Colliers International property Consulatants http:www'colliers'com

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Colliers International property
Consulatantshttp//www.colliers.com

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Suggested Study Questions

• 1. What challenges do Colliers and Stewart
  Forbes, its president, face?
• 2. Compare and contrast the Colliers organization
  with a traditional hierarchical firm. How
  appropriate is the Colliers organizational
  structure in light of the challenges the company
  faces?

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Suggested Study Questions (cont.)

• 3. What role does IT play in enabling the
  organization to meet its challenges? Do Colliers
  brokers and managers use IT appropriately and
  effectively?
• 4. What recommendation would you make to Stewart
  Forbes?

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Why the Colliers Case?

• Provides students to learn the challenges of
  managing a virtual organization and the role of
  IT in supporting inter-organizational
  coordination and control.

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Learning Objectives

• You should be able to learn how an organizational
  framework within which real estate firms, which
  were often small, entrepreneurial, and
  family-held, could remain local and autonomous
  while gaining national and international scope.
• Learn how Colliers rethink a range of strategic,
  organizational, and interorganizational issues
  and how IT systems were related to those concerns.

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Collier International Property Consultants
execution/ adaptation
Virtual Org.
Failure to ?
enable
Member firm
CompuServe
. .
Member firm
Provide value
sharing
Information
CSF
Quality, Consistency
participation/commitment
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FIVE COMPETITIVE FORCES MODEL for Colliers
International Property Consultants
Threats
NEW MARKET ENTRANTS
SUBSTITUTE PRODUCTS SERVICES
TRADITIONAL COMPETITORS
THE FIRM
CUSTOMERS
Bargaining power
SUPPLIERS
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Colliers Faced Three Major Challenges

• The trend toward globalization of markets and
  industries
• changes and threats customer requirements and
  needs Corporation began to look to brokers not
  only for buying and selling properties but also
  for managing them (i.e., shift from
  transaction-oriented to a relationship
  approach)
• Traditional competitors and
• New entrants.

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A Framework for Assessing Organization
Effectiveness
Defining Direction and building infrastructure
Executing and Adapting
Creating and Sustaining Value
Value creation
Environmental Context and Resources
Units, groupings
Society and government loyalty
Partnter loyalty
Incentives
Coordinating mechanisms
Authority
Formal and informal power

Decisions and actions
Customer loyalty
Employee loyalty
Purpose Core Values, Core Competencies
Boundary systems
Strategy
People
Values and Behavior
operation, processes
Control
Work
Management processes
Organizational capabilities, resources, and
leadership
Technology
Shareholder loyalty
Information and communication infrastructure
TN-5
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A Framework for Analyzing Organization Design
Defining Direction
Environmental Context and Resources

Purpose Core Values, Core Competencies
Strategy
Information Policy
Information and Communication Infrastructure
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Colliers Strategy and Purpose

• The Colliers network provided members
• flexible linkage of resources
• customize services to clients needs
• coordinate activities
• Network affiliation also provided local firms
  credibility and a reputation as an international
  player capable of closing complex deals.

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Organization Structure and Authority

• Corporate HQs played a leading role in
  identifying and negotiating with firms to join
  the Colliers federation.
• Authority within the Colliers network was highly
  decentralized corporate HQs was weak by design.
• Admission criteria
• level of performance
• fulfillment of Colliers responsibilities
• commitment to increasing the scope of client
  services

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Executing and Adapting

• Colliers organization design depended on trust,
  commitment, and cooperation coordination and
  control of operations depended on high levels of
  information sharing and personal networking.
• Colliers current authority structure and controls
  have been ineffective
• its network has been plagued by conflicts of
  interest, dual allegiances, spotty participation,
  and lack of commitment

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Sustaining Value

• Colliers key source value
• face-to-face networking opportunities provided by
  the annual meetings
• Process performance
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Benchmarks
• Other

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Evaluation of the Colliers Organization Design
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Control Problems Posed by the Colliers Network
Structure

• It is difficult to compromise between following a
  certain pursuit as an organization and
  maintaining a flat structure of independent
  firms.
• Diverse interests, skills and commitment are used
  to managing firms.

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Business Cycle Improvement
Streamlining the business cycle involves
simultaneous redesign of both operating
(organization) and management processes.
Core Operating Processes The primary activities
through which an organization designs, produces,
markets, sells, distributes, and supports its
products or services.
Management Processes The set of activities
through which an organization manages core
operating processes.
Exhibit TN-9
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Operating and Management Processes

• Core operating processes
• marketing scanning and intelligence
• identification of customers
• initiation of referrals
• management of deals (transactions)
• long-term relationship management
• Management systems to managing Colliers global
  operations (TN-5)
• Incentives
• perceived benefits
• peer pressure, and
• the commission structure

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How Colliers Changes its Organization Design?

• Increase centralized direction and control
• Support and facilitate the development of
  effective controls at the local level
• Need a uniting purpose and core values, and
  incentives and sanctions to enforce commitment to
  them
• Interorganiztional design
• Role of information (and IT)

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Information Technology Infrastructure and Role

• Information was centralized which conflicts with
  the highly decentralized, network organization
  that the firm has attempted to create.
• Communication networks are expensive, slow, and
  fail to provide necessary security and
  reliability
• Little integration of data, voice, video, text
  and graphics despite the preference of brokers
  for fact-to-face (rich) communication media.

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• High cost of an average database query and the
  lack of reliability and integrity of data
  severely limit the value of the information.
• A distributed, networked information
  infrastructure will be required to support the
  organization design
• Colliers possessed resources - money, people,
  expertise - that could provide services and
  implement and manage a distributed IT
  architecture.
• Need strong, effective leadership to exploit the
  potential of its IT-enabled business concept and
  system.

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Collier International Property Consultants
execution/ adaptation
Virtual Org.
Failure to ?
enable
Member firm
CompuServe
. .
Member firm
Provide value
sharing
Information
CSF
Quality, Consistency
participation/commitment
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Other Recommendations

• Other advice you would give to Stewart Forbes
  (information and communication management,
  training and support, etc..
• Is the company in crisis?
• Which model is the Colliers based upon?
• anticipatory implementation model
• leader-initiated implementation model
• crisis-driven implementation model

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Episode

• Regional consolidation efforts have continued,
  spurred by the growth of Colliers Jardine in Asia
  and colliers Macaulay Nicolls in North America.
  By the mid-1990s, Colliers has restructured to
  create regional HQs offices that assumed
  increased authority for governing regional
  operations.
• Interorganizational operating and management
  processes continued to be loosely defined and
  controlled. Participation, commitment, and
  coordination among participants had not
  significantly changed since the time of the case.

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Episode (cont.)

• While only minor changes in the IT architecture
  had been implemented since the time of the case,
  Louts Notes was scheduled for rollout throughout
  the global network in summer 1995. Lotus Notes
  was expected to replace CompuServ.

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Success or Failure Factors of IS
Succeed
Continuous
Service speed quality innovation
or
Business
Improve
Change Management
Survive
Radical
Technology
Organization
Management
culture
(Behavior)
(Human)
(Strategic Advantage)

• Structure
• attribute
• decision-making
• operation

• Ethically Acceptable
• Socially Responsible
• Politically control

uncertainty
Risks
Benefit
overcome
enhance
strategy
I S
A Digital Society
Ability flexibility to compress time and space
and to expand organizational knowledge and then
increase
1) choosing strategy 2) organizing the
business 3) organizing the systems management area
The Driver Servant
HUMAN ADAPTABILITY
organizational change
------Radical Change
Dr. Chen, Information, Organization and Control
TM -27
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Success or Failure Factors of IS (Contd)
organizational change
------Radical Change
Evolution of change
A FIRM/ORGANIZATION
Restructuring Competitive Advantage
Re-engineering Cooperative Advantage
Electronic Market flatten the organizational
hierarchical structure
Revolutionary significance lies in generality
e.g., steam engineers--triggered the first
Industrial Revolution Computers--Seem to be
triggering a second one.
Dr. Chen, Information, Organization and Control
TM -28