Case Analysis: First Community Financial

First Community Financial Corporation provides financial solutions for small to mid size businesses. FCF specializes in asset based lending and factoring. FCF’s business is generated by high-growth companies and lends up to $1million in high risk loans of plus 6% interest rates. Companies sell their account receivables and ownership of said receivables to FCF in order to obtain instant cash.

FCF Organizational Culture:
FCF has established an HR policy that invests in its employees thus yielding low turnover rates; the policy also encourages open communication and values the opinions of all staff members. FCF has the youngest staff and management teams in the finance industry as their recruiting seeks young, ambitious people with the desire for growth within the company, therefore as the company grows responsibilities and rewards also grows for young executives. The strategy is to develop a consistent and professional team of industry experts. This is defined by the Management Philosophy and Strategy which links key goal-related issues with collaboration issues by establishing boundaries while bonding individual together by assuring future success within the company (Management Philosophy and Strategy, Chapter 15, p.381)

FCF Organization Divisional Department Tensions:
The Business Development Dept is responsible for generating new clients and mediating with them through the approval process where as the Credit Administrators’ primary goal is to limit bad loans. Due to the nature of the processing and approving of loans between the Business Development Dept and the Credit Administration Dept, the conflict at hand is Win-Lose conflict(Ch 10, Conflict and Negotiation) p. 241)for the business development department because their compensation is based on the number of Clients they are able to get qualified for loans whereas the Credit Administration Department is not monetarily affected in the terms of commission for the number of Clients that they approve for loans which is Quality over Quantity. Also, BDs are concerned about the amount of referrals that get denied and the effect it will have on sales opportunities.

I find that FCF borders on Mechanistic Structures and Machine Bureaucracy (Chapter16, Organizational Goals and Structures p.407-408). It stresses rules, policies and procedures; specifying techniques for decision making. Their Organizational Goals falls under Systems Goals (Chapter16, Organizational Goals and Structures p392) whereby their product of factoring allows them to compete in diverse and distinct markets, therefore staff’s product knowledge is crucial to FCF’s success.

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