In the case of Marimekko, we are introduced to the structure of this company, which Kirsti Paakkanen has reworked. She found incredible success for Marimekko, despite the lack of diversity among the company and the lack of hierarchy within the organization’s structure. Marimekko is a design company that produces different apparel, accessory, and furniture products (Mitchell 8). They pride themselves on their brand image, their mainly female oriented company, and their sense of patriotism for Finland. There is a set structure in the sense that everyone ultimately answers to Paakkanen; she is the heart and the center of the network chain. Paakkanen strives to apply continuous improvement processes by enforcing the designers put their name on the products they personally produce (Mitchell 5). This gives a sense of responsibility to the designers, who then strive to produce their best work. The company is extremely organized and works through methodical processes. Each designer has a role, each designer is accountable for their work, and the design process is very methodical. The designers must complete certain tasks in a certain order to create the whole picture or product. Paakkanen has a mentality of efficiency and high-quality products (CVA 11). Failure is not an option for Paakkanen, which is exactly what the red or control quadrant stands for. She states, “I knew that it would be a tough job to turn Marimekko around, but I knew I would not and could not fail […]” (Mitchell 3). Lastly, the control quadrant is also known as the optimizing quadrant (CVF 1). Marimekko strives to optimize their company by expanding their product line, hiring more designers, and potentially growing internationally (Mitchell 11).
Marimekko is now in a place of wide-spread success after their downfall during Finland’s recession. Paakkanen reworked this company from the ground up and now finds herself at the head of a successful company. The company has created value through their attention to detail along with ability to recognize incremental opportunities. For example, “Paakkanen boosted the role of the individual designers by giving them profit responsibility on their designs, […] emphasizing the profitability of their designs” (Mitchell 5). Clear roles and value is created when a unit connects practices, processes, and systems with growth objectives. She has done trainings with the designers in the past, maintaining her control over her workers and the company. Marimekko exhibits qualities of a control quadrant company since they have clear roles, they work in a timely fashion, and they have one head manager, Paakkanen (CVA 11). Paakkanen runs the company with the mentality of a red quadrant since she is the coordinator the fabric companies Marimekko works with, she monitors the entire company, and she is the organizer among the designers. Everyone in the company is a diligent worker, since Paakkanen made it clear, “[…] there was one condition: the designs had to be profitable” (Mitchell 6). This gave the designers a sense of accountability, which pushed them to have a best-in-class focus. Also, the company has regained their consistency of brand image under Paakkanen’s management style. The company is always improving upon their innovation of designs or the products they produce. Paakkanen also utilizes systems and stable project management, “In managing designers, we have to make the controls to ensure that they are well briefed about what we want. The briefing process is one of the most vital parts of what we do” (Mitchell 8). Marimekko falls into the control quadrant, also known as the optimize quadrant, due to the control of Paakkanen and the work processes in the company (CVF).
The two main issues at hand are quite contrary to one another, but they ultimately come down to Paakkanen’s work style and how she runs Marimekko. While Paakkanen has generated extreme success with her persistence as a control quadrant leader and her clear objectives for the company, she’s at a fork in the road. She must choose between staying with Marimekko and expanding the company internationally or starting to train a successor to take over her management role in the company so she can retire (Mitchell 11). Kirsti is dependable and reliable, a perfect control quadrant leader. But due to her micromanaging she doesn’t necessarily teach her workers. She informs her workers of what they’re supposed to do and is helpful (CVA). But, no one knows how to run the company or organize the different aspects of the product making like Paakkanen due to her lack of hands-on training of her employees. So, at this point in her career, she does not have a successor, who she would be comfortable leaving the company with, so she feels that she should not retire (Mitchell 11). This is completely fine since she has worked so hard to optimize the company and wants to continue to do so, but if something were to happen to her, she has no one to fill her shoes due to her control personality.
On the other hand, if she chooses to stay and expand, she faces a few challenges. The company has a strong sense of their Finnish brand image, which could potentially be lost by expanding internationally. Plus, Paakkanen would not have as much control over the branches internationally, which is not how she tends to work. She loses control over aspects such as distribution or manufacturing (Mitchell 10). This could cause conflict among different subsidiaries internationally, which would hurt the company. Also, there may be a lack of demand for this type of unique design that Marimekko offers (Mitchell 10). If they expand internationally, people may not understand or appreciate the company’s designs and the market could fall short. Lastly, if she continues to stay and expand with the company, she is still the only one in charge. Yes, she brings success, but others must learn to take on some of her roles in the company or some sort of hierarchy must be enforced. This will benefit the company and Paakkanen down the road when she is forced to retire and no one will fill her shoes. This becomes even more complicated when involved the international expansion.
Two key concepts that are affecting the company include team norms and elements of diversity, or lack thereof. Teams norms are influencing Paakkanen’s current issue of being able to retire. As a red quadrant manager, Paakkanen is a micromanager. She oversees every aspect of the company; there is no one else that does all the roles that she does (Mitchell 9). Yes, there are project leaders who designers must answer to, but they do not manage any other aspect of the company. Plus, these team leaders are nowhere near qualified to run the company in the same manner that Paakkanen does. Since the entire company is so used to being managed solely by Paakkanen, it would be against their status quo to begin to look to someone else for all their direction (Hackman 248). This issue also adds to their work being all about the process (CVA 10). They have fallen into a pattern of everyone doing their tasks and calling it a day. They do put out their best work, but it has become repetitive. They could fall flat if they continue with their team norms. Paakkanen may think that without hierarchy, the team functions well but sometimes rebuilding a company without set structure can back-fire (Hackman 252). They must break their norms to move forward with either the expansion or the finding of a successor for Kirst.
Another key issue is the lack of elements of diversity in the company. The company is mostly female based and there are few men involved (Mitchell 7). This is not an issue per say, but in time, the lack of a male perspective in the company about designs starts to change their target market (Grant 1). Female designers may start to only tend to female consumers, which cuts their market in half. With more men involved, more design ideas are generated within the company (Grant 2). Another element of diversity that is lacking is the diversification of people’s backgrounds. The employees are all of Finnish background. This means they all come from the same area, all speak the same language, and this can cause them to think similarly or act similarly. Diversity in a company brings success because it brings new ideas and brings different peoples experiences to the table (Simmons 5). These people do have their own story, but they lack the culture. To expand internationally, people must be more versatile in their awareness of other markets and their needs. More diversity among the types of workers can lead to breakthrough ideas for Marimekko (Simmons 5). Lastly, the lack of diversity among the roles of the employees. They all answer to Paakkanen and a few project leaders. This causes less people involved in the network chain. Yes, a closed network chain can be helpful, but it also can cause reoccurring products to be produced. Without innovation of designs, the company is destined to flatline. She needs to create and implement different levels of workers, so that more people are involved and she can start to see who would be a good fit as her successor. Right now, ultimately everyone is on the same playing field, and after a while that may cause Marimekko for fall short (Hackman 252).
Two solutions for the company include Paakkanen staying to expand the company and creating a new structure that involved hierarchy so she can train a successor. Or, the other option is Paakkanen staying and focusing on expanding the company, and not adjusting anything else. Based on the qualities of a red quadrant company, Marimekko must stay task focused and continue to have quick asset turnover (CVA 11). They current are achieving this, but they must keep it up. They also could expand internationally, since their goal is to optimize their company (CFA 1). Either choice fits the control quadrant and can benefit Marimekko.
Paakkanen choosing to stay with Marimekko to start training a successor is a strong choice for her and the company. This still gives her control over the company, since she will be personally choosing who will take over for her. She can train her successor to manage exactly how Paakkanen desires. That way, when it comes time for her to retire, she is comfortable leaving Marimekko in this person’s hands. With finding a successor she will be adding some sort of hierarchy within the group, creating even more control for her before she prepares to retire. This boosts diversification of roles in the company, which can be used as a type of reward system. If people are accomplishing their work in a successful time frame and manner, they can hold a higher role in the company. On the other hand, if Paakkanen stays to find a successor she could fall short in a few ways. Her mentality may shift to strictly focus on finding a successor and she may fall behind on her duties with subcontractors or may miss mistakes made by designers. Or, Kirsti may fail to train her successor since she is a micromanager. She may not delegate enough work and training to her successor and then she won’t have someone who is prepared to take over for her.
If Paakkanen stays with Marimekko and chooses to focus on expanding the company internationally she will have some big choices to make. This may benefit her since she may continue to see success for herself in the company. She will continue to maintain the respect of her workers and her positive image. As for the company, it may find booming business internationally. Their designs could be adored worldwide, this will also benefit the designers since people will begin to know their names. Some big issues that may arise are the struggle to break against their group norms. By potentially having to add more men or by expanding past their boundaries of Finnish workers, there becomes changes the company hasn’t faced before. Plus, expanding gives less control to Paakkanen. Yes, they may be optimizing on their target market. Or, it could backfire and no one may take to the products of Marimekko very well. Lastly, this could create in groups and out groups, causing tension among workers in Finland and internationally. Working on an international scale may be too much for Paakkanen to handle.
12.02.2019