Serangoon Singapore market shares have shrank from 70% to 40% within five year duration. This is attributed mainly to marketing competition by foreign companies. The companies are aggressive in their marketing and have managed to squeeze profits for crate manufacturers. Harmony should exist between manufacturing and marketing for successful business. However, the two are always conflicting. Manufacturing and marketing department influence decisions on product development, planning of sales, development of process, and planning of manufacturing (Karmarkar, (1996).The largest market of Serangoon Singapore is Singapore market which is responsible for 80% of its total sales. The only exports they do are for yogurt food containers which they export to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. This is clearly over-reliance on one market and can be greatly disappointing in many situations. Exploring different markets is what Serangoon Singapore is lacking.
Serangoon Singapore has taken a great step in holding negotiations with trade union representatives.Together with a set committee, the representatives discuss salaries an employee working conditions. However the negotiations are characterized with confrontations and time consumption. Clearly no better decision can be achieved with confrontation. Their failure to include worker representatives is also a cause for their challenge. The manufacturing company is therefore facing worker inflexibility and complicated labor grading system.
Centralisation of Serangoon Singapore means that all decisions are made the board members with no involvement of workers. The company, despite being one is split into two: the management and the workers. The workers are represented by trade union. These individuals are prone to strike as it’s the same trade unions that fail to have a non-confrontational meeting with the select committee.
Communication is an important component in an organization. Serangoon Singapore managers has poor communication with the stakeholders such as market analysts and investors. Cases exist whereby many stakeholders don’t have adequate knowledge of the company other than what is in the financial statements. Suggestions that the company should withdraw from the beer crate company have been voiced but with the poor communication channel no action has been taken so far.
Employee engagement is important. Perrin’s Global Workforce Study (2003) defines it as the willingness of the employees to push the company towards success. Serangoon Singapore is a centralized company and therefore employee opinions do not count. However, they should note that engaging their employees ensure productivity, profitability, growth and satisfaction of customers. Deetz (1982) states that employees need to be involved and allowed to participate in an organization. Involvement of other people means a combination of ideas and creation of multiple realities. The company should hold forums with employees where they can channel their views and the managers can give detailed explanation of the companies’ goals
Instead of attributing their failure to aggressive marketing of foreign companies, Serangoon Singapore should find a way to integrate manufacturing and marketing. Their strategies should conform to low cost manufacturing and a high cost marketing strategy which will create entry barriers to the foreign competitors. The management should accelerate research to ensure new product formulation to keep up with the market competition (Hausman et al., 2002). The management should ensure quality conformance. (Russell and Taylor, 2003), defines quality as the adherence to specification. The marketing ability of a product comes from its ability to satisfy needs. Following that strategy, the company will perform better.
- Deetz, S. (1982). Critical interpretive research in organizational communication. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 131-14.
- Hausman, W., Montgomery, D. B., & Roth, A. (2002). Why Should Marketing and Manufacturing Work Together? Some Exploratory Empirical Results No. 20/3, 241-257.
- Karmarkar, U. D. (1996). Integrative Research in Marketing and Operations Management. Journal of Marketing Research, 125-133.
- Russell, R. S., & Taylor, B. W. (2003). Production and Operations Management. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
