Carson Container Company Case Study

Case Questions 1. What problems does Carson Container Company have that will affect its communications? Carson’s decentralized approach to procurement was indicative of its overall strategy toward dealing with its constituencies including employees, customers, shareholders, and communities. This decentralized strategy has affected the Carson’s communications. 2. What specific problems does Mr. Haskell have as a result of his communications to materials managers? As a result of Mr. Haskell’s communications to materials managers, over the next few days, responses came in from all but a few plants.

However, over the next several weeks, the headquarters heard nothing from the plants about contracts being negotiated with suppliers. Mr. Haskell’s initiative to centralize the company’s procurement procedures was not implemented successfully, and the usual procedures for that time of year continued. 3. How would you analyse this case in terms of the expanded corporate communication strategy framework (Figure 2. 2)? The expanded corporate communication strategy framework has four important elements such as messages, organization, constituencies, and constituency responses.

I would analyse this case from the 4 perspectives as the following: (a)Messages: The communication channel used by Mr. Haskell is memo and sent to 30 plant material managers. Carson as a large regional manufacturer in the United States, I think memo is not effective and strong enough to convey this important message to 30 plants. Furthermore, the decentralized and uncoordinated procurement procedures of the company has been carried for a long time, hence when Mr. Haskell intended to do a revolution, it will be more difficult.

The Carson Companies

In this case, Mr.

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Haskell needs to put more effort on choosing the communication channel and structuring the messages’ contents. (b)Organization: The Carson and Mr. Haskell wanted to centralize the company’s procurement procedures and reduce the number of suppliers overall. The resources or Carson such as money, human resources and time needed to be considered during the implementation of the new procurement process. However, Mr. Haskell did not put consideration on the human resources and time dealing with this new procurement process.

The Carson has 30 plants and many employees under procurement department; hence, it is not wise to have Mr. Haskell himself and his assistant, Patricia only to deal with the 30 plant material managers. Apparently, the human resource arrangement is not enough on this matter. Besides, the time chose to run this new procurement process was not appropriate because the time chose was the busiest period for procurement department, hence they would easily neglected the new procurement process. Therefore, the objective of the Carson and Mr.

Haskell could not be achieved effectively because the company did not do appropriate arrangement on the human resource and time arrangement. (c)Constituencies: The constituencies in this case are the 30 plants material managers located in United States regionally. Hence, the attitude of the 30 managers towards this topic is relatively important. However, the results showed that the managers were too busy and they did not put much concerns on this matter. Hence, the objective of Mr. Haskell was not achieved at the end.

From this we could see that Mr. Haskell did not analyse its constituencies carefully. He did not understand the material managers’ attitude and opinion towards the new procurement process. He failed in understanding and analysing the constituencies’ attitude, feelings and opinions which resulted in his failure of implementing the new procurement process. (d)Constituency responses: The constituency did not respond in the way the Carson and Mr. Haskell wished and they did not concern about the matter. The communication between Mr.

Haskell and the constituencies has failed and definitely the objective was not accomplished in a desired manner. 4. What advice would you give Haskell to help solve his and Carson’s problems? I suggest Haskell to put these things into consideration in order to help solve his and Carson’s problems: (a)Constituencies and their responses: Haskell should analyse his constituencies including the primary constituencies such as the material managers and employees and also the secondary constituencies such as the suppliers.

Specifically, Haskell should at least communicate with the 30 plants material managers to understand and research on their opinions and suggestion towards the new procurement method. He can do a survey or organize a video conference with all the managers to discuss about the topic. From the results of the communication, he could determine whether the new procurement method is a wise method and how he should carry out the new plan. (b)Messages: Haskell should put more efforts on delivering and structuring the message that he intended to send to all the material managers.

He should choose multiple channels such as video conference, email, or intranet in order to deliver the message more effectively. A visual communication could be carried in order to increase the possibility and awareness of the constituencies. Besides, he could structure better of the message such as emphasizing the objective strongly and input some sentences that shows the much concern of the board of directors towards the new procurement process. (c)Organization: I suggest Haskell to set up a small committee who accounts for the whole research, implementation, development and evaluation of the new procurement process.

This small committee should involve at least four to five professionals to keep track with the project. Hence, the new procurement procedure can be carried and improved in order to meet the objective which is to centralized the procurement procedure and reduce the number of suppliers overall. Besides, the implementation of the new policy should not be allocated at a busy or peak period of the procurement department. They should at least allow one month to each plant to execute the new procedure.