Assignment

Mohammed Abul and his family own the Long-lasting Boot (LLB) store. LLB is a specialty boot store located in the downtown area in a medium sized Scottsdale, Arizona and sells a broad line of boots to all members of the family including a novelty pet line. The store sells boots for work and recreation as well as a line of expensive cowboy boots for the tourist trade. The business is twenty-five years old. It has a reputation for being the best place to get boots in the community because of the selection, quality, and customer service. They will even work with custom designed boots for people with unusually sized feet or medical problems. The boots in some instances, work boots in particular, are considered expensive by middle class buyers but the construction quality is so long-lasting that it makes the higher prices seem worthwhile. Abul, who is 32 years old and just out of the military after 10 years of service, has returned to find the business at a crossroad.

The store is successful but sales are very slow growing at the moment. The family is looking to boost sales by developing a competitive edge for the future. Up until now the business has been successful because of the companyâ€^TMs ability to anticipate changing boot styles. In the past three years, sales have remained constant but growth has waned. Despite sales, the use of loyalty reward cards and staying open later in the evening, revenue has not grown. Yet, total sales in the Central City metropolitan area including the suburbs have grown substantially. Stores that sell in volumes like Wal-Mart and Payless have boot sales that pull in three times the sales of LLB.

The organizing function is where management gathers and synchronizes the resources of the organization (people, capital, and physical) to complete the goals set out in the planning stage.

Learning Activity #1 - Theme 1 & 2

One of the long-term goals set out by the LLB owners (from wee k4) is to increase sales in the cowboy boot line by 15%. The short term goal to accomplish this is to create a sales campaign that targets the tourist trade. This campaign includes:

Creation of an Internet website (this is part of a larger plan to instigate Internet sales in general)

Create a Boot blog

Exposure to local hotels and tourist eateries through pamphlets

Discount plans for hotel guests

Boot delivery service to hotels

Free shipping for purchases

The current budget for the cowboy/tourist portion of the marketing project is $40,000. Mohammed Abul is the marketing director. He wants to hire an assistant to oversee the cowboy/tourist boot line. The assistant will be in charge of the three current part-time sales associates, give purchasing direction to the purchasing department, run the boot blog, create new copy for the Internet website on a monthly basis, and execute all other duties related to the implementation of new boot tourist campaign. Salaries for the assistant and the associates are not included in this portion of the budget. Additional useful facts include:

Currently the structure of LLB has been adhoc in nature. The long-term decisions are made by the family, Joseph Abul (father, and his sons, Mohammed Abul (marketing) and Ali Abul (store manager). Fatima Abul (mother) oversees staff and Adoul Abul (brother of Joseph) does the purchasing. Yara Abul (daughter) handles the finances. There are two full-time sales associates and 8 part-time associates not including the new assistant and the cowboy boot associates. Store hours are M, T, W, F, S 10:00 am to 6:00 pm Thurs 10:00 am to 8:30 pm

Complete the following based on the information provided above:

1. Create a plan that organizes the physical and monetary needs to accomplish the goal of 15% sales plan. This plan would entail defining the physical and monetary requirements that must be used by the assistant to implement the goal.

2. Create an organizational structure for the business and the cowboy boot project.

3. Explain why you chose the structure as opposed to others that you did not choose and what the decision making flow and job tasks are for each person.

4. Illustrate the structure in an organizational chart.

Learning Activity #2 - Theme 2

1. Explain the type of culture that will enhance the organizational alignment of people in LLB;

2. Explain what organizational culture is and how it relates to the structure of the organization;

3. Explain why you chose the organizational culture as opposed to others that you did not.