Sterling Marking Products Inc.

Sterling Marking Products Inc. has much, much work to do organizationally in order to transmute itself into a worthy international business as even it's domestic operations have faltered. I will explore what went wrong and why they should invest in their organization more than expanding their product line or international reach. Also, I will discuss the steps Sterling can take to properly expand internationally while maintaining their 'morale' on boldness and innovation. Using their negative experiences in their Windsor and Toronto offices as an example, I will explain why, as one of their managers indicated, Sterling should focus all of their resources on developing better research and development and a stronger, more integrated sales department. The organization is stagnant with new ideas taking a backseat to stability and a gloomy rationalism. For organizations with structures in disarray and somewhat confusion, rapid international expansion isn't always the best option.

Sterling is too focused on spending precious resources mitigating uncontrollable forces such as their competitors and other political variables which control whether or not embossing equipment is even necessary. Instead, I recommend them to focus all of their resources into the basic tenets of their business, those controllable factors which they unfortunately haven't mitigated. By focusing on factors of production: their capital, raw materials, and people as well as the activities of their organization: personnel, finance, production and marketing, they could better weather those issues which come when a domestic company evolves into a multidomestic company.

That said, there are definite bright spots with their organization. Through discussing the needs of their clients directly, in this case Canadian lawyers for example, they were able to develop the Mark Maker, an amazing product. However, the lack of high pay and clear job titles frustrate employees who must feel unappreciated