Required : Compare Signodes approach to venture development with the organizational design alternatives. Venture teams offer corporations

 

  
 
 
Required: Compare Signode’s approach to venture development with the organizational design alternatives.

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Venture teams offer corporations the opportunity to capitalize on individual ta- lents together with collective wisdom and energy. A classic example from some years back was Signode, a $750-million-a-year manufacturer of plastic and steel strapping for packaging and materials handling, located in Glenview, Illinois. The company's leaders wanted to chart new directions to become a $1-billion-plus company. In pursuit of this goal, Signode devised an aggressive strategy for growth by developing new "legs" for the company. It formed a cor- porate development group to pursue markets outside the company's core busi- ness but within the framework of its corporate strengths. It also formed venture teams, but before launching the first of these, top management identified the company's global business strengths and broad areas with potential for new product lines: warehousing/shipping; packaging; plastics for non-packaging, fastening, and joining systems; and product identification and control systems. Each new business opportunity suggested by a venture team was to have the potential to generate $50 million in business within five years. In addition, each opportunity had to build on one of Signode's strengths: industrial customer base and marketing expertise, systems sales and service capabilities, containment and reinforcement technology, steel and plastic process technology, machine and design capabilities, and production and distribution know-how. The assessment criteria were based on selling to business-to-business markets. The basic technol- ogy to be employed in the new business had to already exist, and there had to be a strong likelihood of attaining a major market share within a niche. Finally, the initial investment in the new opportunity had to be $30 million or less. Based on these criteria, Signode began to build its V-Team (venture team) approach to entrepreneurship. It took three months to select the first team members, and initial teams had three common traits: high risk-taking ability, creativity, and the ability to deal with ambiguity. All participants were multidis- ciplinary volunteers who would work full-time on developing new consumer Venture teams offer corporations the opportunity to capitalize on individual ta- lents together with collective wisdom and energy. A classic example from some years back was Signode, a $750-million-a-year manufacturer of plastic and steel strapping for packaging and materials handling, located in Glenview, Illinois. The company's leaders wanted to chart new directions to become a $1-billion-plus company. In pursuit of this goal, Signode devised an aggressive strategy for growth by developing new "legs" for the company. It formed a cor- porate development group to pursue markets outside the company's core busi- ness but within the framework of its corporate strengths. It also formed venture teams, but before launching the first of these, top management identified the company's global business strengths and broad areas with potential for new product lines: warehousing/shipping; packaging; plastics for non-packaging, fastening, and joining systems; and product identification and control systems. Each new business opportunity suggested by a venture team was to have the potential to generate $50 million in business within five years. In addition, each opportunity had to build on one of Signode's strengths: industrial customer base and marketing expertise, systems sales and service capabilities, containment and reinforcement technology, steel and plastic process technology, machine and design capabilities, and production and distribution know-how. The assessment criteria were based on selling to business-to-business markets. The basic technol- ogy to be employed in the new business had to already exist, and there had to be a strong likelihood of attaining a major market share within a niche. Finally, the initial investment in the new opportunity had to be $30 million or less. Based on these criteria, Signode began to build its V-Team (venture team) approach to entrepreneurship. It took three months to select the first team members, and initial teams had three common traits: high risk-taking ability, creativity, and the ability to deal with ambiguity. All participants were multidis- ciplinary volunteers who would work full-time on developing new consumer

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SIGNODE ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE Introduction Organizational structures square measure systems that outline the hierarchy among any organization Its accustomed outline jobs their functions UN agency r... View the full answer