Briefly respond to the following questions:

1. At which of Greiner’s phases of growth would you place Sunflower Incorporated? Explain the factors that led you to your choice.

In my opinion, Sunflower Incorporated could have been placed in Phase 3 of Greiner’s phases of growth. Phase 3 being: Growth Through Delegation, which the phase ends with a Control Crisis: A much more sophisticated head office function is required, and the separate parts of the business need to work together.

I will focus with Phase 3: Growth through Delegation. In this phase, as mid-level managers are free to react fast to opportunities for new products or in new markets, the organization continues to grow, with top management just monitoring and dealing with big issues—“Sunflower Incorporated is a large distribution company with more than 5,000 employees and gross sales of more than $550 million (2003)”. We learned from the case that there were twenty-two regions for Sunflower Inc. Each region had its regional executive or manager, and each had its own profit center. This is similar to each region of the company being treated as a separate business. Each had its own central warehouse, salespeople, finance department, and purchasing department and their profits and losses for a profit center are calculated separately. Each regional manager is focused for the region they are responsible and have their own processes for delivering products or offerings that offer value for the customers in their region. These mid-level managers are busy identifying their customers, how to satisfy them and keep them since the competition in that industry is so intense. For example as the case mentioned, “In the northeastern United States, people consume a greater percentage of Canadian whiskey and American bourbon, whereas in the West, they consume more light liquors, such as vodka, gin, and