CASE STUDY 1: ZENWORKS PRODUCTIONS

Zen Zainal was a bright young communication graduate working for a production
company. Although he was very successful as a director with the production house, and
liked his job, which involved directing and producing TV dramas, he decided to leave his
job and start his own production company. He borrowed money wherever he could get
it. Despite his enormous efforts and his good ideas, he failed and almost went bankrupt.
Finally, he succeeded after a large media group bought one of his TV drama ideas. But
success was followed by failure, and sometimes after failure he would succeed again.

Employees liked to work at Zen’s company, ZenWorks, where the atmosphere was
casual. The working environment was conducive to developing new ideas. Yet the
competition from large, well-managed production houses grew. Still, some brilliant
ideas resulted in a great demand for several of his TV dramas. In fact, the demand was
so large that the company could not keep up with orders, and there were shortages. But
an expansion required capital (and investors).

Consequently, Zen decided to go public and merge with a large company. This made the
owner-entrepreneur several million dollars richer. Zen remained as the head of
ZenWorks, but his interest in running the company decreased and observers described
the state of the company as “chaotic.” Zen admitted that he was not a good executive
and agreed to a reorganization in which Johan Merican, an old friend, took over the
leadership of the company as President. One of the first decisions of the new president
was to appoint a new marketing manager to overcome the weakness of ZenWorks,
which in the past had been dominated by people with technical backgrounds.

Johan also showed strong managerial leadership, developed many new procedures, set
specific objectives, and enforced strict financial controls. The change from a relaxed to a
strict managerial approach annoyed many of the experienced technicians, especially the
production teams. Since there was a large demand for their services, thus providing
many job opportunities, many left the company. Some even established their own
production companies and became direct competitors to ZenWorks.

1. Why did employees like to work at ZenWorks in the beginning?

2. What was different about Johan’s approach to managing?

3. How would you solve the problem of ZenWorks losing their experienced technicians?

Produce a powerpoint presentation (max 5 slides) to discuss:

Application of theory to the case (3 marks)
Problem solution – accuracy and creativity (3 + 4 marks)