ACME industry
ACME industry is the leading manufacturer of explosives established in 1949 by Friz Freleng. It sells q range of products from spring-loaded sandals to super blaster canons. In 2014 and 2015, ACME carried out some organizational restructuring and replaced its CEO, Mr. Yusuf, after fifty years. In those 50 years, ACME has remained financially sound; however, in the last ten years, many legal and ethical problems have arisen concerning Mr. Sam’s unorthodox management style. ACME has also faced lawsuits concerning lead contamination in residential areas. In 2014 Mr. Sam was successfully terminated after being proven guilty of two employee deaths in a suspicious warehouse fire in Louisiana. In November 2014, Mr. Duck, who had been ACME’s salesman for five years and very young compared to other employees, was appointed CEO by the board of directors. He aspires to take ACME to a whole new level. The implementation of new regulations and policies and a massive change in management style has been quite difficult for ACME’S employees, a few of whom have left ACME.
Among the changes, Mr. Duck has removed lead from the birdseed recipe and overhauled marketing strategies to attract new clients.
Over the years of its success, ACME has been a traditionally structured organization that worried less about competition or collaborating with other companies. They never considered collaboration because of their small clientele and unique products; thus, they are considered a monopoly as they are the only sellers selling unique products. They, therefore, have faced zero competition and have enjoyed setting the price for their goods. However, the business world has changed over time, but ACME has failed to keep up with the changing business patterns, thus find it very difficult today doing so. ACME has only managed to survive through creative accounting, which they were prosecuted for in 2012. Competition has arisen from overseas, making Mr. Duck realize that he ought to establish significant changes.
Moore’s (1993) organization ecosystem theory states that companies in the modern world cannot survive alone but must collaborate to survive. In his view, he says that companies may collaborate with other organizations that may include suppliers, lead producers, competitors and stakeholders. Within time these organizations manage themselves according to directions set by the leading organization. Moore (1996) also adds that these top companies may change; however, their function in the ecosystem remains unchanged and is of value to the community. It enables members to move towards shared visions. Since ACME has no business ecosystem, ACME needs to get into an ecosystem and develop a vision and strategic objectives regarding ACME’S goals and its role in the ecosystem. ACME also needs to redesign its mission and strategy, which serve as a series of actions supporting strategic objectives. Iansiti and Leven (2005) outline the ecosystem structure as a business ecosystem consisting of keystones, dominators, hub landlords and niche players. Therefore, to implement change, Mr. Duck and board members must craft a business ecosystem that comprises these key members. In that sense, keystones will foster the overall condition for ACME’S business ecosystem. Their survival will rely on the sustainability of other organizations in the ecosystem. Keystones are crucial for the ecosystem’s survival, and their loss would have adverse effects on the whole ecosystem. Keystones will be responsible for designing what the ACME’S ecosystem does.
Dominators will be a vital part of the ecosystem and are always prominent in size. Hub landlords usually add little or no value to the ecosystem but gain a lot of value from the ecosystem, although not directly controlling it, thus leaving an unstable ecosystem around it. Niche players will be crucial in shaping the ACME’S business ecosystem.
Furthermore, to create a sound business ecosystem, Mr. Duck should evaluate the necessity to create value within ACME’s ecosystem to attract and retain clients and establish growth potential for the ecosystem. To form a collaboration with other companies, Mr. Duck should either analyze the pre-existing traditional form of the ecosystem or create a new business ecosystem entirely. Mr duck can do this by proposing value creation and other ideas for the ecosystem. Once he comes up with the vision, the opportunity and structure of the ecosystem’s ecosystem strategy can be easily outlined by understanding other organizations and their roles.
Mr. Duck should also develop new regulations to apply to the newly established ecosystem and identify new markets to get the ecosystem functioning.
Mr. Duck has been observing that Open Systems Model may save ACME from drowning. The open system mod classifies organizations as living things with their own set of goals and objectives. Their structures and systems arrive at a state of equality in terms of their internal environment and outside forces of the organization.
David Hanna( 199..) states that all corporates are perfectly organized to achieve their goals by deducing ways of balancing company operations to achieve specific results. Mr. Duck must begin by observing specific ACME elements such as the strategic view, execution and the organizational climate. The strategic view will help in defining ACME’s long-term goals. Execution comprises of specific features ACME needs to execute to achieve their goals. The organizational climate is the experience of what it feels like working at ACME day to day and their underlying cultural norms. The reason as to why the open systems model may work for ACME is because it will help address particular difficulties faced by ACME, improve business processes and ACME’s work ethics and will also assist ACME to achieve the results it desires.
As Mr. Duck works on implementing the open system model, there are other vital elements he will need to observe, such as organization boundary, external environment, purpose/ needs, business results, context, inputs and outputs, transformations and the organizational climate in ACME.
Concerning organizational boundaries, Mr. Duck will have to review ACME’s administrative boundaries, e.g., physical, language, psychological and cultural values. In forming boundaries, Mr. Duck will have to ensure that these organizational boundaries are permeable for ACME’s survival in the external environment. Mr. Duck must also ensure that the boundaries created do not have too little permeability to prevent ACME from getting cut off from needed resources for its survival and continuous development.
Also, to implement the open systems model. Mr. Duck will also have to assess ACME’s external environment and also establish essential tension between the strongholds and weaknesses of ACME’s organizational structure, systems and culture and the forces and pressures and forces from the external environment affecting Mr. Duck will also have to review the purpose-need of ACME as it ought to connect the vision and purpose of ACME to concrete needs within the external environment. By meeting these needs, ACME will have achieved its central purpose. A strategic view, in this case, functions like and agreement between the external environment and ACME. By completing the goals stipulated in the strategy, ACME’s survival will be guaranteed.
Mr. Duck should also evaluate ACME’s financial and non-financial results, also referred to as Tactical feedback. ACME also needs strategic feedback to assess the degree at which ACME observes the purpose realities and clientele needs in the external environment.
ACME should also evaluate their inputs, which refers to data on industry trends and capital, human and material resources from the external environment to survive and accomplish sustainability.
ACME must also assess the transformation process of inputs to outputs. They may need to keenly study their manufacturing process, suppliers and make changes where necessary for ACME’s growth. They also need to ensure their products are of standard quality to attract more customers, even from overseas. Mr. Duck and his team must also assess ACME’s organizational climate in terms of ACME’s employees, trust in ACME’s management, and readiness for change, mainly if employees will be ready to embrace change again.
Mr. Duck may also need to observe conflicts and pressure within ACME’s environment. He may also need to observe the sense of creativity and innovation in the company and may need to adopt a no-blame mentality and a fair process.
By incorporating the open systems model, Mr. Duck and his team will be in a position to identify outcomes that ACME is not achieving, which it ought to be accomplishing. The open systems model will also Mr. Duck and fellow board members, and other stakeholders do away with ACME’s organizational structure and culture that may jeopardize the desired outcomes. They will be in an excellent position to identify major causes of patterns of inefficiencies in the company’s culture and also redesign ACME’s structure and culture to achieve different outcomes, predict possible outcomes and assess ACME’s reality of organizational and cultural change according to key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate if positive change is occurring or not.
However, ACME also needs to collaborate with other companies as it can barely survive in the modern market. Among companies it can collaborate with include: safety regulators such as Mine safety regulators to ensure safety around the manufacturing and production of durable machines and other commodities, e.g. mirrors, sandals, birdseed recipe and visual aids. Another company they may collaborate with includes OEM machine builders to produce highly durable equipment and products.
However, ACME may need the most help in identifying the right product suppliers to ensure the production of high standard commodities to dominate the market. They may also need to outsource manufacturing services from other manufacturing firms, like, e.g. OEM manufacturers, as stated previously.
Moore (1993) states that for a business ecosystem to grow, it has to go through four stages, namely: birth, expand soon, leadership and self-renewal or death. At the birth stage, ACME should focus on what customers have grown to like today and the best methods to meet those demands. At the expansion stage, business ecosystems grow to conquer new business environments. At the leadership stage, the company develops a bargaining ability that arises from possessing something the ecosystem lacks. Self-renewal or death is currently the stage ACME is at due to threats from newly growing ecosystems and organizations.
Moore (1988) states that the most fundamental change corporate leaders can make today is changing from thinking of their businesses as hierarchical organizations to viewing themselves as members of s complex evolving system by taking advantage of the intelligence of surrounding members and working hand in hand them to create innovations. Moore’s theory of the business ecosystem is more concerned with organizations shaping their futures than sticking to the past organization’s environment.