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Task1C200KarmilliaEubanks.docxRunning head: C200 Task 1 1
Task 1 C200 12
Managing Organizations & Leading People
Task 1
Karmillia Eubanks
Western Governors University
Mr. Price: SWOT Analysis
Introduction
Mr. Price, also identified as MRP, is a retail company with its headquarters in South Africa, renowned for its focus on value and quality. The Mr. Price group sells apparel, as well as sportswear and home ware through owned and franchised stores spread across 14 countries, mostly in Africa. It also renders services to global customers through its online stores. Founded in 1985, Mr. Price has transacted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange Limited since the year 1952. The brand initially had the names John Orrs and Hub, with the names changing several times since 1985. The first operational Mr. Price stores opened in 1987 after the present owners purchased a controlling interest in John Orr, the predecessor of Mr. Price group. The Mr. Price Group specializes in fashion, retail, and clothing. The Group has a foresight of becoming a top functioning international retailer. Their objective is to provide increased value to the lives of their consumers and worth to the lives of their Partners, while tending to the community and environment at large.
Leadership Practices
For a business such as Mr. Price to thrive, the primary leader has to employ certain leadership practices. The current primary leader, a Harvard University graduate with a degree in business management, is a well-rounded leader with razor-sharp wits and a heart of service. In that line, there are three leadership practices displayed by the current leader. One leadership practice is searching for new talent sources. The current leader always searches for talents through studying competitors, peer networking, and working with top university contacts. The second practice is the willingness and ability to hire on the spot. With the insight to recognize exceptional talent, the current primary leader of Mr. Price goes ahead to hire such people without extensive interviews and resumes. Thirdly, the current primary leader understands the cohort effect, focusing on the importance of peer relationship building. Team building and good connections are keys to a successful firm.
Mr. Price has had underlying beliefs, values, assumptions, and modes of interacting that add to its unique psychological and social environment. With the current leadership in place, coupled with leadership practices, many leaders have intensified while others have diminished over time. For instance, employees have previously expressed themselves in uncouth ways in the name of competition and the hunger for recognition, but now the current leadership has created a conducive environment for competition by encouraging the effort of every employee and awarding those who thrive. The value system of Mr. Price has undergone changes, from an overemphasis on product quality to a keen consideration of customer satisfaction, from the need of modern trends to tending to the customer’s needs, preferences, and an overall shift from a product-driven firm to a service-driven firm. There was a change in the organization's habits. Earlier Mr. Price had a tough cookie persona, making the workplace a non-conducive area for rapport, but after the current leadership focused on creating a friendly working environment to foster development, the workflow in the firm improved because if the improved relationships.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Over short work experience in Mr. Price, the firm exuded strengths in the area of communication. For instance, at the beginning of every year, departmental leaders gathered their departmental staff into small groups and relayed their monthly and yearly targets, expectations, and the available communication channels. Since inter-employee conflict is unavoidable, Mr. Price set up a conflict resolution program with a trained psychologist handling all issues thus fostering good employee’s inter-personal conflict. With a good intranet connection and functioning employee’s chat rooms, departmental leaders monitor the conversation between employees to gauge their progress, underlying issues, ideas, concerns, priorities and expectations. A fashion-based firm needs top-notch technology to enhance its progress. Mr. Price does not lag behind in technology, with the clothing enterprise investing millions in technology related to, monitoring sales, security, staff comfort, data handling and customer satisfaction assessment. The technology present in Mr. Price from an automated massage seat for employees to a shoe-sorting machine for the sales department, the technology present is unparalleled.
In matters ethics, the leadership in Mr. Price encourages that the upholding of the highest form of ethical conduct. Good ethical conduct requires a proper ethical system, given the prevailing issues at South Africa in matters racial inclusivity, Mr. Price formed a value system with regards to the value of all colors and the need to embrace diversity. With South Africa being a rainbow nation encompassing many races, Mr. Price had a mirror to reflect on the need for forming lasting solutions rather than fight, the leadership coined that the organization should not fight against each other by for each other and by each other. On the verge of expansion, Mr. Price employed tactics to reach an untapped global market such as entering the e-commerce landscape. Globalization is key for any firm exploiting its global potential, with that said, Mr. Price has done well in opening branches all over Africa and in the 5-year strategic plan, and they resolved to have branches all over the world.
Weaknesses
Having a large firm to run has its hurdles, with both shortcomings and hurdles. One weakness visible in Mr. Price is vertical communication between the junior staff and the senior staff. Despite the conflict resolution desk and various communication channels present, Mr. Price lacks in bridging the gap of a healthy communication between the senior and junior staff. For instance, a junior staff noticed a loophole in service provision and after unsuccessfully trying to relay the message to his senior staff, he quit working for Mr. Price and went ahead to work for a rival company and that caused stiff competition. Technology is a requirement of any firm any lacking of it will be costly to a firm. When it came to tagging shoes, Mr. Price used an ink based tagging machine whose letters faded over time, instead, Mr. Price should invest in a laser-based tagger which is precise, long-lasting and classic at the long run.
Gender diversity is a contentious issue that is a thorn in the flesh of Mr. Price. The number of female staff in Mr. Price is twice less than that of men and including that the senior staff have few women included. Women bring life into an organization, an edge of freshness, emotional intelligence and creativity. The leadership has missed smooth progress by not including the feminine gender in its team, and if not enough, women comprise of the largest population around the globe and without the input of women to reach out to other women, Mr. Price will have an untapped market that could be profitable if considered. E-commerce is a profitable venture but Mr. Price lacks in the aspect of opening stores all over the world gave that their products are widely accepted all over the globe. As the global market is opening up, Mr. Price seems to lag behind in setting up shop in various countries, despite the fact that investors pour in to get a chunk of the worldwide profits.
Opportunities
Over the years, there is an influx of the khanga, an East African fabric into the South African market. With that, Mr. Price has an opportunity for globalizing the khanga wears, both shoes and clothes to the vast untapped market in the world. With the need for uniqueness and an edge of class, khanga wears are the next big things and will take over the global fashion market due to its appeal to both men and women, young and old, rich or poor. With the advertisement taxes and charges relaxed in the African trade regional block, Mr. Price needs to capitalize on the excellent opportunity of relaying their products all over the continent. From billboards to running adverts, this fertile landscape carries the potential to catapult Mr. Price to its helm of success. The blossoming khanga wear market and the ease of advertisement forms a foundation of a successful fashion based business.
The technological evolution birthed the greatest innovations ever since the industrial revolution. One of the technological innovations of the century is the shoe charging system. A shoe charging system enables a shoe owner to charge his or her phone anywhere anytime, offering the convenience, cost saving from electric bills and taking away the fear of having a low battery in a dire situation. When Mr. Price offers this cost-effective solution in their footwear especially to those who earn a low income and those who travel a lot will not only tend to the needs of the customers but also improve the self-image of the fashion wear firm. Considering the value system of Mr. Price, they should also involve more community outreach programs with the need to improve the well-being of the society. One of such activities would involve sponsoring youth football matches or offer free footwear’s to schoolchildren, this, in turn, would give Mr. Price the trust of the community and that will help foster their reputation.
Threats
The recent legislation on imposing high tariffs on imported fashion wear in the effort of supporting the local fashion industry affected the growing need for exquisite fashion wear. Mr. Price is one of the largest fashion houses that highly depends on imports from various fashion hubs such as Italy and the United States of America. With the high tariffs imposed on imports, it will be hard for Mr. Price to sustain the present need for foreign designs and brands since it is an uphill task to change the habitual needs and tastes of regular customers. With the outburst of over-reliance on technology, many employees suppress their creativity since technology does the hard tasks. Creativity is the driving force of any company and if the creative force is withdrawn, progress becomes impossible (Bains, 2015). Technology helps ease the daily tasks in a firm, but over-reliance on technology robs Mr. Price a chance to grow its well-equipped workforce.
Communication is key in the streamlining of the activities of a firm (Kohler, 2016). A trend erupted in Mr. Price where employees would openly talk about the shortcomings of their leaders and instead of offering solutions; they formed contempt towards the leadership and created an atmosphere of the workplace. Despite all the efforts to mend communication, both vertical and horizontal channels of communication, there lies a deep-rooted issue in regards to rendering respect to the senior leaders and junior employees keeping in a mind that a firm that fights against itself cannot stand the turbulent economic climate. Values help anchor an individual or a firm. Mr. Price established a good code of conduct but lacks in transparency especially in selling footwear. In the event of handling imports, some footwear’s tear while others wear their soles off, instead of discarding them, the leadership replace the soles with standard ones. It is unethical to sell the footwear’s at the same price as the original footwear, once the regulatory authorities get a tip-off, Mr. Price stands to lose millions of rand and losing their hard earned reputation.
Strengths of the Leader
Open Minded
Mr. Price has a Cross-Cultural Leader that opens up the avenues to comprehend and work with people from diverse cultures, this can aid in enhancing the knowledge of the leader at various dimensions. With the leader opening up, staff members working in different cultures can formulate effective ideas and strategies that might be present in their culture and if introduced can result in immense success in Cross-Cultural Leadership style of management (Henson, 2016). As an open Cross-Cultural Leader in Mr. Price, this helps to shake the leaders out from his comfort zones and predictable form of leadership. As an effective leader, he always adds to his learning curves and highly embraces many challenges that allow him to try to implement new strategies and better his planning skills. With openness as an advantage, the Mr. Price cross-cultural leader achieves unifying people from different cultures who perceive things so differently with different values and help address the causes of unexpected actions and behaviors.
Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution is a strength exuded by the current primary leader in Mr. Prize. The skill in conflict resolution involves his ability to analyze how differences influence the interaction between individuals and groups. We the understanding of how conflict can happen, the primary leader assesses the employees cultural conditioning that at some level will impacts their decisions and actions. With that awareness, leading a fashion firm need to assess how diversity comes into play in the workplace. When it comes to making more conscious and effective decisions, the ability of the primary leader helps to improve the ability to interact with people from diverse cultures. Over time, the primary leader's cross-cultural leadership maintains the newness in the workplace and everyday planning makes a diverse teamwork towards a common goal. In also keeping the team members of Mr. Price motivated and the leaders therein to deliver the best, this ability of conflict resolution from the primary leader comes in handy.
Communication
The primary leader in Mr. Price communicates more effectively. With that, he can easily begin to diagnose where and why communication may break down between the employees from different cultures. With effective communicate the primary leader understands how to set clear expectations (Meyer, 2016). Coming after the ability of communication, the primary leader easily confirms that employees truly comprehend what their responsibilities are, how to develop and implement specific business practices and tools. The primary leader's communication tools such as a Team Charter helps to set expectations within each team. Proper workplace code of conduct clearly communicated by the primary leader relays the expectations for all employees and the consequences of non-compliance. The cross-cultural leadership by the primary leader not only utilizes the leadership skills of the leader himself but also personal skills that are useful to create a bond with team members or reach out to them so that they share their ideas with the leadership fearlessly.
Weakness of the Leader
Integrating Cultures
The need for innovation and creativity brings out the best and the worst of leaders given that it takes much more than just putting people from different cultures together and expect them to work effectively (Gehrke, 2014). The ability to maintain integration of workers from different countries and cultures proved as a difficult task the Mr. Price primary leader. Despite the capacity to contain conflicts, there is an increased potential for conflict and misunderstanding, thus spending more time in conflict resolution than development. Since it is normal that people from other cultures do not know what to do in a multi-cultural setting, leading people from different cultures need specialized skills. Another strain that the primary leader faces is the need to adapt his communication and daily work processes to accommodate the different cultures in the workplace. In addition to the need of adjusting, the primary leader faces the task of spending some time and resources to gain the full benefit of diversity.
Insufficient Motivation
Cross-Cultural Leadership calls for constant motivation. The current primary leader in Mr. Price constantly ends up making some members of his team demotivated since employees do not feel they can relay their ideas with a leader who belongs to another culture or nationality. The lack of sufficient motivation in a setup of cultural diversity fails to boom especially if team members are not open about sharing their views and including the leader in their discussions. Another implication of lacking motivation in this leadership style is the failure to share opinions or views or sharing any additional information with the current primary leader fails in aiding the working of the company. Making strategies for the efficient management of workforce in cross-cultural scenarios becomes a challenge with a workforce with no motivation. The cross-cultural leadership in Mr. Prices lacks in taking the religious beliefs and sentiments of the employees into consideration while planning any marketing strategies
Lack of Bonding
Failure to building a bond with cross-cultural teams is a critical lacking in the current primary leader. Getting a cross-cultural communication with them cannot be very open in the initial stages at least. The primary leader struggled with the bond building exercises that need lots of communication between teams and leaders, in person as well with the aid of other channels that are time-consuming and might take the spotlight away from more crucial issues (Spears, 2012). To be highly effective in Cross-Cultural Leadership requires the primary leader to brush up the knowledge about different cultures that demands time to form the bonds. Cross-Cultural Leadership is a burdensome style of leadership for the primary leader where acceptance of employee from other nationalities is not that welcome since the wake of recent xenophobic attacks. The current primary leader developed his leadership skills in a workplace based on his own culture that hinders the bonding process required in cross-cultural leadership.
Cross-Cultural Practices
Gathering Sufficient Knowledge
A cross-cultural set up requires knowledge. A primary leader needs to grasp new knowledge about cultural differences and diversity to get an understanding of how culture develops (Den, 2016). Knowledge in a cross-cultural setting helps in comprehending how cultural differences influence people’s behavior and performance in the workplace. Cross-Cultural Leadership requires a primary leader to point out differences and address them by placing methods in place that aid people work to together effectively. Knowledge dictates that it is not about helping people from other cultures to adapt to the existing culture in Mr. Price but goes further to integrate the entire workplace both old and new. Since many people identify culture with different appearance, color, size, it goes deeper to differences in languages, food, religious practices, music and clothing. A cross-cultural leader needs to understand that these outward appearances can be misleading and have little importance compared to real cultural differences. The main differences comprise of different beliefs and values that drive the employee's behavior both consciously and unconsciously. Cross-Cultural Leadership demands the ability to identify, analyze and influence behaviors in a positive manner.
Self-Awareness
Second, in cross-cultural leadership, there is a need for self-awareness of various cultural conditioning that comprises of beliefs and values (Erbe, Normore, IGI Global, 2015). Every employee has cultural conditioning, but few are aware of it. Once a primary leader recognizes it, he can help the employees to realize who they are and help them to choose to act differently. Self-awareness is one way to leverage Cultural Diversity in an organization. Once the primary leader in The Mr. Price Group starts to develop Cross-Cultural leadership skills, he will position The Mr. Price Group fashion stores ahead of the curve. Self-awareness also positions a primary leader to successfully integrate skilled workers and serve diverse clients from different countries and cultures with ease. The Mr. Price Group will catapult into the arena of fashion bigwigs once it begins to help team leaders, managers, and executive management to construct cultural awareness and communication skills. Cross-Cultural Leadership when coupled with self-awareness will help in optimizing the exploitation of the leadership teams and mold their skills that prove crucial especially in a firm such as Mr. Price that finds it difficult to find skilled staff to fulfill the credentials of the company or the organization.
Conclusion
References
Bains, G. (2015). Cultural DNA: The psychology of globalization. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley.
Den, D. W. (2016). Global Mindset and Cross-Cultural Behavior: Improving Leadership Effectiveness. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Erbe, N., Normore, A. H., & IGI Global. (2015). Cross-cultural collaboration and leadership in modern organizations. Hershey, Pennsylvania (701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Hershey, Pa., 17033, USA) IGI Global.
Henson, R. (2016). Successful Global Leadership: Frameworks for Cross-Cultural Managers and Organizations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US
Kohler, R. (2016). Optimization of Leadership Style: New Approaches to Effective Multicultural Leadership in International Teams. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler.
Meyer, E. (2016). The culture map: Decoding how people think, lead, and get things done across cultures. New York Public Affairs.
Spears, U. (2012). Coaching leadership families: Using the leadership family model to coach, mentor and multiply healthy families. Xlibris Corporation, US.
