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The Marketing and Sales Department was also housed in the administration block. It was
mostly sales orientated. The five sales managers were often away from the office, as were
the five technical support engineers, who were responsible for all installation work. During
the past 3 years, the expense bills of the Marketing Department had tripled from €35,000
to €100,000 per annum. This was claimed to result from greater activity and overseas
travel. There was little effective product marketing occurring, with the marketing manager
mainly concerned with the production of sales literature and the organisation of exhibitions.
There had been little effective marketing information available to the company until your re
organisation, with the information assistant mainly involved in maintaining records of
tenders and contract availability throughout the world.
The Technical Director and some his staff were also housed in the administration block,
separated from the Drawing Department in the factory. Two project managers had been
recruited during the past 3 years to help Burke develop new products, but most of their
time, and the time of others in the department, was concerned with the coordination of the
activities of Marketing, Production and Finance departments to ensure that all production
schedules were met. The Technical Department as a result has not had a good record in
the introduction of new products. Though there has been some work done towards the
development of a motorised valve, and a submersible with retractable arms, no functioning
products had yet been introduced into the market.
You are also aware that there is considerable friction between the Technical Department
and other areas within the factory, because of a lack of clear objectives and direction. The
administration block also housed the Office Manager, who was responsible for a whole
range of tasks none of which had been clearly defined.
The factory canteens were on the ground floor and basement of the administration block.
There were three dining areas; one for the directors which employed two staff, one for
management employing three (the chef was shared with the director's dining room) and
one for the remaining staff which employed four. There was a canteen manager who
organised the menus and the purchasing for all canteen operations. These canteens
provided heavily subsidised meals, which added a further €150,000 to the total wage bill.
With the directors' salaries, and other benefits, the total management wage bill was
€1,400,000 approximately €100,000 of which was non travel expense claims. The level of
management expenses had increased threefold over the last 3 years. All managers were
entitled to 5 weeks paid holiday a year. Management had access to the staff social club in
the canteen which provided low cost drinks at the end of work.
Structure
Burke Engineering had a rigidly centralised departmental structure, based on a functional
division of authority and responsibility. Directors had the final authority for expenditure of
any sum over €100, and had to agree to all recruitment.
All requests for liaison with other departments had to pass through the directors. The
structure had been slightly modified over the past 4 years with the creation of Technical
and Marketing departments. Within each department, there were a large number of
managers. Over the last 7 years, non board management numbers had increased from 20
to 36. It had been company policy to promote long serving staff into management
positions, and this is reflected in the analysis of skills, age, position and current salary
which is provided in Table 12 in Appendix A. Company policy had been to replace
supervisory staff with management wherever possible, with the result that management
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