In the 1960s, the legacy of Mezzan Group began when Jassim Mohammad Ali AL Wazzan who was a young Kuwaiti entrepreneur, visualized an opportunity for investment. Al Wazan initiated the relationship with the foreign manufactures by the help of exclusive deals such as Pillsbury Flour, Claire Ghee, Crystal Hot Sauce, Baird’s Vinegar and many other commodities. Since, then these products have occupied a significant place in the kitchen of most the Middle East families and still aligned with the Al Wazzan family. Khazan, which is commonly known as a well –established Conserved Foodstuff Distributing Company among the producers of the Middle East. It is a producer and distributor of meat and poultry products especially in Kuwait (Mezzan.com 2018). It is a trusted brand of most of the Kuwaiti households and was founded in the year 1961. It is famous for providing naturally healthy and flavorful frozen and chilled products.
In the year 2015, the meat factory of Khazan, named as Sharjah, became a part of the “Mezzan Holding Group Company”. The Mezzan Holding is one of the biggest conglomerates across the countries of Middle East. Khazan is also known as the leading producers of the Gulf region in terms of Halal food production. The company possesses the reputation of maintaining the standards of their food even beyond the borders of Kuwait. The large customer base that the company has is built with integrity, quality and consistency. The use of only high –quality raw materials and spices along with catering to the needs of the customers, hygiene and quality assurance method have earned them this position (Mezzan.com 2018). I am the chief operations officer of Khazan and in this report the challenges the company is facing from an organizational perspective will be analyzed. I will further roughly map out the gaps of the company lastly run through the innovation process and experience regarding how it works first hand.
It is well-known that a healthy and strong organizational structure can enable a company to establish better communication, brilliant hierarchy and the ability to create company messages, vision and mission in a unified manner. On the other hand, lack of discipline in the organizational design can lead to loss of productivity and give rise to internal conflict. With the purpose of maintaining a robust framework for the company, organizations need the ability to recognize the issues within the design and deal with them properly as they occur (Santos, Pache and Birkholz 2015). In Khazan, recently I am experiencing that certain organizational design related issues are arising. Among the various types of organizational designs, the Khazan company follows the functional type in which the organization consists of activities including the supervision, coordination and task allocation. The people of the organization are divided according to their individual functions such as production, human resource, marketing and accounting. Although the Khazan company has been facilitated with many advantages due to this functional type of organizational design, the disadvantages of the type have posed challenges for the company (Roh et al. 2017).
The challenges are as follows:
The segregation of the employees into departments according to their specializations has caused the loss of fruitful interaction between the employees. A common organizational goal shared among all the employees improves the quality of performance and morale of the employees and bind them in a single whole that ultimately leads to organizational success (Santos, Pache and Birkholz 2015). This shared belief has been disrupted within the organization because each group has been isolated based on their functions. The common bond with a single organizational purpose have been weakened relatively.
Opposite of what had been expected, the functional organizational structure has initiated issues lie lack of coordination. Due to the segregation of employees into functional groups, few groups are seen to be underperforming because the communication issues are also there (GalbRaith 2014). They cannot communicate their issues to other groups out of the fear that the managers of other functional might not respond as helpfully as they expect. The need for cooperation is extreme in Khazan.
The functional organizational structure has also raised tendency of failure due to lack of cooperation with each other. It has caused some territorial disputes. These disputes are on budgetary competition, disagreements over the goals and other issues initiating from clash of egos. Since each department has its own functional structure, here is surely a strong sense of organizational purpose.
After analyzing the challenges regarding the organizational design and structure, it can be said that the main issue in the Khazan company that can be easily resolved is the problem of communication. Since the communication problems are closely related with the collaboration problem, one can resolve the other too. The issues of weakening bond and collaboration and the lack of coordination are the most serious issues and must be addressed. The organization can actually do better after implementing some measures or techniques to strengthen the communication among the various departments.
The communication and collaboration issues can be resolved by following some ways:
The team members need to be given a holistic view of the project and the com on goal. A cross –departmental kick- off meetings can be conducted to convey the message of ho their activities impact the big picture. When each team will be guided by a single purpose, they will be more empowered and agile to take up the initiatives.
The mutual understanding between the departments can improve the collaboration into more effective and smoother one. There are three types of empathy, the cognitive, emotional and empathetic concerns. The team members must be encouraged to walk a day in the other’s shoes and experience the challenges that other departments face from different perspectives. The sense of curiosity will help them learn about the works styles of others by which they can improve their processes.
The right type of software has to be used in order to encourage the team members to help information sharing. The project managers can foster collaboration among the team by formal check-ins or interdepartmental reviews among the team members. The members from each team have to be engaged in a common project.
Apart from this, the entire organizational structure can also be changed in to divisional organizational structure. There are so many benefits of divisional organizational structure. It will give the Khazan company the ability to separate the vast sections of the business into smaller sections. The divisional structure is not only beneficial for bigger brands. There are instances of divisional structure benefitting the smaller business too. This will work because the teams are more focused on a particular product or service under the leadership which concentrates more on the severe strategic objectives. There are presidents to guide the work and the division can get the help of the president in terms of resources and other supports. The focus of the division allows establish a common culture and contributes to build higher morale as well as in-depth knowledge of the operations of the division. The products or services of the organization is dispersed among the multiple departments throughout the organization.
However, this complete change might put some challenges in the organization in terms of adapting to the change and result in something better. Change might affect all kinds of businesses in many ways. When it comes to change, I believe that the biggest challenge faced by Khazan is the failing communication that needs to be focused on more. The communication and collaboration problem is already there and it is feared that when the organization will undergo a change in the complete structure of the organization, there might be communication issues that might also invite rumors in the workplace. The feeling of uncertainty might disrupt the operations and make the employees feel that they are not an important part of the system if everything is not communicated properly to the employees. According to my views, the communication problem issue can be resolved by engaging the employees as much as possible in all the decision making. It can be done by holding meetings or sessions to make them aware of the policies and its benefits.
The Khazan meat company is aimed at providing the customers with high quality meat products and at the same tine building a sustainable business to support the regional meat industry. The company is the hub of meats in the industry of Kuwait which cultivates strong relationships with the customers and the stakeholders to provide standard meat products to the households. It is a way of upholding the standards of service and health. The strategy of the company is to act with honesty and fairness in whatever they do. The customers and the meat producers, employees and the suppliers are treated with respect and fairness. They believe in conducting everything ethically, with honesty and integrity keeping in terms with the laws, rules and regulations which applies to the Khazan company and the entire meat industry. The company puts their utmost effort to meet the commitments of the customers and the associate bodies.
Since there are different types of people with different types of mentality work in the Khazan meat company, the workplace diversity is a significant issue that needs to be mitigated as soon as possible. It is true that the differences between two persons are greater than the similarities. Despite the fact that there are many common attributes among the employees, cultural differences overpower other similarities. In the Khazan company too, gaps in the culture arise from different tradition, gender or religion. Since, Kuwait is an Islamic country, the majority of employees are Muslim by religion. They have their own rituals and practices. Hence, it is likely that the other employees who are from other countries or belong to non-Muslim background clash among each other. Therefore, it can be said that it is a reason behind the difficulty among people to work together.
The waste material in the food industry is a major problem in the industry. The Khazan company is active and efficient in conducting the waste management of the waste disposals every-day. The waste extracted daily from the preparation, rendering of meat and processing of other meat products are managed skillfully by the company. The company applies the vacuum conveying process to clean up the waste materials and reach particular destinations.
In terms of motivation, the employees are a little low because of the culture gap, inappropriate organizational design and communication issues. The organizational structure can either make or break a business organization. The leadership and the senior management of an organization are responsible for providing strong base of employee motivation (Petro and Gardiner 2015). When there are gaps in the structure of an organization, there is also lack in the forward thinking, turnover of best employees. All of these occur due to lack of motivation in the entire organization. In the Khazan company, due to inappropriate organizational structure, there are loss of confidence and disagreement in the shared goals along with issues in the accountability.
After in-depth examination and analysis of the gaps, I have understood that the gaps are in the culture, mindset and motivation sphere. I have been informed about this inconsistency by few of the responsible executives of the company through several e-mails. Hence, I believe that such gaps are existing because there are evidences of downfall in the company productivity found from the annual reports and also there are instances of employee turnover too. There is lack of appropriate strategy in place to mitigate the challenges (Pereira-Moliner et al.2016). There has to be proper communication among all the departments of the organization. The mindset of the employees needs to be reshaped in order to deal with the culture gap issue. The motivation of the employees can be increased by facilitating with financial and non-financial incentives. However, the best option to change the scenario is by changing the organizational structure.
The double –diamond process is type of design process which emphasizes on problem analysis as a basis for creating a solution for an external client. The model is useful and suitable for designing collaboration and the involvement in the solution development. The double-diamond is a process that is designed by a British organization, Design Council in the year 2005. The model graphically presents the design process. The establishment of this process was based on various case studies collected from various design departments of 11 international companies (Albers, Wohlgezogen and Zajac 2016). There are four main generic stages within two connected diamonds. In the double diamond process, the identification of problem is highly important. It is true that in all the creative processes there are various ideas which are called the divergent thinking and are initiated before coming down to the best idea which us called the convergent thinking. The double diamond process, first of all, focuses on the confirmation of the problem and then on the creation of the solution. Each of the diamond are important and omitting any of the diamonds would end up solving the wrong problem in a wrong way.
Discover- Through the ‘discover’ phase the innovation process will be started and the designers will try to look at the world in a proper way having noticed new areas and gather deeper –insights. The responsibility will rest on the shoulders of the various team leaders and divisional managers.
Define – In the second quarter of the definition phase, the designers will put effort to make sense of the various possibilities recognized in the ‘discover’ phase. This phase will determine what matters the most and which idea will be the most fruitful. It will design the way the organization can take action towards the issues and along with focus on the feasible nature of the action.
Develop- This is the phase for development where all the solutions will be created, tested, iterated and prototyped. This is a process that helps the designers to refine and improve on their innovative ideas.
Delivery – This is the final phase of the double diamond process where the results will be delivered to the operations of the organization. It is the phase where the modified product or service is launched. The innovative process is extremely complicated process which makes it difficult to run the process smoothly. However, I believe this process will help the Khazan company to deal with its internal issues and step towards innovation.
While implementing the double –diamond process in the organization, I have understood that in the discovering phase, mind mapping and brainstorming are two of the most useful tools. The mind mapping helps more effectively to learn. On the other hand, brainstorming allows to initiate innovative solutions in an informal manner. A diverse range of skills are brought in a particular team in order to produce a fruitful problem resolution. Notably, I have also observed that ‘six hats’ is the most effective method in the defining stage. It helps the decision making various perspective oriented. The method enables to think from many aspects and provides a rounded view on a particular situation. On the other hand, scamper is a simple tool that helps to overcome the challenge and encourage innovation (Rahim 2017). It is based on combination, substitution, adaptation, modification and elimination of the existing strategies. In the deliverance process, the user journeys are important because it allows idea to delivered appropriately. It is the record of the interaction of the user with the organization from beginning to the end. The Khazan company must aim at making the user journey memorable.
I would like to reflect on the double-diamond process saying that it is one of the most effective techniques to enhance creativity in an organization like Khazan which has poor organizational structure that is causing the company to lose its communication and collaboration balance within the workforce. Apart from being useful to an organizational strategic management it can be used specifically in the decision making and innovating ideas in the personal life too. Hence, it is an ideal framework for me.
References
Albers, S., Wohlgezogen, F. and Zajac, E.J., 2016. Strategic alliance structures: An organization design perspective. Journal of Management, 42(3), pp.582-614.
GalbRaith, J.R., 2014. Organizational design challenges resulting from big data.
Mezzan.com 2018. Mezzan Holding Co.. [online] Mezzan.com. Available at: https://www.mezzan.com/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2018].
Pereira-Moliner, J., Pertusa-Ortega, E.M., Tarí, J.J., López-Gamero, M.D. and Molina-Azorín, J.F., 2016. Organizational design, quality management and competitive advantage in hotels. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(4), pp.762-784.
Petro, Y. and Gardiner, P., 2015. An investigation of the influence of organizational design on project portfolio success, effectiveness and business efficiency for project-based organizations. International Journal of Project Management, 33(8), pp.1717-1729.
Rahim, M.A., 2017. Managing conflict in organizations. Routledge.
Roh, J., Turkulainen, V., Whipple, J.M. and Swink, M., 2017. Organizational design change in multinational supply chain organizations. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 28(4), pp.1078-1098.
Santos, F., Pache, A.C. and Birkholz, C., 2015. Making hybrids work: Aligning business models and organizational design for social enterprises. California Management Review, 57(3), pp.36-58.
Santos, F., Pache, A.C. and Birkholz, C., 2015. Making hybrids work: Aligning business models and organizational design for social enterprises (Paper IV). Christoph Birkholz, 153.
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