In this case study, Isolde’s market targets medical professionals and big hospitals. On the other hand, Emanuel’s market targets researchers who use sophisticated instruments and chemical/biological consumables. Emanuel uses customer service retention strategies, such as the marketing of his team of PHDs to brand their image and satisfy customers. Isolde revolves around being proactive in satisfying customers, responding to competitor initiatives, and employee feedback for the success of their business.
The main peril of the single-revenue structure is being bottle-necked into an idea that may not be sustainable. As mentioned in the readings, this was especially volatile given the recent events such as patents expiring or competitors becoming more attractive options. I think the social implications of a single-revenue structure, however, are extremely powerful. Peter mentioned the inevitibility that Isolde and Emanuel would split due to his different ideologies. In terms of what this does to a cohesive business, I have a difficult time imagining that the business would peak in efficiency when employees know that the status of their CEOs are not sustainable, and that there’s a strong level of politics that may pressure people to have to choose a side. On the other hand, I find a hard time seeing how a two-revenue structure would be bad practice if we could completely remove the social element. Having the flexibility to always adapt and shift focus to more lucrative markets seems like a fantastic idea, and it would remove the possibility of being bottle-necked as easily. Similarly, the argument was made that one revenue-structure uses labor, while the other uses machines, which would help the parallel structure in they would need fewer overlapping resources (people). I think that a two-revenue structure may be more difficult to plan and therefore execute, but I feel that there are a lot of benefits to be reaped once the system is in place.
If two departments were to be hypothetically merged together, I think that the biggest task of the CEO would be to find the optimal compromise. I think that there are different approaches that a CEO could take: 1.) Find the department that generates the most revenue, and allocate more resources and focus to this 2.) Focus on dividing the resources that both departments need equally and fairly. As a big believer of pragmatic approaches, I think that the latter should be slightly more prioritized. I think that there are a lot of “intangible” factors that are difficult to quantify, such as comapny morale, that are crucial to the success of a business. Because of this, I think that carefully treading around and being fair to both departments would more consistently yield a higher expected value of success than following a path that might hypothetically yield higher “peak” results
