WORKPLACE FABLES
Businessman and writer Mark Price shares his workplace fables - true stories from the business frontline that can teach us lessons about career success
The new boss of Emporium surveyed her empire, marked out by coloured pins on the large map hanging on her office wall. The business had grown from a few shops to hundreds across the country, all selling different things. “Keep the head office small” had been the mantra for many decades.
There had been boardroom tension as new members argued that there would be benefits in centralisation, and that head office should have more power and control. Eventually, those forces for change had brought in the new boss with a track record of working in highly centralised businesses.
The Centralising Boss decided to start by setting up a customer service call centre and built a huge state-of-the-art site, signing a contract with a third party to provide “overflow” services to cope with demand during peak times. It wasn’t easy as the new call centre operators had not worked in the shops and needed to know what to do on nearly everything: vast sums were spent on IT and training. But staff in the shops began simply referring any complaining customers to the call centre, which made the service feel less personal and immediate.
It was then decided that IT staff were still needed in each of the business units as they would have a better grasp of detail. But there were also heated arguments about how the IT budget was spent: more project managers were required and costs went up again, leading to speed and flexibility being lost.
Over a number of years, costs increased tenfold. Sales were impacted as good people left, and the staff were less motivated as decisions were made far away from them. When the Centralising Boss left, she was credited with transforming the business, but profits were a fraction of what they once were.
Moral of the tale: Centralisation is not necessarily more efficient or profitable
Staff were less motivated as decisions were made far away