Scientific Management and Dynamism

Question: Discuss about theScientific Management and Dynamism. Answer: Introduction The assignment is based on two videos, one based on a story of the story from Ford Motor Company and the second based on an oration by Yves Morieux, the Senior Partner and Managing Director. The first video was about the difference between the modus operandi at Vulcan Motors in the United Kingdom and the Ford Motor Company in the United States. Morieux in the second video speaks about use of strategies to satisfy the structures of the companies. The managing director further states how a inflexible hierarchy makes decision making tough and looses out on business opportunities. The two sections are divided into two parts, the first is the summary while the second is the application of the theory through questions. Elearning Activities: Fordism and Taylorism The video Ford and Taylor scientific management states with an introduction of Vulcan Motor Company Limited in Britain. The labourers in the company manufactured cares using slow and backdated processes which took weeks to build one car. The cars were very expensive and could only be afforded by the rich. Hence, the slow management of automobile manufacturing created expensive cars which acted as symbols of economic boundaries in the erstwhile British society (Vulcanmotors.boschauto.co.uk 2017). Henry Ford, the owner and founder of the Ford Motor Company situated in the states introduced scientific management after the theory of Fredrick Taylor. Ford, after his belief in integrating the assembly plants to manufacture cars, introduced assembly line manufacturing process (Ford Corporate 2017). He strongly avoided intervention and interference of trade unions. The scientific management of production gradually increased the efficiencies of the employees. Henry Ford motivated his employee s by paying them good salaries which resulted in low employee turnover and smooth production. Henry Fords manufacturing process became so successful that it spread into European countries like Germany and became basis of systems like Diversified Quality Production or DQP. The adoption of Taylorism by Ford in his factory and its revolutionary impact on the automobile industry was reiterated by David Moore, a worker at Ford Foundry (Sorge and Streeck 2016). The labourers in America, Europe and Australia should accept and adopt the method of scientific management in their operations. Today every organisation is under challenge from other companies to produce goods and services at affordable prices. There are thousands of small and middle level companies in these three continents who follow long production processes which add to the costs of their goods. These companies should adopt Taylorism and Fordism to make their production processes more scientific and faster. This will lower the cost of production which will allow these companies to offer products at lower prices to gain competitive advantage (Archibugi 2017). Taylorsim finds application in the call centres all round the globe. The scripts are the hard copies of the electronic systems of questions based on the needs of the customers. The tele callers use the telephone or computer lines to speak to the consumers, thus, the process is controlled in sequential and scientific manner. Thus, Taylorism find use in the call centred where the calls are distributed to the callers and controlled automatically. The story of Taylorism appears to be very old and does not seem to be in use today. This may be true for multinational organisations that have their own business models to drive their business. There are several small and medium sector companies which need to revolutionise their production processes in order to sustain in the market and lower their production cost. Such small companies can adopt Taylors scientific management to modernise their production process and lower their production costs. This will help them to lower their costs and sell their products to more number of consumers and sustain in the market. Structure and Strategy Yves Morieux in the video Organization Design: BCG's Yves Morieux on organization and competitive advantage tells that organisation has become the centre of competitive advantage and strategies have the expression of the behaviour of the workforce. He says that a dynamic and growing organisation makes strategies according to the organisational structure and tries to increase the intelligence and competencies of its people. An organisation in trouble tries to suit the organisation according to its strategies. Morieux also points out that this inability to suit strategies to organisational structure is created due to complex and confusing layers of bureaucracy. He points out that bureaucracy was created to give equitable importance to the various to the various positions. The orator then goes on to say that the quick market movements require the organisations to make quick decisions to take advantage of them. A tall and complex decision making mechanism makes decision making extremely complex and stringent which leads organisations into trouble. The organisations and their people follow this complex bureaucratic format to take decisions because they think it necessary to have it to arrive a appropriate decisions. The challenge faced by organisations, according to the speaker is to apply and execute a correct decision after conceiving it. He signs off by saying that strategies are activities which organisations make today to live and sustain in the future (Belleflamme and Peitz 2015). Morieux in his speech says that structure follows strategy which is applicable only for strong and dynamic organisations and not for weak organisations lost in the vicious circle of bureaucracy. Yves Morieux, the Senior Partner and Managing Director, BCG tells that in dynamic organisations the strategies are moulded into the structure of the organisation (bcg.com 2017). He says that strong and powerful organisations make strategies according to their structures and business needs. For example, multinational companies make strategies befitting their international positions to take advantage of the market opportunities. These organisations are never caught in the bureaucracy and are in fact working towards making their decision making mechanism simpler and faster. Organisations who are caught in the maze of authorities and positions take a long time to take decisions and hence fail to capitalise on market opportunities. He says that strategies are succeeded and absorbed by the structur e of the organisation but the reverse happens for weak organisations. Their structures are forced to adjust to their strategies and their stringent decision making cycle. These organisations do not make strategies according to the market and hence fail to capitalise on it. Their models are not fit for the future and they tend to drift towards the end of their lifecycle. The dynamic organisations as opposed to these less dynamic ones, make strategies to suit their dynamic structure to capitalise on the present scopes and sustain in the future (Grant 2016). Conclusion: Fordism and Taylorism brought about revolution in the automobile manufacturing in the Ford Motor Company which later spread to the entire world. He showed that scientific management of production process can reduce cost of production, increase productivity and empower human resources. The second video showed that strategies adopted according to the structures of the organisations are keys to their success. Morieaux again showed that the power and dynamism of the apex human resource (management) is crucial for the success of the companies. Thus, it can be summarised from the two videos that success of companies are dependent heavily on the competencies and decision making power of the human resources, be it top executives or subordinates. References: Archibugi, D., 2017. Blade Runner economics: Will innovation lead the economic recovery?.Research Policy,46(3), pp.535-543. Ford Corporate. 2017. Home. [online] Available at: https://corporate.ford.com/homepage.html [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017]. Grant, R.M., 2016.Contemporary strategy analysis: Text and cases edition. John Wiley Sons. https://www.bcg.com. 2017. Yves Morieux. [online] Available at: https://www.bcg.com/people/experts/yves-morieux.aspx [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017]. Sorge, A. and Streeck, W., 2016.Diversified quality production revisited the transformation of production systems and regulatory regimes in Germany(No. 16/13). MPIfG Discussion Paper. Vulcanmotors.boschauto.co.uk. 2017. WELCOME - Vulcan Motors. [online] Available at: https://vulcanmotors.boschauto.co.uk/ [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017]. YouTube. 2017. Ford and Taylor Scientific Management (Edited). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PdmNbqtDdI [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017]. YouTube. 2017. Organization Design: BCG's Yves Morieux on organization and competitive advantage. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm7d1dzOKmw [Accessed 28 Apr. 2017].