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Sumeet Malhotra

The Business Operations of Robin Hood and the Merrymen

Robin hood and the Merrymen are in the business to steal from the rich and give it to the needt. Th
organisation which was started by Robinhood has grown large with lot of new recruits. Robinhood
serves as the head of operating and has delegated few of the duties to his subordinated.

Merrymen need to overcome their largest competitor, the sheriff, who has become powerful and
more organised. He is the biggest threat to Robinhood and his organisation. The Merrymen can
adopt several strategies in order to overcome the sheriff.

1. Robinhood and his men can improvise internal operations in order to compete By finding internal
strengths and overcoming their weakness they can capitalize on advantage thus gained.

2. Merrymen can focus on new market opportunity, competitive advantages, consumer


expectations, competitor’s actions and technological advances.

3. Robinhood can choose the external and internal focus and perform a SWOT analysis to figure out
the complete standing of the Merrymen compared to their competitors.

Problems Robinhood and his organisation face:

 Lack of discipline
 Maintenance Cost
 Shelter/Space shortage
 Food Shortage
 Training ( As everyone was welcomed to join the organisation)
 Maintenance and operating Cost
 Challenges to organise big and little trained group.
 Change management ( introducing a change for such a large group of people from different
background)
 Goal alignment of the individual with that of a group
 Security and Vigilance (Because whoever wanted to join was taken in their could be spies
and traitors in the group)

Issues that need to be addressed


 Organising group into one force with a common goal and objective. Establishing a mission
and Vision for such a big organisation ad aligning people with it.
 It is clearly mentioned that the organisation was constantly recruiting people and their
small bivouac grew into a major encampment. Hence, arranging food and shelter for such a
large group is an issue that needs to be addressed immediately.
 Keeping up with ever changing environmental and economic scenarios. The Sheriff
continued to get strong and organised. Being a direct competitor it is very important for
Robinhood to constantly keep a vigil at the ever changing environment. The Prince too for
well known for his vindictiveness as he had spies all across the nation.
 Changing from old war methods to newer one which could utilise the workforce better.
NEW ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

CURRENT BUSINESS MODEL

Currently Robinhood’s organisation is much unorganised. He is assisted by three people for the
functions and is certainly under employed. It is very evident that managing such a huge
organisation is getting difficult for him and there may be certain functions that are rejected due to
less supervisors and managers. There is not much of interaction between the various departments.
Robin Hood needs to change the organisational structure. He should change it to the below
mentioned structure and delegate responsibility in order to manage the bigger group that he now
commands. This will result in decentralisation of the control to some extent however, not to the
fullest level but to certain extent.

Robinhood

Will Scarlet Little john Scarlok


(Intelligence) (HRM) (Finance)

NEW ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

Robin Hood

Finance Operation
Manager Manager HR Manager

Vigilant training Recruitment Food Shelter


Cashier
Supervisor Supervisor Supervisor Supervisor Supervisor

1. In order to meet the decreasing level of discipline and vigilance Robin hood needs to put the
recruitment process in order. A better way to do this is by recruiting supervisors and laying down
HR policies for recruitment. For eg. They could limit the age, family background. By doing this he
shall only get workers who are focussed and share the similar goal.

2. Appoint a food shelter and medical supervisor under his human resource manager. Food and
shelter supervisors will concentrate on sole responsibilities. The main role of food supervisor will be
to constantly look for newer and cheaper sources of food.

3. Device a spy/Vigilance division under the operation manager to built a fleet of spies and deploy
them around the sheriff’s office. The job should encompass the cross verification of the details of
new recruits.

4. If we look at the Ansoff’s Matrix then that would give an alternative approach

The Third (3rd) gives the following possible Alternatives

 Robinhood can levy regular or fixed taxed on the merchants who pass by their territory.
This would be regular tax. Levying regular tax shall act a constant source of income. Also,
the merchants can be informed that they will not be looted in case they adhere to the tax
policies. They will be rather protected in Robin Hood’s Territory. This shall be a win-win
situation for both as Robinhood shall get regular income and merchandisers don’t have to
worry about getting looted in forest and can concentrate on other issues.
 He should encourage a villager (Someone not from his group and quite popular) to become
his spokesperson and representative in the kingdom.
 He should ask people to participate in the King Richard’s rescue mission.

The 4th Quadrant gives this alternative:


 Robinhood should not recruit new men in his group and should rather diversify. He should
provide his men with funds and support to become merchants and trader. The group thus
formed should be supported and hence they can use their power to threat other merchants
as well as the prince.
 He should bond and increase his relationship with the farmers. Instead new recruitment
should be done from among the farmers as it shall serve as a strong economic backup and
also as a abundant supply of cheap food.
 He should try to get people from prince’s court on his payroll. Acting as a spy and thus
letting him know of any new strategy prince is formulating or any new business that he
indulges to get in. At the same time Robinhood needs to be ready to diversify into new
business in case, he get to know about it.

5. Enforce discipline by practising it.

RECOMMENDED STRATEGIES

 Competitive Advantage
 Cost Advantage
 Dominance: It can be achieved by internal growth and through expansion in new markets.
 New Product Development: Need to develop better and more suitable methods of
increasing earning. i.e new tax policy
 Contraction and Expansion
 Reengineering: Process and Functional reengineering
 Downsizing: get rid of unwanted parts of the business. Units which are not profitable
 Restructuring: Complete restructuring of various departments needs to be done.

ACTION PLAN
Analyze
Appoint
and Fits
Perssonel for
each issue
identify the solution
issues

Does Not Fit

Outline
Delegate
possible
responsibilites
Solution

Discuss issue
Do a
and its
preliminary
corresponding
Evaluation
Solution

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