Acme Inc. started in 1954 and has grown from 200 employees to 2,500 employees. Acme Inc. offers products ranging from giant slingshots to digital media platforms. About a month ago the CEO of the company, Sasha decided to expand one of their products from business to business to business to customer. The HR team then put together a cross-functional team to work on this new initiative together. The cross functional team consists of employees from different product departments, the legal team, and human resource managers. Within the first few weeks of working together, several issues derived – a) misaligned goals and priorities, b) too much or too little communication, c) lack of trust, d) disagreement in the method for measuring impact, and 3) relying on different technologies for collaboration and information management. Based on the issues identified above, take on the role of both an internal or external consultant and address the following:
How would you approach the issues identified of the cross-functional teams?
What are some of the pros and cons of being an internal or external consultant?
Explain the barriers of being an internal or external consultant as it relates to being a strategic partner in addressing the problem.
Explain whether being an internal or external consultant is more effective. Support your rationale with sources.
retty Little Thing as they are constantly using influencers and bloggers to promote and wear their clothes, as they know that their audience is young and fashion forward. This also means that they are constantly bringing out clothes that are very much on trend and ‘the in thing’ to wear. Another tactic used by these online brands is to give these influencers discount codes for their audiences as a way of enticing people to shop on their website. “Social media is an incredible tool at the fashion industry’s disposal for marketing. By leveraging social media brands can take control of public perception which is one among the many important factors in fashion marketing.” (Recklies, 2006). By having the control over the marketing process, brands can pick and choose who they want to promote the products and think about who will appeal most to a target audience. By doing this the brand are also able to control opinion and perception meaning that by showing the best parts of the brand and its products it will mean that more people will want to not only purchase the products but also support the brand. Some may say that the industry is manipulative and encourages conspicuous consumption by doing this.
Pretty Little Thing promotes several different influencers and bloggers on their Instagram. A reoccurring face would be the ever-growing fashion influencer, Emily Shak. She has a platform where she shows off her never-ending amount of clothes and her desirable style. Emily Shak has been known to collaborate with many brands and has even had a few of her own collections with some of them. Her Instagram has a mixture of high end and high street brands all over it, from Balenciaga to Pretty Little Thing therefore using someone like Emily Shak to promote their brand will influence her audience to shop there in a bid to achiever her lifestyle. Although someone like Emily Shak is a Slim and attractive woman Pretty Little Thing is also very keen on promoting body confidence and showing that not all girls have