Introduction
Mattel, Inc. is a United States-based international toy manufacturer. By the amount of products sold and revenue accrued, the company remains the largest global toy producer. Starting from the late 1980th, the company has been regularly ranked in the Fortune 500 list, receiving multiple global accolades for operational, strategic and human resources excellence. The brand portfolio of the company includes such internationally recognized products as the Barbie, Fisher-Price, Monster High, Winx Club and many others (Mattel, 2015).
Having operational presence in forty countries in the Americas, Europe, and Asia and selling its products to almost 150 countries, one of the key features of the company is its aggressive approach to international marketing. Whenever a promising toy manufacturer appears on the business horizon of Mattel, Inc. the company attempts acquiring it. In 1997, the company acquired Tyco Toys. Year 1999 was marked by the unprecedented purchase of The Learning Company (which initially aggressively opposed the deal). In 2000, the Walt Disney Company granted the company exclusive license for manufacturing it is the Disney Princess dolls. Later in 2003, in an attempt to maximize profits and reduce its overheads, the company announced closure of its last factory in the USA, completely outsourcing all manufacturing operations to China, Malaysia and Indonesia. In 2013, the Fortune Magazine listed the firm among the 100 best employers in the United States, emphasizing that the firm has one of the lowest turnover rates nationwide, as well as having one of the highest percentage of the staff members, who have spent more than 15 years with the company (Mattel, 2015).
Despite the fact that the company demonstrated impressive successes in the past, recently it faced a dramatic period of painful setbacks. In particular, the decision to open plants in China and other developing countries led to a series of bilious accusations from the environmental activists. Though no substantial proofs were provided, the company attracted much criticism for failure to implement environmentally sustainable development practices there. In addition to that, the toy-manufacturing department initiated several major recalls in 2006 (almost 7.2. million toys), 2007 (18.1 million toys) and 2014 (0.9 million products), after several independent commissions concluded that its products did not meet the minimum safety requirements and many potentially harm underage consumers. The Consumer Safety Products Commission fined the company several times for failure to comply with the regulations (Mattel, 2016). In addition to these problems, many commentators wrote that the company diverged from one of the fundamental elements of its mission, which is to ‘help the growing generations to develop through play’.
Coupled with the advent of modern technologies, it becomes evident that unless the company changes its vision, the situation may worsen. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that changing its vision is required for transforming the company into a modern-styled corporation. Specifically, it argues that adopting the new vision is necessary for making its toy making teams more energetic and modifying the company structure and culture. The practice demonstrates that these changes necessary for keeping afloat and developing further in today’s vibrant business environments (Wagner & Hollenbeck, 2010).
Connecting The Past, The Present and The Future
The vision statement of the company remains unchanged since the early days of its existence. Stating that the company aspires to be ‘the premier Toy brands – today and tomorrow’ and ‘creating the future of play’, the Mattel directors emphasized the importance of getting and retaining leading positions on the market. In their commentaries to this vision statement, the company executives emphasize that the key principle, on which the company founds its operations, is to act with integrity and giving positive impact to the people and the products. ‘Playing responsibly’ is the key aspect in this regard. Obviously, this approach to positing the company vision statement is too vague, oblique and generalized.
This vision philosophy was typical for the prosperous companies of the early second half of the twentieth century, when profits and market dominance were the two key metrics, which determined whether the firm was successful or not. In other words, current vision of the company focuses on making as big profits as possible, whatever the downsides of this approach may be.
However, today’s business practice shows that these corporate orientation and vision are not sufficient to keep the company afloat and growing. Specifically, the vision should embrace all major newly emerged determinants of business effectiveness and organizational excellence. The new vision statement contains the following elements:
It aspires to serve the best interests of children through different forms of physical and digital play, and to develop their skills and knowledge.
It focuses on innovation and creativeness.
In addition, the toys and other products manufactured by the company should adhere to the strictest requirements of environmental sustainability and preserve the natural environment for the new generations.
Transforming Mattel
Despite the fact that the company has comparatively stable financial position and an impressive portfolio of recognized products, its approaches to marketing and management are seemingly no longer consistent with the contemporary business realities.
Firstly, the new vision should help the company to reconsider its approaches to marketing. Today, the firm has strong positions on the market, but this situation is more connected with the situation that no other effective competitors are present. The firm should start sending a message to its targeted audiences that their products are not only ‘fun to play with’, but that its toys are powerful tools for boosting social and educational development of their children.
Secondly, although the company tries to stand abreast of all toy-related modern technologies, it regularly attracts severe criticism for its outdated approaches to strategic and daily management. In other words, in the era of flexible approaches to corporate governance and laissez-faire method of supervising employees, the firm still preserves its autocratic solutions (Kotler & Keller, 2006). The level of employee empowerment remains minimal if any, not to mention that the company uses traditional approaches to motivating its staff only.
Finally, environmental compliance is one of the focal issues on the today’s business agenda (Wagner & Hollenbeck, 2010). The new vision statement puts the importance of honoring corporate ecological commitments, even if the revenues may suffer.
Energizing the Mattel Teams
In modern economies, physical assets are quickly depreciating. What really matters are the company human resources and its intellectual property assets. While the IP portfolio of the Mattel enjoys solid legal protection, the company human resources policies are unlikely to meet the expectations of a typical modern employee.
The first essential aspect in this regard is that employee empowerment index is very low. This concept refers to the system of human resources policies, which allow an employee to contribute their inputs to the growth of organization, as well as to self-control and self-monitor their work processes. They are encouraged to offer new ideas and to discuss them openly. The practice demonstrates that members of an organization, who are ‘empowered’, are more loyal, productive and proactive.
Secondly, adoption of the new vision statement will show to the employees that the company is keeping in line with the global business evolution, thus becoming assured that their employments are safeguarded from the market fluctuations.
Recalibrating the Culture and the Systems
Today’s culture of the Mattel, Inc. is hierarchical, i.e. the company management on focusing on effectiveness, efficiency and stability and marketing and management. However, this approach is becoming less and less effective. Instead, the new vision revolves around the clan and market-oriented cultural frameworks. In particular, the new vision explicitly states that effective marketing approaches in conjunction with family-styled approaches to mentoring and supervising the employees are the main leverages for harmonizing their interests with the company’s ones.
In addition, the new vision statement of the company underscores the importance of adopting the new environmental doctrine. By designing and implementing the methods of environmentally sustainable production and development, the company can achieve two goals. Firstly, by reducing the amount of emissions released by its plants, it can really benefit the local and the global communities. Secondly, this type of environmental philosophy can help the company to increase its market share. The research demonstrates that more and more consumers make their buying decisions considering ecological issues, and, the fact that the company products are ‘green’ is another significant step to increasing the number of happy customers.
Conclusions
References
Kotler, P. & Keller, K. (2006). Marketing management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Mattel, Inc. (2015). 2014 Annual report. Web. Retrieved from http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/MAT/0x0x820303/68C602DD-88F3-47F8-ABB5-46635E8495D8/Mattel_-_Bookmarked_2014_Annual_Report_Final_.PDF
Mattel, Inc. (2016). Recall and safety alerts. Web. Retrieved from http://service.mattel.com/us/recall.aspx
Wagner, J. A., & Hollenbeck, J. R. (2010). Organizational behavior: Securing competitive advantage. New York: Routledge.
