Assessment Tools for Reaccelerating Danone Japan's Growth

This report provides an in-depth analysis of assessment tools for redesigning Danone Japan's organizational structure to reaccelerate growth. The research reviews various tools, including the 7-S framework, the balanced scorecard, four spans, the nine tests, business model canvas, and change mana...Read More

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2/18/2018
How to design the organization for reaccelerating growth?
The assessment tools for an analysis of Danone Japan

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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................4
REVIEW OF ASSESSMENT TOOLS.........................................................................................................4
HOW TO COMBINE THE TOOLS?...........................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................8
BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
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Abstract
Research was conducted on the assessment tools used for the strategic redesign of
Danone Japan. Following a review of literature and analysis, it is suggested that the following
tools should be employed to optimize the company’s performance by making use of tools like 7-
S framework, the balanced scorecard, four spans, the nine tests, business model canvas, and a set
of change management tools and frameworks including the level three leadership. The 7-S model
and the balanced scorecard provided strong rationale to the upgraded and cause-effect based
structure which reaches out to better performance. The four spans focuses on optimizing job
designs and minimizing associated losses, while the nine tests contributes to the strategic
validation and improvement of the proposed design scheme. The business model canvas
facilitates integration of innovation and sustainability initiatives with Danone’s existing
operations, driving incremental sales growth and constructing preferable relationship with
external stakeholders. To nurture employees’ emotional engagement along with commitment, the
level three leadership will help to establish sophistication at the top of the Company under an
increased unity of the company where various change management tools to improve play pivotal
roles for maintaining high performance.
Keywords: organizational deign, strategy, leadership, change management
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Introduction
An organizational structure follows its objectives and these are derived from the overall
strategy of organization (Robbins & Judge, 2012, pp. 497-498). Hence organizational design is
critical for materializing the strategy into improved performance where the leader must carefully
analyze each step of changes utilizing effective tools. In order to provide the Company with
proper analysis, appropriate types of tools should be employed. This paper presents the outcome
of research including the respective tool’s usage as well as benefits and disadvantages, followed
by the recommendation of for the set of tools used for an analysis of Danone Japan.
Review of assessment tools
The 7-S framework is used to analyze the organizational structural issues and provide
prescriptions by examining the connectivity among the seven elements (Waterman, 1980, pp. 17-19).
The benefit of 7-S model is that it provides more balanced diagnosis based on the analysis of
interaction among various elements, compared to when the focus is just on the structure or strategy.
While a disadvantage of the original 7-S model was inexistence of external factors as an element, it
was addressed by Weber’s “expanded 7-S” framework where the “situation and stakeholders” and
the “success” elements were included (Weber, 2008). As another possible disadvantage of the 7-S
model, the situational analysis may not reflect the reality and leave a gap, in which it case a bigger
negative impact might occur due to the model’s interconnectivity,
The balanced scorecard is used to redesign and integrate the corporate structure and
operations along with the four perspectives where numerical measures are set throughout the
perspectives and enable higher performance (Norton & Kaplan, 1992). The first and foremost benefit
of the balanced scorecard is that it provides managers and leaders with the visibility of status as wells
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as the room for improvement via the cause-effect analyses of tasks across multiple functions. Kapan
indicated the synergistic benefit by demonstrating that the balanced scorecard complements the 7-S
framework and reinforce the execution of strategy (Kaplan, 2005, pp. 42-44). As an added benefit,
the effectiveness of balanced scorecard has been widely supported by empirical studies which pose
benchmarks for the future efforts of Danone Japan. In the area of manufacturing where Danone
belongs, Kaplan quoted an outstanding 40% reduction of cycle time for clinical studies in an alliance
operation between pharmaceutical and biochemical companies (Kaplan, 2010). On Japanese
businesses, Morisawa and Kurosaki provided a review of the firms which introduced the balanced
scorecard for their corporate management reform (Morisawa & Kurosaki, 2003). The general
disadvantage of the balanced scorecard includes heavy workload that is put on project team and
technical complexity which leads to inefficiency. Also, following a review of twenty years’ literature,
Hoque found out other disadvantages of the balanced score card which was conflicts with the
existing systems, such as budget control, as wells as the lack of focus due to large number of
measurements involved in the scorecard’s implementation (Hoque, 2014, p. 7).
Simon’s four spans, which is nowadays called the Job Design Optimization Tool (Simons, 2017), is
used to change individual job designs for the better at all levels of an organization (Simons, 2005). It
is beneficial organizational designers by eliminating frictions and balancing the workload between
related jobs through the adjustment of four variables (Simons, 2005, pp. 5-9). The tool is also
beneficial for estimating the levels of human resource sufficiency. A disadvantage of the framework
is lack of objectives on the side of the manager in charge, therefore he or she could make a
misleading proposal based on a misinterpretation of the situation.
The nine tests is used to critically appraise the current and prospective organizational design, with the
four “fit” tests assessing the design’s fundamental strength and the other five “good design” tests
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dealing with more complex issues. (Goold & Campbell, 2002; Goold, 2002). As Whittington and
Mayer attested, the model can be even more beneficial if the “fit” tests are consciously applied at the
beginning of the redesign effort in order to augment value creation, and the “good design” tests are
applied later for refining the proposed scheme (Whittington & Mayer, 2002, p. 15). A drawback of
the nine tests is the high demand for internal resources since the nine tests come without charts and
the redesign team need to absorb the question and manage the progress on its own.
The business model canvas is a tool for strategic ideation of innovation products and new business
concepts (Johnson, 2012). Its core benefit stems from the well-designed layout which summarizes
the project’s essential information on a piece of paper in a meaningful way. The framework
facilitates an intuitive understanding of the Company’s operating environment and allows for better
interaction among the cross-functional team members. Upward and Jones cited profit-orientation as
a limitation of the framework (Upward & Jones, 2016, p. 100), which was partly addressed by Joyce
and Paquin when they issued the “triple layered” structure which consisted of not only the economic
but also the environmental and the social stakeholder business model (Joyce & Paquin, 2016).
Among various change management tools, the level three leadership based on Clawson’s
diamond model of leadership stands out due to its commitment to establishing the true leadership
(Morrison, 2008). This benefits Danone’s redesign effort by setting a high goal improve offers a
unique set of beneficial tools (Parker, 2003) which can be used to conjure up warm atmosphere
among Danone’s employees.
Other reviewed tools included the star model (Galbraith, 2014) whose benefit is to drive the
strategic redesign and could be used in combination with the Decision Tools (Kates & Galbraith,
2007). While the star model has accumulated wealth of empirical evidence, the set of 7-S and
balanced scorecard is considered relatively superior, especially because of the synergistic effects
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as was described earlier in this paper. On sustainability, the enterprise model presents an
innovative method and offers the benefit of fully dealing with sustainability issues (Abdelkafi &
Täuscher, 2016). Although the model’s logic is inspiring, it is yet to be established and a need
exists to validate the effectiveness of the model’s robustness and compare with the other types of
framework, reconcile the gap where it is possible.
How to combine the tools?
Danone Japan’s performance has been stagnant for the past two years; hence a major transformation
is required to revive the performance and create a new organization adept at fast-changing
environment. As a series of changes need to be implemented in the next year or two, a strategic
taskforce should be set up and charged draw the big picture of redesign, which is to formulate the
overall strategy. The structure and the system uses the 7-S framework and the balanced scorecard.
Together, these tools are selected because they set measurable target from bottom to top of the
perspectives, where the value is expected to be higher than alternative methods. Additionally, the
four spans will be applied for the reactivation of several roles which are underperforming but
deemed important for the success of transformation, leading to cost efficiency. The nine tests is
employed as it provides stringent and systematic check, works like insurance covering Danone’s
entire redesign operation from risk management pint of view. The business model canvas and its
triple-layered variation are recommended due to its contribution to incremental sales and gains in
sustainability, which is a focus of Danone globally. Project teams’ needs to be organized by topic,
each of this must keep alignment with other teams of the redesign efforts and cater to the company’s
overall performance. Lastly, change management tools should be utilized throughout the redesign
effort in order to keep the momentum. In particular, embracing a sophisticated and authentic
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leadership is an urgent need thus the level three leadership should be incorporated in order to grow a
reliable leader. Danone’s employees will be invited to engage themselves in Intron tools and
activities thus keep their curiosity to growth in alignment with the company (Morrison, 2008).
Conclusion
Research has identified the five main assessment tools for making a sound analysis of
Danone Japan. The tools will help break down the existing barriers and inefficient work rules,
then expose employees to potential opportunities to realize higher performance. The redesign
effort must put heavy burden to many employees some of whom may turn out conflicts and
oppositions. For a longstanding success, the leader’s commitment is crucial which will cascade
down to manager and below levels to conduce a holding environment, cradle for success.
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