RONDELL DATA CORPORATION CASE ANALYSIS

Submitted by Group 7:

Akash Kumar – UM19085

Debojyoti Guha – UM19091 Submitted to:

Rashmi Agarwalla – UM19117 Prof. Indranil Chakrabarti

Richie Agarwal – UM19120

Satwik Dash – UM19126

Rondell Data Corporation was first set up by Bob Rondell, the founder, as
“Rondell Equipment Co.", to manufacture several electrical testing devices. The
company increased its business during the '60s to include data transmission
equipment. The company was famous for its high-quality innovative designs and
by 1947, they had branched out into Radio Broadcasting Equipment with another
addition in the early 1960s in the form of Data Transmission Equipment. The
Broadcasting Equipment division accounted for 35% of the sales while the
increasing demand for unique specifications kept the Data Transmission
Equipment division blossoming. Rondell’s success was spearheaded by its efficient
product design and the company saw a huge growth in the number of employees
from 100 in 1947 to over 800 in 1978.

In the case given, it can be seen that the Rondell Data Corporation is overcast with
a shadow of numerous conflicts at various levels. The conflicts stemmed from the
rise in disputes among the research department, engineering department, and
production department over the past few years. The conflicts are centered around
the introduction of a new product and highlight the inefficiencies of the
organizational structure inherent in Rondell. Also, the lack of proper
communication and coherence among the different departments also take center
stage. The rate of growth of the company was not in proportion to the growth of
the different departments and hence there was a visible disconnect in terms of
interaction among them. The engineering department had to suffer the most
because of this as its workforce was spread across different departments. Thus, the
company lacked a clear purpose or mission and the command hierarchy was
unfortunately unknown.

The Organizational structure at Rondell Data Corporation was based o several

beliefs, one of which was to consider the length of employment for the selection of
key individuals. The veterans of the company enjoyed informal relationships and
that formed the backbone of the operations. It is quite surprising that in spite of
such a culture, there exists an evident uncooperativeness among the different
departments. The issues have not been owned up by any department and it all came
down to each department resorting to a blame game.

Thus, as a group, below are the recommendations on which we zeroed down after
undergoing a fruitful analysis:

 Increased and better communication among the different departments to

reduce information asymmetry and improve coherence
 The targets set should be realistic in nature so that quality is not
compromised and commitments to customers are met as well.
 The sales team must be in complete coherence with the ESD and production
team before making any commitment or announcements to the customers
 The issue of lack of inter-departmental conflict should be addressed actively
which is currently absent as can be seen from the instance when Mr. Bill
Hunt conveniently avoided the topic when it was picked up by Mr. Frank
Forbus
 Doc Reeves is undoubtedly the most talented and most knowledgeable
member that Rondell has, but he tends to be unrealistically optimistic which
can sometimes draw other departments into trouble in order to meet such
ambitious goals. He should understand that all the employees are not up to
his mark in terms of efficiency and performance
 There is a need for regular interdepartmental meetings to make sure that all
the departments are on the same page. This would help the organization
remove the communication gaps that currently exist
 The company should encourage cross-functional operations to accomplish
the key tasks that it has cut out for itself
  The Engineering Services Department should employ project management
that would help the department in monitoring, coordinating and planning the
project processes
 The performance of Rondell Data Corporation can be improved manifold by
integrating the following strategically:
 Improved Organization structure and design
 A certain degree of formalization within the organization
 Clearer lines of authority and distinct levels of hierarchy
 More Vertical Structure
 More centralized decision making
 More emphasis on team building, team participation, and
decision making

According to our group, the above-mentioned points and recommendations can

help the Rondell Data Corporation achieve improved performance and increase
efficiency. If the above steps are implemented, it is assumed that there would be a
marked increase in the coherence existing among the different departments and
that would in turn help in depleting the communication gap. Also, a proper
structure and a predefined flow of the decision-making activities would also be a
great advantage for a company that is big but facing difficulties at present.