Organizational Analysis: General Health Products the Organization

Organizational Analysis: General Health Products

The organization that I've selected for consideration is called General Health Products. The company specializes in a range of bandages, lotions and other materials used for the treatment of individuals with open wounds, bed sores or deep skin tears. The assessment below considers the outlook for General Health both as a consequence of internal realities and external forces.

Chart of Organization's Domain

Products

Specific Forces

General Forces

Important Forces

Bandages, wound care supplies, in-bed cleaning fluids

Hospitals, rehabilitation clinics, nursing homes, private physicians

Internal management structure, Information Technology solutions

Cost of materials, speed of shipping, industry pricing competition

Continually high demand, high pressure to keep internal production up, supply chain efficiency

Environmental Effects:

When considering the forces delineated above, it is clear that the business in question is in many ways impacted by the constant presence of uncertainty. As noted in the delineation of important forces here above, the balance of supply and demand is a constant effecter in how the selected business achieves its aims. Specifically, the company has lacked the necessary analytical Information Technology systems to sufficiently project seasonal or incremental upturns in demand. Major clients will often expand their demands without warning, straining the capabilities of the modestly-sized company.

These forces denote a certain complexity to a business with an otherwise rather simple production and delivery model. Such is to say that the supply chain must achieve a more responsive symbiosis with client demand. An Enterprise Resource Management strategy might be an appropriate one in the case of General Health, which could benefit from a greater ability to forecast demand.

With respect to dynamism, the company does actually have the capability to move quickly and nimbly due to its internal production approach. It's small staff and informal procedures actually benefit it in this regard, giving the company a capacity to shift gears to respond to newly urgent or pressing consumer needs.

Likewise, the richness of the environment is especially compelling, with the room for growth being demonstrably high. Constant growth of the customer base and constant growth of order sizes from within this base are demonstrative of a rich marketplace with substantial opportunity for advancement, provided General Health finds ways to adapt to its uncertainty.

Interorganizational Linkage Mechanisms

In the present business environment, even a company such as General Health, which produces materials, conducts shipping and administers billing all from one in-house facility, must establish strong interorganizational linkage. This notion is reinforced by the Resource Dependence Theory, which indicates that there are commodities in the external marketplace as well as service providers in this same context which must be utilized in order to sustain growth.

According to Jones, "the use of network structures is increasingly being utilized throughout the country. Network structures have various organizational needs satisfied by other businesses, such as a computer company having the processors built by another organization. Since the processor business isn't under the authority and control of the computer company, the coordination is accomplished by the use of contracts rather than the utilization of a hierarchy."

This also informs our utilization of the Transaction Cost Theory, which denotes that the company in question will succeed best by finding ways to reduce the cost of business transactions. Here, greater efficiency and advanced inventory preparation can help to speed delivery time, prepare larger one-time shipments and generally reduce costs due to delivery delays.