Hindustan Lever Limited

CASE FACTS

Engineering Products is a UK based firm that specialized in the production of fasteners. But in the era of 80's it restructured itself and restricted its activities to only three tier businesses:

1. Automotive components

2. Defense services

3. Industrial services

This restructuring also led the firm to expand overseas. Thus it increased in size and almost about 33,000 of the firm's employees worked abroad spreading from Western Europe to North America.

Automotive components was their major business after the re-structuring and 69% of the division was being employed in Continental Europe, 49% of all the sales were coming from Continental Europe. Employment and Sales largely concentrated in Continental Europe

Core Business:

The largest of the three areas was the automotive components, which employed 60% of the total work force of Engineering Products. They deal with several multinational firms as first tier suppliers to the final producers of cars. Continental Europe, as can be seen by the graph consumes most of the share of sales as well as the employee base. Germany, France and Spain are the major areas of concentration.

Purpose:

Bring together managers from different parts of the group, facilitating the exchange of information between them.

Divisions:

In Engineering Products there are several such structures, which serve this function. Division operates manufacturing council's, which periodically bring together senior manufacturing directors from the plants to examine the processes, which are adopted in each of the plants.

"International College Of Engineering" located in Germany, at which engineers develop and learn about new manufacturing methods. A further way in which the HQ has sought to drive integration at the international level is through the creation of an international cadre of managers who are expected to spend time on assignments in countries other than their own.

One element of this has been the creation of internal consultants, these are managers who have been responsible for pioneering a new practice and who are subsequently given a mission of roaming from plant to plant assisting in the adoption of this practice.

In addition, the HR function has created its own mechanism designed to bring together managers from different sites to share "best practice" and discuss common initiatives. This takes the form of regular meetings of HR specialists from different sites to discuss the implications of integration on personnel practice. These meetings have produced numerous instances of practices, which have been standardized as a result, ranging from induction packages for graduates to problem-solving techniques. The evidence from the previous section suggests that, in creating international structures in the HR area, the company is typical of other MNC's.

ISSUES

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