Smith Radiators Organizational Strategy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Smith Radiators Organizational Strategy - Essay Example Jeff Brown’s letter to Smith informs us that other suppliers could supply radiators at a lower price than Smith Radiators. On the other hand, even though the organization had built a reputation for manufacturing reliable radiators, one cannot categorically state that Smith Radiators pursued a differentiation strategy. We cannot detect a deliberate management drive towards product improvement or innovation over the 30 or so years that it has been in existence. Secondly, it is noted that Smith Radiators has to be prompted to make an adjustment to its organizational strategy due to the external pressure from Automobiles of America, Inc. (AAI) – the company’s largest customer. Smith Radiator’s implied management failure to articulate a viable organizational strategy and its implied adherence to the particular strategy-structure relationship even though it was no longer relevant to the change in environmental conditions over the 30 years that it has had a relat ionship with AAI are consistent with factors that cause firms to resort to reactor strategies (Miles and Snow 82). That which we can detect though is that Smith Radiators’ HR practices are geared towards direct, process-based control in which the focus is on efficiency and cost containment. This strategy would have been a perfect fit if the organization pursued a low cost strategy. However, since we cannot categorically state that the organization pursues such a strategy, we cannot conclude that its HR strategy is a fit. Smith Radiators worker’s skills are not particularly unique to the firm and thus cannot serve as a differentiating source of uniqueness. The organization therefore exploited the fact that it has generic key employees to negotiate the â€Å"no layoff, no strike† policy in exchange for job security but with low wages with the union. Smith Radiators’ HR strategy and practices have so far enabled it to survive in the competitive market as i t has been able to keep its costs low. The challenge now though is that to meet the new AAI’s supplier requirements, Smith Radiators has to re-think and reformulate its HR strategy to fit the new Just-in-Time (JIT) requirements.