern and integrity. Contextually, it is often reckoned that leadership is the main pillar of every business. Without strong leadership, a corporate organisation cannot stand in the market. Similarly, an ethical business has a core value statement that describes its mission. Without a core value statement, a company’s objective cannot be structured. Therefore, an ethical business demonstrates respect for its employees by treating each employee equally. An ethical business has concern for anything which influenced by the business. These concerns include customers, employees and vendors. Moreover, every business decision is based on the effects on any one of these groups of people or surrounding. Integrity also frames as one of the vital elements i of an ethical business. This ethical characteristic develop a fair dealing with its customers and employees such as ensuring competitive pricing and highest quality standards (Cummings & Worley 2009). In this similar context, H-D followed the ethical facets of leadership, values and integrity for creating a positive image in the corporate world. On the other side, the company does not comply with the ethical considerations of respect, loyalty and concern for its employees as well as vendors (Chawla & Renesch, 2006). Learning Organization Characteristics There are four main learning characteristics present in the context of organisational culture. These comprise ‘information is shared as well as accessible’, ‘learning is emphasised by values’, ‘mistakes or failures are not punished’ and ‘people are expected to learn constantly.’ With the help of these learning characteristics, organisations can develop a strong culture between employee and managerial team of a company (Bauschard, n.d.). The managerial team of H-D is identified to pay utmost focus on valued learning process. Top- bottom level employees of the company constantly learn new business concepts from such process. According to the modern business trend, the company has developed new models to attain more customers of different age group. On the other side, the managerial team did not taken into concern sharing valued information with its employees and vendors (America City Buisness Journals, 2014). Conclusion From the above analysis and discussion, it can be ascertained that with proper formation of an effective organisational culture, the companies like H-D can attain their predetermined targets at large. Moreover, proper leadership traits may help the company to achieve future gaols and motivate its employees for better performance. Ethical organisational characteristics are another key to strengthen relationship with the vendors. Justifiably, every ethical characteristic make the organisation as well as the employees more improved and effective for future performance. As a successful motorcycle-manufacturing brand, H-D did not follow its objectives properly. For this particular reason, the company faced industrial dispute with its workforce. In current scenario, H-D needs to employ more productive employee to achieve its goals. To improve the productivity level of the employees, the managerial team needs to implement team-oriented structure for reducing inter and intra tem conflicts. With the help of team-oriented structure, the managerial team of the company can improve workplace culture and environment. Positive environment helps to improve productivity and remove inter-intra team conflicts among bottom-level employees. Thus, in conclusion, it can be affirmed that H-D can implement a change process for improving communication amid the top and bottom level employees. References America City Buisness Journals. (2014). Leaders take team-oriented approach to success. Retrieved from http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/stories/2008/06/02/focus13.html?page=all Bauschard, S. (n.d.). Building a team-oriented approach to success. Rostrumlib, pp. 1-3. Chawla, S., & Renesch, J. (2006). Learning organizations: developing cultures for tomorrows workplace. New York: Productivity Press. Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2009). Organization development and change. USA: Cengage Learning. Economy, P. (2014). The 9 traits that define great leadership. Retrieved from: http://www.inc.com/peter-economy/the-9-traits-that-define-great-leadership.html Jenkinson, A., & Sain, B. (n.d.). Harley Davidson organisation-led integrated marketing. The Sparkles Series, 1-9. Philips, C. (2014). Six characteristics of an ethical business. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/six-characteristics-ethical-business-22401.html Rogel, C. (2014). The 12 attributes of a strong organizational culture. Retrieved from http://www.tlnt.com/2014/03/18/the-12-attributes-of-a-strong-organizational-culture/ Wilson, J. P. (2005). Human resource development: learning & training for individuals & organizations. USA: kogan page publishers. Read More