Mrs. Fields Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Mrs. Fields - Case Study Example However, the main reason behind the dramatic success of the Mrs. Fields’ Cookies was its exceptional management philosophy and management information systems (Richman(a)). In the process excessive international expansion, Randy and Debbi, made sure that they have control over all branches and were not in favor of franchising the outlets. According to them, franchising would have resulted in hurting their management philosophy and quality of business (Richman, 5). Debbi believed in guiding the employees with example and regularly visited its stores in this regard. Management information system of the Mrs. Fields’ Cookies was designed in order to keep control over all stores and to provide the required information to all store managers in order to take better decisions. Information systems at each store helped the managers in the process of taking important daily operational decisions (Richman, 6). Hence, less autonomy is given to the store managers and employees. On the other hand, LPB had completely different management practices and philosophy. The store managers and employees of LPB were provided with the required autonomy and freedom to take important decisions regarding day to day operations at the bakery. Apart from this, LPB does not have the carefully and cleverly build information system. Randy and Debbi were not able to understand these differences and modify the information system according to the new requirements, which in turn resulted in losses after the acquisition of the LPB by the Fields. INTIAL ACTIONS OF FIELDS UPON ACQUIRING LPB AND ITS ANALYSIS: The first most action taken by the Fields upon the acquisition of the La Pettie Boulangerie (LPE) was the reduction of the overall staff of the bakery chain. The administrative staff was reduced to 3 from 53 (Richman, 9). The reason provided by the Fields for this was that all overhead activities and tasks were integrated with the existing management structure and organization, this inc ludes several important tasks like human resources, finance, training and several other. The three people kept belonged to operations and research and development department (Richman, 9). This step of reducing the staff and merging overhead functions with existing organization allowed to cut down the overall cost of operations. Apart from this, integration of the operations and reduction of staff was supportive to the management practices of Debbi and Randy and they could have gain more control. Although, this decision was taken by the Fields in order to manage the acquisition more effectively and efficiently but at the same time this decision would have resulted in resistance on part of the store manager and other employees of the LPB. The decision of reducing the staff would have discouraged and de-motivated the employees and at the same time the level of trust over the new management would have reduced. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE FIELDS AND LA PETTIE BOULANGERIE: De bi and Randy were of the view that La Pettie Boulangerie (LPB) was similar to their own business. However, it was important to acknowledge first that the similarity between both businesses was only limited to the type of industry in which they were operating, as the products were related to each other. Debi and Randy wanted to enter into a whole new segment in the bakery industry and for this purpose acquired La Pettie Boulang