Strategic design

Ogilvy and Mather has been doing well financially especially with the introduction of Brand Stewardship and there is hope of finally reviving the organization. Being the pioneers of this brand puts us at an advantage over our competitors but care should be taken if the trends will go on like this. O&M seems to be uncoordinated in the management and most of the junior staff doesn’t seem to know exactly what is happening with the Bran Stewardship idea.

Furthermore, being a company where we have been used to give what customers needs, it may seem unreasonable to some why now we have stop over servicing clients which may lead to loss of customers. Remember local expertise had been one of Ogilvy's competitive strengths and some local officials have not responded well to advertising done centrally. There is a lot of change in the organization and the effort has to be made to make things clear to everyone. It is quite obvious that a lot of reforms are required in the organization .

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The three lenses provide a basic guideline of how we can do this.

If we could examine our strategic design then we can come up with the proper decisions needed to steer Ogilvy and Mather. Strategic design involves getting the best people, feeding them with the best knowledge and appropriate tasks so that they can achieve the company's goals (Carroll 96). First of all we must understand that such strategies are developed in order to achieve the goals that have been agreed upon.

O&W is a company with very high potential. If we were to perform a SWOT analysis then we could realize that in terms of opportunities we have a great advantage over other competitors.

Internally however is the looming ineffectiveness and lack of coordination between branches as well as within the branches which is a great weakness in a reputable organization such as this one. As much as we have the best people in the management, conflicts keep erupting and there seems to be no coordinated drive in the company. O'Dea insists on organizational changes with Brand Stewardship and Walsh agrees with him referring O;W as not having a structure and work practices. There is definitely a point there.

The question of remuneration is also important so as to encourage the employees to be hard working and gain morale. In any case, what we get stems out directly from the employees themselves (Carroll 103). There is definitely needed to come up with a good strategy to aid in internal alignment. The need to call regular meetings aimed at streamlining how things should be done is of importance because almost all offices and managers have their own personalized way of doing it. As the managers we need to be the leaders and enhance the co-operation and co-ordination in order to get the best results.

I do agree that the team that was chosen back in 1992 to pioneer the revival of O;W should be the ones able to put the change forward. However, we must sensitize each of them to work closely with his or her subordinates to ensure the goals of brand stewardship are met. It is clear that most of them do not even know their role leave alone having the morale to work hard. Why should we look into the political side of the organization? Contests of power among the shareholders will definitely lead to conflicts which will hinder effective development at Ogilvy and Mather.

Politics in organizations may erupt due to lack of fair distribution of resources and responsibilities. For example, some offices' billings surpass those of others. We have seen cases like when local presidents complained that WCS's (Worldwide Client Service) accounts pulled their people away from local accounts with clear-cut billable time yet their portion of multinational fees was small. WCS on the other hand maintained that they were being forced to do more than their fair share of local costs.

There has also been a tendency to get funds from distant offices for use in the local offices when additional work was discovered and this was mostly not refunded. Political turmoil would be the worst enemy to the business and therefore it is essential to change policies within the organization. It is best to realize that organizations are shared and whenever everyone is comfortable with the position he is working in and has the opportunity to give out his opinions in the company's meeting then we will be doing ourselves justice.

As Lazarus commented, it is the management that makes all the decisions and especially the chairperson. I do agree that the management has the absolute say in the running of the business but again going by Lazarus' words if we could work as a team and allowing everyone to get comfortable enough to disagree with each other openly then people would work in a much easier way. If only you could listen to other opinions as well and solve the problem together then people would be free to work better. Values are what make up an organization looking at it from the social lens (Ancona et al 320).

What would be the need of an organization with people with no identities? From my point of view, team playing and good relationships are what help in career development. The chairman should be the team leader while others help him or her to achieve the organization' objective. Need to open up channels of communication which will enhance the results is of the essence. More staff need to be explained in depth how the Brand Stewardship works and its importance because as one of the directors commented, lack of communication has left only a few managers with the knowledge.

Most others do not have it and hence cannot contribute significantly to the project. There is a lot of potential at O&W which we need to exploit. Given the results at the end of the year we are definitely headed for the top in marketing. Borrowing from David Ogilvy the founder of this company, we note it was hard work and proper understanding of what everybody had to do that the company was able to excel both locally and internationally to become the number one advertising company.

Let’s make everyone thirsty for change instead of just instilling it in a few individuals. This way everyone will be enthusiastic to contribute to the company's development. With the threat of competitors trying to imitate Brand Stewardship, we should aim at capturing the market share now that we know that clients like our product. Word count (1112) Works cited Ancona, D. T, et al. managing for the future 3rd ed. Mason, OH: Thomson/Southwestern, 2005, p 320 Carroll, John. Managerial Psychology Fall. Malden, MA: Blackwell publishing, 2006, p 96-103