A New Millennium of Managerial Thinking in the 21st Century

As a final step, this paper will offer its own conclusions as to which solutions look to offer the very best direction for future management choices.

In "Management, The New Model: Tearing Up Today's Organization Chart" (Business Week, 18 November 1994, pp. 80-90) journalist Paula Dwyer in London leads a cadre of business writers from Hong Kong, Cleveland, New York and worldwide business news bureaus to check the problem of management in a global marketplace. The difficulty they identify: that to survive the pressure of increasingly-free industry competition, industries must go global - and hierarchical management structures can not deal with the challenge. The simple issue with hierarchies in the worldwide business environment is that such managerial structures in "international operations come to be slow-moving - and at times redundant - clones of corporate headquarters" (Dwyer, 1994, p. 81). The solutions becoming experimented with glimpse to follow a "matrix system" to lesser and greater degrees. "In a regular matrix, a region manager or business-unit boss might report to both a regional boss and a product-group chief rather than straight up the line" (Dwyer, 1994, pp. 81-82). The duplication, or "cloning," of products and solutions that results from old-style management structures is illustrated by the experience of the Ford Motor Company. I


There is little dissent on the solutions to the managerial problems associated with "What do we do." The lesson of the 1980s is that over-expansion in the name of "diversification" does not work. What does work is developing one's product or service to its best ability - and by broadening one's market: from regional to national, from national to global. The apparently successful manager of the 1990s is focussed on what his or her company does best, then maintains it at its peak. This beats off competitors by, in effect, competing with itself. Thus Hewlett-Packard can dominate the laser printer business, then develop a jet-ink printer division - both are related to the same product, compete with a single another, and now dominate both aspects of the printer market (Deutschman, 1994, p. 204). In like manner, Owens-Corning Fiberglass has stayed in its own field, but expanded worldwide by entering into alliances with similar Chinese businesses in mainland China: their market is expanded tremendously although even now focussed in an area of endeavor they know how to work greatest (Dwyer, 1993, p. 83). The suggestion of this researcher finds no major fault with either of these strategies, noting only the capacity trouble that a management so narrowly-focussed runs the risk of being turned on its head if technological developments render its entire line of product/ program obsolete.

Maremont, M. (1995, January 30). Kodak's new focus: an inside think about George Fisher's strategy. Business Week, pp. 62-68.

Still, this will almost certainly not happen if the third problem, knowing the customer, is addressed. The solutions proposed in most of the articles or blog posts remain the most basic: constant monitoring of customer satisfaction - with especial attention paid to the "most demanding" (Deutschman, 1994, p. 200) and "on key customers who no longer want their product or service" (Labich, 1994, p. 64).

Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.