Bisctuit Company Case Study
Case Study 301: Richard Murphy and the Biscuit Company by Kyle Ingram and Michel Jarrett
Q1) What are the main problems facing the organisation described in the case?
There used to be a time when companies were supposed to produce goods only, a time when there was no such a word as marketing, and a time when organisations had the certitude that their products would definitively sell out. One company that had these defaults was Biscuit & Co. Ltd., which turned from a well-known, traditional company, with strong family values and a paternalistic culture to a genuine fiasco of the 21st century (App.2).
Generally speaking the Biscuit & Co. concentrated on internal issues within the organisation, such as the operations division and only on manufacturing their products but left out all the environmental factors, new trends and drastic changes the new millennium brought with itself. This was due to the fact that the company was considered to have a traditional background, where staff became eventually the family. This unprofessional and more sentimental value based organisational structure led to the replacement of the managing director by no other than the son of the former director, who lacked knowledge and experience in the field. When Richard Murphy was allocated as the fresh and hip marketing director tension rose between employees. Murphy’s allocation took place in 2002, which meant that precious time, competitive and market intelligence (i.e. new trends, segments, challenges) were already missed out on. With no market awareness nor promotion the company was determined to fail.
Richard Murphy faced many challenges because the employees of Biscuit & Co never welcomed change. It was almost impossible for Murphy to bring innovation to the company, which was due to communication issues within the company and its internal politics. This induced a polarisation of all employees (New school vs. old school), which was not very surprising for such a traditional firm.
Q1) What are the main problems facing the organisation described in the case?
There used to be a time when companies were supposed to produce goods only, a time when there was no such a word as marketing, and a time when organisations had the certitude that their products would definitively sell out. One company that had these defaults was Biscuit & Co. Ltd., which turned from a well-known, traditional company, with strong family values and a paternalistic culture to a genuine fiasco of the 21st century (App.2).
Generally speaking the Biscuit & Co. concentrated on internal issues within the organisation, such as the operations division and only on manufacturing their products but left out all the environmental factors, new trends and drastic changes the new millennium brought with itself. This was due to the fact that the company was considered to have a traditional background, where staff became eventually the family. This unprofessional and more sentimental value based organisational structure led to the replacement of the managing director by no other than the son of the former director, who lacked knowledge and experience in the field. When Richard Murphy was allocated as the fresh and hip marketing director tension rose between employees. Murphy’s allocation took place in 2002, which meant that precious time, competitive and market intelligence (i.e. new trends, segments, challenges) were already missed out on. With no market awareness nor promotion the company was determined to fail.
Richard Murphy faced many challenges because the employees of Biscuit & Co never welcomed change. It was almost impossible for Murphy to bring innovation to the company, which was due to communication issues within the company and its internal politics. This induced a polarisation of all employees (New school vs. old school), which was not very surprising for such a traditional firm.