Advantages And Disadvantages Of Svenska Handelsbanken’s Structure, McDonald’s Decision To Discontinue Supersized Meals, And Senge’s Five Disciplines

Part A: A Learning Organization at Svenska
1. What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of Svenska Handelsbanken’s structure?
2. Do you believe such a structure could work effectively in other cultures, such as that of the United States, in which there is less emphasis placed on consensus-building?
3. What do you believe Pär Boman could do to enhance the learning organization concept at Svenska?
Part B: XXL No More
1. Explain how the external environment has affected McDonald’s plans to discontinue offering supersized meals?
2. Describe how McDonald’s can use the decision to stop selling supersized meals as a competitive advantage.
3. Do you believe McDonald’s was socially responsible in its actions to discontinue supersizing? Why or why not?
Part C: Senge’s Five Disciplines
Choose an organization or group (business or otherwise) with which you are familiar.
1. What goals or activities would you plan for this organization or group in the next year that would enable you and others to enhance the practices of the five core disciplines?
2. How would you motivate other individuals in the organization or group to adopt the practices of the five core disciplines?
3. What changes are necessary for this organization or group to become a learning organization (or to enhance the characteristics of a learning organization that already exists)?

1. The advantages and disadvantages of Svenska Handelsbanken’s structure are:

Advantages

• Svenska is a large banking corporation which has hundred of branches in the north Europe and the United Kingdom. The countries like Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden are the few countries, where Svenka has been doing very well for many years.
• As a Swedish bank it is also located in the countries outside Europe. The countries like China and parts of Russia have registered its presence.
• The major advantage is in the fact that it has been growing for last 130 years in the banking sector and gained huge customer loyalty.
• According to Par Boman, the president of Svenka, another advantage of Svenka is in the fact that they allow their managers to choose the customers and operate the branches in his own way. This form of relative autonomy has helped Svenska to expand their business. As the branch managers have the power to recruit and to decide the salary of the employees he plays an important role.

Disadvantages

• Svenska have a much lesser number of centralised staff in compared to its competitors.
• The bank’s management structure is well suited to the Swedish culture; however it can change itself in the other regions of the world.
• The dependency on the bank managers can be a problem for the company. As over dependency often causes the breach of trust.

2. The structure of Svenska is very similar to the franchise business. This type of business structure is not similar to the any of the banks in the United States. In the United States the banks are much more formal in behaviour and everything is centralised. There is a fair amount of risk in the over dependency on the business managers in this case. As the business managers will have the right to choose the customers and the recruits in Svenska, it is quite unlike what happens in the United States. As the growth rate of the United States is way higher than many of the major European nations, it is to be understood that people keep their money in the banks because of interest and getting loans. The banks in the United States do not initiate a very aggressive strategy to do so. The banks have become an integral part of the American system. It is very dissimilar to the situation in Sweden. Hence, this form of strategy may not work in the United States.
3. Par Boman seems to be very clear in his understanding of the market. He might recruit more centralized employees who will look at the regional problems in a much better way. The leadership have an option to provide intensive training for the new recruits and the bank managers to make them understand the market in a better way.  Boman understands that autonomy is the key to his success; however he would take an initiative to train and examine the bank mangers in a more appropriate way in order to be sure about them. Groenfeldt, (2017), stated in Forbes that long term relationships are the key to the banking. Boman also knows that very well and that is why he provided the power to choose the customers to the bank manger. The personal relationship between the bank manager and the customers can be very helpful for the bank in the future. Hence, Boman will like to build up better customer based relationships in order to achieve success.  Boman stated in the case study that he should learn.

1. McDonalds began its journey in the year 1940. Since, then it has emerged as a huge food giant and restaurant chain like Burger King and KFC. However, all of these fast food chains have been criticised time and again because of the unhealthy ingredients they use in their food products. Since the 1990’s McDonalds has been offering a supersized option for the mere 39 cents (Abrams, 2016). Many of the customers have been using this scheme to get a super sized meal. Eminent whistle blowers started criticising McDonalds for its unhealthy food products. The whistle blowers claimed that McDonalds was selling food products which had excessive harmful components like saturated fat. The whistle blowers stated that the food products of McDonalds are causing obesity as it ahs excess saturated fated which is not at all good for people. This might cause life style diseases like diabetes. The whistle blowers also claimed that the food is intoxicating like cigarettes. The controversy reached its peak in the year 2004 and after that McDonald discontinued the super size offer of food.
2. McDonald has stopped supersize food in the recent years. On the other hand they have taken up the strategy to market and sell healthy food products like salads and others. Generally there are four forms of competitive strategies in Porter’ Business strategy (Tanwar, 2013). McDonald applied differentiated focus strategy in order to overcome the problems. According to this strategy the company should try to sell better products with good service. Trying to sell healthy products is the requirement of the time. Hence, it can be understood that McDonalds have taken up differentiation focus strategy to get success. McDonalds knew that in this age they will not be able to survive with such humongous negative publicity. They chose to solve the problem with the help of this strategy. According to this Business studies a unique product always performs well in the market if it is advertised properly, hence it can be an advantage for the company in the future.
3. McDonalds is a company which owns several food joints around the country and across the world. It should have a responsibility and ethics as they sell food products to people. Food is one of the three basic means of human life. It is often stated that “what we eat is what we are”. Hence, the company should be answerable in such cases. McDonalds was selling products which were not good for health. They even tried making that their USP. They created this strategy to sell the super sized meal for a mere 39 cents more as it is more sellable. In the present age sales and profit maximisation has become the only norm of business strategy (Crane & Matten, 2016). Good quality of product which is healthy and tasty can ensure better outcomes. However, McDonalds chose a wrong way to expand its business and hence became responsible for this in the process. A sales strategy requires a definite orientation (Crane & Matten, 2016). This sales strategy lacked that orientation of healthy food for the customers. It is an ethical responsibility of McDonalds to offer healthy food to their customers which wouldn’t harm them. This is not maintained by McDonalds, hence McDonalds should have discontinued the supersize meal and they did it.

1. Tesco is a very old grocery retail organisation of the United Kingdom. It has done immensely well in the past as the company. However, Senge’s five disciplines have the ability to change the entire company into something better. Senge’s five disciplines states that everything in an organisation is interconnected and hence a learning organisation should address all the issues (Senge, 2014). He also stated that an organisation should keep learning as learning can only help a company to survive in newer times.  Tesco has been operating as a business proposition since the year 1994. It has built huge shopping complexes, shops and malls to sell the grocery products. It has also included the home delivery product. It is well spread across the United Kingdom.  A year of work on Tesco can change a lot of things there. The application of the five disciplines will be in the following ways:-

• Personal Mastery: The primary mastery would be to understand and clarify the most important goal of the company. The primary goal of Tesco is to capture the grocery market of the entire Continent of Europe.  The more the employees will know about Tesco the more will they get empowered.
• Shared Visioning:  Shared visioning is about creating a direction or a path for the future. The distribution is a very sector in case of maintains so many stores and shopping complexes and hence, the company should try to build better communication and distribution strategies (Gosling et al., 2015). Every employee should understand the test of time and try to communicate with each other perfectly. Building a consensus in the company would be one of the major goal for the betterment of Tesco.
• Mental Modelling: There is a requirement of understanding the problem of distribution in the retail market. Hence, every individual will possess the right of speaking there mind to strategise. As every individual has a unique view this form of decision building would help.
• Team Learning: This is about developing support and collaboration among everyone in the organization. The organization should try to learn the market problems and the competitive strategies other big companies are taking as a team. Tesco needs to be aware and learn about the entire situation in the market in order to build the market. Team Learning is important for a company. As if the Team learns then only the company learns.  
• System’s thinking: The individuals, policies and organisations, disciplines, relationships and others are all interconnected to each other. They are all interring related in a larger context. Redesigning the jobs is very important in Tesco.

2. The five disciplines of Senge is also considered as a Bible in case of business organization. Senge stated in his book that every organisation should be a learning organization in order to survive the test of the time. In Tesco the workers will be taught about the requirement of keep learning. The only possibility of development for an individual or an organisation is to remain in the learning fold forever.  The employee should be convinced when he would understand the importance of learning. No one is capable of doing anything if do not try to learn. These five principles are the best way to assess the individuals and the company. 

3. There are a few important issues to be addressed in Tesco to make it a learning organization. They are :

• Tesco is a huge organisation. The branches of Tesco are placed across the urban and rural areas of Europe. Hence, to make each and employee believe that they are part of one organisation is a challenge. If all the employees will be able to understand that the entire organisation is working as a chain, things can get better in the organisation (Davis & Lopuch, 2016).
• It will be a challenge to accommodate the huge number employees in regular training sessions and learning sessions. There is a need of a good system in order to achieve the target. The challenge should be met by making each team learn as if the team would not learn the organisation would also not learn (Davis & Lopuch, 2016).
• Building a consensus in such a huge organisation is going to be an issue. Tesco should run a long process in order to create unity and consensus among themselves (Davis & Lopuch, 2016).

References

Abrams, A. (2016). McDonald’s Just Became the First Major Company to Partner with Pokémon GO.

Anyesha, A., Hassan, D., & Aboki, H. (2014). The Conquering Strategies of Oligopoly Firms. A review on entry Strategies of Tesco Company Plc in the UK and beyond. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 16(8), 06-15.

Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.

Davis, D. C., & Lopuch, V. S. (2016). Learning Organizations: Connections between. Handbook of research on race, gender, and the fight for equality, 267.

Gosling, J., Towill, D. R., Naim, M. M., & Dainty, A. R. (2015). Principles for the design and operation of engineer-to-order supply chains in the construction sector. Production Planning & Control, 26(3), 203-218.

Groenfeldt, T. (2017). Customer Trust Is The Key For Banks To Build Long-Term Relationships. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomgroenfeldt/2017/06/16/customer-trust-is-the-key-for-banks-to-build-long-term-relationships/#79339a6f3060 [Accessed 28 Jul. 2017].

Senge, P. M. (2014). The fifth discipline fieldbook: Strategies and tools for building a learning organization. Crown Business.

Tanwar, R. (2013). Porter’s generic competitive strategies. Journal of Business and Management, 15(1), 11-17.