Custom «Mercedes Benz» Essay Paper

Mercedes Benz is a division of the Daimler AG multinational, a German automobile manufacturer. This is its brand name, and used to market luxury trucks, coaches, buses, and automobiles. The headquarters of the Mercedes Benz Company is in Stuttgart Germany, specifically Baden-Württemberg. The origin of Mercedes Benz was from Karl Benz in1886, when he created the first car powered by petrol. Mercedes Benz is the subsidiary of the Daimler AG company, with a cars division, which includes Maybach, Smart and Mercedes Benz car production. Other alliances the company has are with AMG, forming Mercedes-AMG, AND McLaren, forming Mercedes McLaren. The company has numerous production factories located in various parts of the world besides Native Germany. Some of these countries include Argentina, China, Austria, Bosnia, Egypt, India, Hungary, Nigeria, South Africa, and United States. Mercedes Benz vehicles have a reputation of durability and quality over the years since inception.

Some of the luxury brand models include Mercedes Benz: C-Class, GL-Class, M-Class, S-Class, and E-Class. Their current models range from heavy and light commercial equipment to passenger models. Some of its significant models over the years include the SSK Racing Car of 1928, the 300SL “Gullwing” of 1954, and the Mercedes Benz SLS AMG of 2010. The company develops cars with an environmental concept, such as fully electric, hybrid electric, and fuel cell powertrains. Apart from automobiles, the company also produces a brand of bicycles such as the Folding bike of 2007and the Trailblazer bike (Butterfield 2005, p.1). Mercedes also specializes in motorsport by producing cars for motor racing, e.g. the Formula 1. The company has a bunch of notable employees over the years, such as Paul Bracq who is the major designer of the 20^th century automobiles. Furthermore, the company still promotes technological innovations in its models e.g. the invention of the float carburetor by Daimler, used until fuel injection replaced it.

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The vision statement of the company is the one that defines their corporate goals, at the same time a beacon defining their policies and strategies. The vision of the Mercedes Benz Company is to be a first choice in provision of financial services to its customers and dealers in collaboration with their automotive brands. The company’s mission statement presents the purpose of the company in clear terms. The Mercedes Benz Corporation commits itself to financial services of excellence that create value for their brands, customers and dealers; contribute to the Daimler’s Group financial success; and, provides opportunities for their communities and employees where they work and live. Mercedes Benz being a for-profit company, its main objective e is to make money (Haig 2011, p.25).

However, it has other core values and like being the market leader of passive and active safety features, environmental leader, retaining customer loyalty, and remaining a prestigious company. To this effect, Daimler Group wants to maintain continued satisfaction of consumer demand for individual mobility, which now has a worldwide growth. They employ the concepts of sustainable mobility by producing low-emission, fuel-efficient, and safe vehicles with a main goal of reducing impact of their products on the environment and climate, e.g. through the “Road To Emissionfree Mobility” plan. Another plan is the “Road to Accident-free Driving” which plays a key role in generation of innovative assistance systems for prevention of accidents. The effectiveness of these systems in protection of health and life of the occupants of the vehicle including other users of the road is their main objective.

The management style of Mercedes Benz as employed by Zetsche was a simple one, “Fix it”. This helped the company though a tough transformation over its 100-years history. The chief engineer, Zetsche, transformed Mercedes Benz from a company with a practice of introducing three new cars in a period of ten years to a company that now produces ten new cars in a period of three years. He attributed this success to contemporary management styles, which exercised openness, swift decision making, and good engineering skills. This was a friendly, direct and spontaneous management style, and truly helped in the growth of the company. The organizational culture of the company provides free movement and interaction of staff from junior levels to management levels. This influences the management to select the participative style of leadership to run the company for effectiveness and continued growth. This is why Mercedes Benz remains one of the most-preferred luxury brands in the world, with its major clientele being the V.I.Ps in a given society, government officials, corporate executives, and celebrities (Marquart 2004, p.1).

The competitive advantages of the Mercedes Benz company lies on its founder’s philosophy. Gottlieb Daimler, the founder, put a philosophy in the creation of the Mercedes Benz Company, i.e. ‘The Best or Nothing’. Thus, the company shaped the future of mobility over a period of 125 years and remained a trademark in the world of automotives. The star on the Mercedes Benz symbolizes perfection in the combination of responsibility and fascination. It has a great innovative strength and constantly defines new milestones with regard to drive systems of the vehicle, design, comfort, and safety. The company plays a pioneering role in the safety technology field. Some of these safety mechanisms include the airbag (1980), the anti-lock braking system (ABS, 1978), and the Electronic Stability Program (ESP 1995).

Mercedes Benz for over a century has had a commitment to visionary design, standard-set innovation and extraordinary engineering. This makes it the best company to work for, especially for newly graduated employees who have skills and ambitions in the engineering field. The company allows its employees to practice creativity and innovation, enabling them come up with staggering inventions that take the automotive world by storm. They work to fulfill their founder’s promise of providing ‘the best or nothing’, thus they put in their best efforts and talents. Therefore, the employees and the management strive to make their workplace as a place for challenging, fulfilling and ability to reach their full potentials. The company also collaborates with the community surrounding its factories such as sponsoring football players, or other teams, and environmental protection (Morden 2007, p.15).

The types and structures of the organizational subsystems and systems review the organizational theory. Organization theory is the study of an organization to identify common themes that maximize efficiency, enhance productivity, solve problems, and meet stakeholder’s needs. This theory has three clear subtopics, which include the environmental, neoclassic, and organizational perspectives. They therefore complement studies done on human resource studies and organizational behavior. One of them is the Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy. This theory had several principles, which include requirement of specialization or training for office management; official jurisdiction in all areas of the company ordered by rules or by already implemented laws; and office hierarchy. This is a system of subordination and superiority.

On the contrary, the Mercedes Benz Company does not apply the Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy because of its open office style of management. This company is a flat organization with little or no strict rules for operations. The management and the employees interact freely at their workplace to achieve the objectives of the company. A junior employee can easily approach a senior management staff to discuss a new idea, an innovation, or a problem identified while carrying out an assignment. The managers take these ideas seriously and implement them for the growth and development of the company (Alkhafaji 2001, p.32).

The management style most evident is the scientific management theory. This is a theory by Fredrick Winslow Taylor. It encourages production efficiency and productivity. Taylor argues that control of inefficiencies in the company could be through managing the production process as a science. This involves knowing exactly what the men have to do and then ensuring that they do it in the best and cheapest way. This affects both employers and workers, and puts emphasis on the control of labor force by the management team. The theory has about four inherent principles, which guide it (Alkhafaji 2003, p.54). These include the creation of a scientific measurement method that replaces the conventional “Rule-of-Thumb” method and placing emphasis on training of workers by the management. Others include collaboration between workers and management to ensure achievement of these principles and employing equal division of labor between workers and managers. The Mercedes Benz team partly follows the scientific management style to ensure that it give the employees an opportunity to exploit their full potential and reaching their full heights. However, they do not exert firmness in management as they give employees freedom to explore and invent (Cogliandro 2007, p.1).

The competitive advantage theory suggests that all workers are better off when decision-making bases on competitive advantages in all levels i.e. individual, local, corporate, and national. It requires optimal resource utilization and globalization of services and manufacturing across the world. The theory bases on an assumption that there is availability of adequate employment opportunities for those who engage themselves to leverage competitive advantages over others. This only applies to the degree whereby they can optimize their own potential. Furthermore, resources move to where they get the best opportunities for employment irrespective of any differences in socio-cultural settings. Mercedes Benz employs this competitive advantage theory by assigning duty to employees according to their expertise and level of specialization. This ensures perfection in the production process and seasoned finished goods that take a good position in the market. They also assign resources to sections where they get maximum exploitation such as locating their manufacturing and assembly factories in countries with low costs of production, especially the labor force. This leads to release of cheaper products into the market making them even the more competitive (Griffin 2010, p.244).

The X and Y management theory strongly influences the beliefs about the attitudes of workers. The management style of theory X states that managers believe workers lack ambition naturally and therefore need incentives to increase their perspectives. Managers in this theory use authoritarian styles of leadership. Managers believing in theory Y maintain that workers have a natural drive to take responsibility. Managers in this theory encourage workers to participate in the processes of decision-making. Mercedes Benz mainly applies theory Y style of management whereby it allows the employees to participate in the decision-making process by involving them through groups, brainstorming sessions, and organizational learning. They adapt and enforce new policies and strategies brought up by junior managers, workers or departmental heads (Alkhafaji 2003, p.54). Apart from giving employees a chance to take part in the decision making process, this also boosts their esteem as they feel honored and acknowledged by the management. Thus, they give their best while at work, and their best results to great sales for the company.

In conclusion, I suggest that the company expands its production scale and range of new models produced on a yearly basis. The company can also try locating new factories in countries with low subsidies, especially tax havens, to reduce the cost of production of their cars. This also reduces the cost of freight and insurance as transportation and logistics costs reduce tremendously due to nearness of the manufacturing plants to the markets. The company should also adapt the use of latest technology. This makes their cars more elegant and stylish to the extent that they remain at the top as the most elegant brands of automobile. This allows the company to maintain its market share and position in both consumer and enterprise markets (Allan 2005, p.3). Further employee participation makes them more pro-active to creativity and innovation, enabling the company to come up with new market designs and products for their cars, to enhance their comfort ability and style.