Name: Himanshu Baranwal Roll No – P39074

Case: The Paradoxical Twins: ACME and OMEGA electronics

Analysis:

Technological Products of Erie was the company bought by the Cleveland manufacturer. And
then Cleveland sold the electronic division consisting two plants to two different investors which
were later renamed as Acme Electronics and OMEGA Electronics Inc. These two companies
initially manufactured computer chips and printed circuit boards and were counted under
complex and stable industry. These companies aimed for similar contracts and were always in
competition with each other. These organizations also had similar size, organization environment
and domain but different organizational structure.

ACME had annual sales of 100 million and employed 550 people having Mr Tyler as President.
The company followed a more organized structure and have standard operating procedures
defined for their tasks. The behaviour of employees was formalized and they followed the
vertical job specialization model with narrowly defined jobs. They also followed the
differentiation model in which workers of one department has no idea about other departments.

OMEGA had annual sales of 80 million with 480 employees having Mr Rawls as president. It
followed the horizontal job specialization model and initially made every new employee work in
the different department. It does not have standardization of procedures and has a very informal
way of communication between employees. This organization also had a good integration among
its departments with a good environment for innovation.

The market started changing from 1990 from PCBS and computer chips to system on chip
technology which further combined with analog functions. With this changing international
market, ACME and OMEGA also decided to change in this changing environment. Both of these
companies made bids for designing 100 prototypes with ACME bidding at a slightly lower price.
But having time constraint both ACME and OMEGA were asked to develop 50-50 i.e. total 100
prototypes by Christmas. These tasks were approached differently by both ACME and OMEGA.

Acme having specialized departments and formalized behaviour of employees was not able to
cop up with this uncertain market. Each department handles their individual tasks differently and
this caused a lot of delay in production. Due to technological advancements company was not
able to come up with innovative solutions and also missed the fault in design. Due to these
Name: Himanshu Baranwal Roll No – P39074
Case: The Paradoxical Twins: ACME and OMEGA electronics

factors they struggled a lot in completing their work under the timelines and even missed the
testing of the appliances due to which they got 20% defects.

While coming to OMEGA dealt well with this uncertain market and their organization structure
made them do things in a very easy manner. They were opened for innovations and even found
the fault in the designs. They also got all the resources with each other help and delivered the
prototypes with 0% defect under the same timelines.

Initially, OMEGA succeeded in making the prototype and dealt well with the market uncertainty.
They did this because of their simple organization model which proved good for innovation and
creating less number of products. While if we see in the long run ACME cracked the deal just
because of its organizational structure and way of working. Although ACME didn’t do well in
initial days but later because of formality in behaviour and standardization of procedures made
them cut the price by 20% and thus struck the final deal.