Carson container company

1. What problems does Carson Container Company have that will affect its communications? Carson Container Company had 30 plants established across the Eastern part of the USA; the company’s procurement procedures weren’t coordinated. Plant managers were authorized to act as independent entities; they were aloud to sign the contracts with suppliers by their own. The supply channel wasn’t centralized; each regional enterprise bought a lot of stuff from local suppliers.

This decentralized approach had an influence on overall corporate strategy of dealing with employees, shareholders, customers and communities.

2. What specific problems does Mr. Haskell have as a result of his communications to materials managers? Due to the market changes the demand for Carson Company’s boltless was heated up, this trend was forecasted as a development for the next several years. The competitive pressure became stronger. Company was forced to lower the prices, but dealing with so diversified fragmented suppliers’ base became an obstacle for company’s efficiency and flexibility.

There was no ability to monitor prices for the ready product without having a price monitoring tool for supplying materials.

3. How would you analyze this case in terms of the expanded corporatecommunicationstrategy framework? The infrastructure of corporate communication was seriously broken, as it is obvious that neither face-to-face communications were established (because the travel expenses), no control and audit of communication activities at any kind.

The most critical recommendations in this case should include reengineering of general communication and information management process, providing the regular update of business activities and all the data related to them. The process of communication control and monitoring should be developed and the indicators should be taken as in normal working periods as in stressful situations.

4. What advice would you give Haskell to help solve his and Carson’s problems? The situation dictates immediate centralizing of suppliers’ contracts signing by central office.

The time is very busy and it would be a problem to centralize supplying, but to take authority to sign each agreement by main office and Mr. Haskell personally, will help to gather the information about all suppliers and prices and terms. Moreover the agreement form should be strictly standardized demanding for particular data and signed for the period of 3 months. This period of time will allow analyzing the data and making a decision on supplying centralization afterwards.

References:

1. Argenti, P. (2005). Corporate Communication. McGraw Hill. US, pp. 22.