GMBA6007 Managing Across Cultures Is An Essay.

Volkswagen Group is a renowned German multinational automotive manufacturing corporation with its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony. Volkswagen Group remains to be one of the top multi-brand units within the automotive sector. The Group deals with actions of developing vehicles as well as components of the Group brands. The company also involves in the activities of production and selling of cars especially passenger vehicles together with light commercial cars, and vehicles brands for Volkswagen Commercial. Besides, business activities of the company comprise of the Automotive along with Financial Service sections that include activities of leasing and management of fleet (Volkswagen Group | Announces further investments in innovation, technology 2013, p. 11). Business actions of several components of the organizations within Volkswagen Group concentrates on creation, production and promoting cars for passenger, trucks, light business vehicles, together with buses. The proportion of products produced by the Volkswagen Group extends from motorbikes to fuel-economical small cars along with luxury cars. The Multinational Company (MNC) focuses on the activities that aid it in coordinating its operations in a strategy that leads to massive revenue in every financial year. Therefore, the objective of this research article is to address factors involved in the managing across the border within Volkswagen Group.

The ideas of control, as well as coordination of overseas subsidiaries, remains as the permanent task for operations of Volkswagen Group just like other multinational companies. The strategy to monitor and coordinate every activity by a company is a permanent work regardless whether its operations base in Europe, the United States, Asia, or elsewhere in the global marketplace (Abdullah 2016, p. 1). Volkswagen Group follows the mechanism as the mean of achieving common organizational objectives and international management control (IMC). The monitoring and coordination mechanism of the Volkswagen Group allows it to find the best blend between federal together with decentralized process of making decision while it employs several mechanisms. In the attempt by Volkswagen Group to solve effects brought about by the globalization of the market, it has focused on a move towards the kind of loosely coupled network of organizing its operations.

Volkswagen Group remains consistent in the process of developing its vision of mobility as other companies that deal with the production and sales of automotive. The company undergoes development during the stages of its evolution by achieving its goal of becoming the number one in satisfying its loyal and targeted customers while offering quality products and services. The development of Volkswagen Group focuses on increasing its environmental standards in the manufacturing of quality automobiles that conserves fuel and are of lightweights (Volkswagen Group | Announces further investments in innovation, technology 2013, p. 11). Therefore, five stages of evolution of Volkswagen Group include the exploration of its activities with local dealers, the creation of sales and marketing supporting host nation, development of production base that shift to host nation, moving more functions to host country, and moving to various essential functions of its operations to its headquarters. All these stages in the internationalization of Volkswagen Group lead to changes in nature of tasks as well as relationships with customers and other firms in the global markets. The changes that result from the five stages in internalization of Volkswagen Group include authority changes, shuffling of responsibilities, the formation of different lines of communications, and development of geographic dispersal of units of its operations.

Dealing with local dealers in exporting the company’s products in competitive market forms an essential factor that boosts operations of any multinational company. Volkswagen Group deals with JEVIC that remains to be the approved dealer program in the exportation of its products. JEVIC as trusted dealer provides the best platform where the buyers of Volkswagen Groups products can check and contact used-vehicle dealers (Zuniga & Crespi 2013, p. 16). The use of exporting with local dealers is a key element in the operations of Volkswagen Group, as it came from the genuine need within the automotive market to offer the best methods to reduce fraudulent activities from other conmen. Besides, operations of Volkswagen Group involve the use of online car auction or buying cars from best car dealers as a manner of exporting with local dealers.

Creation of sales along with marketing support for host country by Volkswagen Group forms the fundamental issue during the launching of its future operations. The strategy is not the work of external consultations, but it involves ideas shared within the company. The plan ensures that the company operates as the leading provider of sustainable mobility of its operations within the host nation. Besides, ideas of creating sales and marketing strategies that support host nation enable the company to provide tailor-made mobility solutions to its targeted clients in the market (Douma 2015, p. 56). Therefore, Volkswagen Group works by focusing on activities that serve the diverse needs of local customers in the host nation by providing a strong portfolio of automobile brands. The drivers in the creation of sales and marketing support lead to the sharpening of the position of the company’s brand while increasing partnership of the company in the economic sector.

Most multinational corporations such as Volkswagen Group are at the heart of the international political economy. The need for the management of the Volkswagen Group to understand the patterns of their strategies as well as governance remains to be a crucial task when the company focuses on shifting their production base to host nation. The administration of the Volkswagen Group is essential to the management of every activity within the manufacture of cars. Production support of the Volkswagen Group aims at shifting to host country to focus on getting high revenues while attracting foreign direct investments into their economies spread across the market (Volkswagen Group | Announces further investments in innovation, technology 2013, p. 11). The process of changing production base into Host County focuses on improving exportation of Volkswagen Group products with local dealers. The activity remains to be the best approach of doing background research for cars by asking sensible queries that relate to client’s doubt.

Volkswagen Group as a multinational corporation has different facilities and assets in at least one nation other than its home country German. It also embraces the function of developing offices and factories in various nations and usually has the centralized head office where they can coordinate global management. Besides, the company has huge budgets that exceed those of different small countries (Berghel 2013, p. 98). The function moved to the country by Volkswagen Group involve the ideas of creating and enhancing proficiencies in excel for finance management. One of the significant challenges that the Volkswagen Group faces is the need to harmonize the opposing forces of standardizing its operations and localization. The adoption of headquarter practices is essential in regulating activities of Volkswagen Group. Therefore, regulating processes towards host country or global best practices remains to be the key factor to the success of MNC like Volkswagen Group particular drawn strategic functions, and plans of the multinational company such as Volkswagen Group call for new production facilities to be developable in foreign markets. However, the prospective host authorities’ focus on the establishment of great strict sales and export volume conditions prior giving the necessary permission. The managers of Volkswagen Group attempt to have more function moved to host country by seeking to implement the multinational competitive strategy.

The operations of the company focus on the interdisciplinary team for the mobility of the future operations. The purpose of moving company’s operations back and center is essential in ensuring that the company focuses on producing and distributing quality products to clients. The idea focuses on improving designs of cars and experiences of users. Such experiences aid the company to work hand in hand for future mobility ideas. Therefore, improved services allow Volkswagen Group to provide results for its digital strategy (Zuniga & Crespi 2013, p. 12). The local dealers involve the process of verification for the company to be sure that they have the registration number, they have the actual address of locating its headquarters, having previously used automotive services, and understanding if the company operate the legitimate business practice. The company operates by talking with salespersons in the local area of the firm. The use of local dealers by Volkswagen Group allows it to use different tactics in competition in the market by applying the use of smart tactics of going online and getting in touch with people who have the interest of sharing their experience.

In developing the structure of the organization in the multinational company like Volkswagen Group, there is a need to focus on the design of the organizational problem and any complications that might arise during the designing process. The approaches to developing the structure of Volkswagen group concentrates on the strategy of implementing issues that develop in production. Besides, organizational structure applies to develop the arrangement of different groups and individuals within the company to meet its goals (Chris & Gerhard 2016, p. 137). It, however, defines the reporting structure of the organization, type of jobs, compensation, and responsibilities for every role in operations of Volkswagen Group. Therefore, appropriate designing of the structure of society need consideration of the values of organization, financial, and goals of Volkswagen Group. The organization of structure allows for the growth of operations and the ability to add additional jobs (BASF Coatings de México wins Volkswagen Group Award 2014). Some ways of designing the organization structure of Volkswagen Group include the definition of the business unit, determination of the type of structure that best fits its operation, defining the executive and management structure that provides its services and establishing the executive as well as management teams of Volkswagen Group.

In the designing problem, Volkswagen Group focuses on identifying its business units by having similar goals and responsibilities that can be overstable and directed by various managers. The process allows the business units of Volkswagen Group to align and assist in the creation of the appropriate structure of the organization (Volkswagen Group | Announces further investments in innovation, technology 2013, p. 11). Depending on the type of organization structure applicable, departments of Volkswagen Group might align laterally with other departments or may oversee its operations.

The kind of organization structure of Volkswagen Group ensures that it can successfully function with its reporting process structure. The company can use the ideas that fit business needs to expand and meet its goals (Berghel 2013, p. 98). For instance, for development of small businesses in different markets by Volkswagen Group, it needs to break organization structure into departments like production, human resource, along with finance. The type of activity and operations of the multinational company will determine the type of organizational structure to implement.

The company’s executives and managers are responsible for ensuring every business unit meets the goals of Volkswagen Group. Such responsibilities might comprise of one or various top officials to oversee the whole organization along with managers to direct every business unit within the structure if Volkswagen Group (Douma 2015, p. 54). Besides, Volkswagen Group may need one supervisor to oversee all operations or various managers to lead every business unit, mostly reporting to the top executive.

When the organization structure of Volkswagen Group is determinable, the job description for every stakeholder can be definable and where every job fits in the company’s hierarchy. Every description of the job has to reflect the competencies needed to perform the tasks and expectations of every job to meet the goals of Volkswagen Group. After defining every task within the structure of the Volkswagen Group, compensation should remain set based on the responsibilities of every task (Stroup 2016, p.81). All these ways of designing organizational structure focus on the need for differentiation, making the decision about structural choices, the pressure to select the best techniques, marketing specific differentiated products, need for integration, and the standardized product.

The influencers in developing structural change include the local corporate and global corporations that lead to the creation of world partnership and transition among strategies. Many strategies that warrant the fundamental shift in the multinational company like Volkswagen Group include the need of forming collaboration with different corporates. The strategies can lead to an organizational change to occur in response to internal along with external factors that affect operations (Volkswagen Group | Announces further investments in innovation, technology 2013, p. 11). Furthermore, structural change within the multinational company such as Volkswagen Group might stem from internal or external factors. There is a need for effective change management that requires the ability of the directorate to identify causes of structural change within the company (Abdullah 2016, p. 1). The capacity of the Volkswagen Group to determine the signs of impending changes within its operations can aid in preparing for the modification and implementing policies that will keep the company to be on the growth path.

Factors that warrant the structural changes in the multinational company include the change in the size of the company, movement of certain key individuals, failure to manage time and meeting goals. Other factors comprise of overworked employees, moral issues, poor strategic control, too much monitoring can also stifle innovation and uniform solutions for unique situations (Li & Tallman 2011, p. 1121). Therefore, different influencers affect structural changes. Some of the influencers are the increased operational scope, sparse mode of communication, customer complaints, and various entities to manage an organization. Factors like acquisitions, job duplication, changes in the marketplace, and process changes affect structural change in the Volkswagen Group. Acquiring or merging of operations of Volkswagen Group with another company has the profound influence on the structure of the enterprise. Besides, various managers within the Volkswagen Group may create the need for change in operations of the company.

There are several key issues in deciding the control mechanism like whom they affect, the speed of making decisions on culture, strategies to use, and choice of structure to follow. The control mechanism involves performance measurement, like giving feedback, strategic use of presented ideas, and reporting nature influenced by organizational culture. Another control mechanism of Volkswagen Group includes the idea of having the appropriate technique of reporting and information system (Szombathelyi et al., 2016, p. 76). The corporate control approach has to incorporate goals along with the strategy used to reach the set goals. Some of the mechanisms and tactics developed with the foresight of particular objectives of operations like the market share, return on investments and improving cash flow. Additionally, the control device for the multinational company like Volkswagen Group comprises of reviewing and evaluating overall performance against tactics, strategies, and operations applicable to define operations of the company. Therefore, development of tactics for organizational control base on existing objectives and strategies aimed at developing specific objectives in the context of the overall strategic plan.

Managers in every multinational company like Volkswagen Group have the mandate of adapting strategies that led to the best organizational structure. Volkswagen Group should dedicate its efforts and resources into re-establishing credibility with the company. The developed strategies by the Volkswagen Group need to focus on globalization and localization of its operations. The improved approach will lead to growth based on network and alliances with the global partners. Most multinational companies like Volkswagen Group have to focus on strategic changes as part of maintaining the competitive business environment or adjusting to advance market trends or technologies.

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