Dilemma
KaiXin Electronics Co., Ltd offers the market a great variety of products and services. The company makes an accent on high quality and customer loyalty. In the field of operation of the company, there is an international corporation acting as a powerful competitor – X Co. At that, Jason, a general manager of KaiXin, has to encounter inefficient performance and decreasing profits. He assumes that KaiXin lacks a strong vision of its competitive advantage and works without a definite corporate mission. According to Hill and Jones (2012), “if a company’s strategy does result in superior performance, it is said to have a competitive advantage” (p. 2).
Sustainable competitiveness is a keystone arising from the concise analysis of the market, competitors, and customers. It shows a dire need of the company in the creation and implementation of a set of appropriate decisions that would ensure the two paramount indicators of success, namely, strategy and profitability. This issue became clear through the annual report of KaiXin performance and benchmarking provided by David, a vice manager.
It is important to point out that there is weak leadership management. It should be stressed that Jason works for the company for half a year. He was invited to head the company after the retirement of the previous general manager. In turn, Jason tried to do his best to improve the performance of KaiXin yet unsuccessfully. Moreover, the rival of the company strives to give the customers exactly what they want in time while KaiXin is not so flexible failing to offer unique and advanced products or services. The identified issue threatens not only the performance of the company but also can lead to the complete loss of the market gain.
In turn, the weak performance of the head company is to impact its subsidiary as well. Also, this situation negatively affects employees and stakeholders making them experience decreased rewards and the lack of promotion. It could lead to the overall dissatisfaction of the staff. Taking into account that KaiXin is a modern and relatively large company, it has all the opportunities to become more competitive through achieving superior performance. Although it faces some challenges in management, the company is to initiate proper measures as soon as possible. This is a Chinese company operating within the country.
Background
KaiXin Electronics Co., Ltd. was established in 1999 in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, China. The registered capital of the company is 6 million RMB. It has a branch in Zhoukou City, Henan Province that was established in 2009 with a registered capital of 50 million RMB. At present, the company has a strong product development capacity, production capacity, and quality assurance capabilities. KaiXin aims to provide customers with high-quality products and services.
The company history:
- 1999. The establishment of Shenzhen City KaiXin Electronics Co., Ltd.
- 2009. The established of Zhoukou City KaiXin Electronic Technology Co., Ltd.
- 2011. The establishment of Taobao Mall selling the products of the company.
Certification information is presented by the variety of the following certificates:
- In 2006, it passed through the FCC certification and the CE certification;
- In 2008, it passed through the ISO14001 certification and the ISO9001 certification;
- In 2009, it passed through the 3C certification and the HDMI Association certification;
- In 2011, it passed through the UL certification and the OHSAS18001 certification.
KaiXin focuses on the following products and services:
- HDMI series;
- HDMI HD line;
- HD HDMI conversion head;
- HDMI HD adapter;
- Mini DisplayPort cable;
- Mini DVI adapter cable;
- DisplayPort series;
- DisplayPort cable;
- DisplayPort adapter;
- Audio and video cable series;
- DVI / VGA series;
- DVI / VGA cable;
- DVI / VGA conversion head;
- USB series;
- USB 2.0 / 3.0 cable;
- USB adapter;
- Network cable;
- FireWire1394 series;
- Hard cable series;
- Hard drive data cable;
- Hard drive power cable.
To provide the context of the dilemma, it is essential to emphasize that the company is located in China and sells its products and services to the Chinese market. Therefore, it seems necessary to explain some points of Chinese business culture. They use an indirect style of business communication that enables people to hide their desires, needs, and goals. In this culture, preference is given to ambiguous communication that is dictated by the importance of respecting the other persons’ positions. Chinese tend to avoid negative answers such as “no” or “I do not agree with you” using evasive answers like “I agree with you to some extent”.
Thus, the context of the situation is the key to understand it. According to Bolman and Deal (2008), “facing uncertainty and ambiguity, people create symbols to resolve confusion, find direction and anchor hope and faith” (p. 253). Considering that culture embraces the whole organization with all its sections and employees, the leadership can use cultural features to unite people, establish the corporate goal, and achieve excellent performance. Nevertheless, there is no symbolic frame or rituals. However, Bolman and Deal (2008) state that “what is most important is not what happens but what it means” (p. 253). In this case, cultural peculiarities mean great capabilities and perspectives of development.
Decision Maker’s Point of View
To understand the dilemma deeper, it seems appropriate to present the general manager’s position on the situation. The following explanation reflects his position. I work for KaiXin for half a year. My previous experience includes the five years for ABC company and the three years for XYZ corporation operating in the field of innovative technologies. I worked as a CEO within the framework of transformational leadership. I believe that the significance of consistent improvement is caused by the realities of the modern world. In its turn, improvement promotes the design of a new vision that is essential to remain competitive and successful.
Speaking of the current performance of KaiXin, I consider that it lacks a strong mission and, therefore, concedes the competitor. At that, I have to stress that the rival of the company is an international company that has a huge experience of performance in different countries. Nevertheless, being a national company, KaiXin has significant potential to overcome problems and become competitive. At present, I find the corporate mission of the company is quite ambiguous.
Although it produces different products and offers several services, the target audience is not identified properly, and the segmentation of the market is not provided. In this connection, I will do my best to work in this direction determining the competitive advantage clearly and specifically. As for the competitive advantage, I agree with Hill and Jones (2012) who claim that “a company is said to have a competitive advantage over its rivals when its profitability is greater than the average profitability for all firms in its industry” (p. 4). It is also necessary to make sure that every staff member understands his or her responsibility and performs in the best possible manner.
Currently, my personnel is disintegrated and disoriented to some extent. There is a need to unite them. Furthermore, I believe that culture plays an integral role in achieving competitiveness. For the national company, I guess, it would be easier to follow cultural peculiarities than for the international one. Thus, I clearly understand the current dilemma and ready to continue my work for this company hoping to get the best results. I believe that the dilemma needs to be resolved within half a year or one year through common efforts and adequate solutions.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it should be noted that the case reveals the history and current environment of Chinese KaiXin Company that aims to offer customers high-quality services and products including a range of cables and adapters. The presented case involves quite complex aspects that need to be improved promptly. Among them, one might note weak leadership management, the lack of strong vision, and insufficient integration of employees.
Also, the general manager’s point of view was clearly stated to consider the situation from different angles. With this in mind, the core problem that needs to be resolved is the specification of the elaborate competitive advantage of the company. This decision is to promote the enhanced performance of KaiXin and the creation of healthy competition culture.
References
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2008). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hill, C. W., & Jones, G. R. (2012). Essentials of strategic management (3rd ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.