The Fields case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Fields - Case Study Example La Petite Boulangerie (LPB) has 119 store outlets that specialize in selling croissants, breads, and other baked products (Ostrofsky and Cash 9). In 1987, Mrs. Field Cookies acquired the LPB as part of its diversification strategy. Assuming that LPB is a traditional organization in terms of giving more independence to individual stores and managers, this report will carefully examine factors that made the company experience net losses in 1988. As part of going through the main discussion, direct impact of Mrs. Field Cookies’ existing organizational vision, structure, culture, management style, overall business systems will be criticize based on the available academic theories. Right after acquiring LPB, Field’s initial action was to immediately reduce the subsidiary’s administrative staff from 53 down to 3 personnel (i.e. senior manager, operations, and R&D) (Ostrofsky and Cash 9). The main purpose of laying-off LPB’s existing employees was to absorb a list of overhead functions into Mrs. Field Cookies’ existing organization (i.e. accounting, finance, personnel, human resources, training and development). Instead of taking advantage of LPB’s existing employees, Fields were interested only in combining LPB’s existing products with Mrs. Field products aside from using LPB’s existing real estate (Ostrofsky and Cash 10). Considering the size of LPB, Mr. Field thought that owning LPB will help them create investment barrier to market competition. Since Mrs. Field Cookies were able to establish a strong brand in the market, Mr. Field thought that whatever product they add up to the company would easily sell (Ostrofsky and Cash 7, 10). Without taking into consideration of the current economic condition, Mr. Field thought that having a demographically driven growth is the key to their business success. Due to unsuccessful financing experiences in the past, Mr. and Mrs. Fields decided