Eng. 445: Leadership in Technology
Giordano

Lambros Lambrou
Electrical & Electronic Engineer
33531889
Dr. George Adamopoulos
13/02/2015

1) What is Giordano Company?
Giordano was a small company which begun in Hong Kong in 1981 and finally ended to become one of the most well-known and established apparel retailers. By 2005, the company owned 300 stores in 30 countries and it employed up to 11000 staff. The Giordano specializes in casual clothing for both men and women.
2) Briefly comment on Giordano’s leadership style as evidence in this case study. What are the key characteristics of leadership and why?
The Giordano Company’s leadership styles were ways followed by anyone who wants to succeed. First of all Giordano combined two leadership style, the coaching leadership style with cross cultural leadership style. Employed well-trained staff. There are strict selection procedures of employees as the applicant employees had to stand and fit the strict requirement of the job. There were various test for the candidates function and behavior before workers be employed. The company also provided an attractive salary package to ensure low staff turnover and eager-to please sales force. These philosophy of employment extended it in stores abroad. The huge challenge for the company was to manage the human resources. Changed the way of selection, training and recruitment of human resources in countries with different cultural and labor regulations.
Giordano applied the communication leadership style. The company’s objective was not to have separate offices for managers with ordinary employees. This allowed easy communication between managers and staff as well as rapid decision making.
One more leadership style which characterizes the company was the service leadership style. Company won several awards for its innovation features in service. Shops and workers in Hong Kong and Singapore got many awards for customer‘s service.
Finally, the company used computer system for inventory and demand forecast. When a product sold, information from barcode as color, size and price reordered on the company’s servers via the cash machine. This information is used to compile the store’s order for the following day. Another advantage of the computer system was that the information provided in real time on-site.
The key characteristics of Giordano’s leadership are the drive to achievement, intelligence, creativity and communication skills. The Giordano Company was driven to achievement because of proper and professional staff, products and modes selections. Also the success came from the correct decisions made on customer service.
Smart company’s ideas led to success. For example the attractive salary package offered to its employees but also that the company was based on product quality competition and not in product price competition, brought big profits.
One more key characteristic of Giordano Company was the creative. Created a computer system for the processing of information about which product had the greatest demand so as to produce more product in demand.
Finally, a key characteristic of the Company was the communication. There was an easy way of communication between the Company staff, leading to quicker decisions for various issues.
3) Identify Giordano’s operations performance objectives illustrating these in a polar representation. Infer these by assessing the company’s performance, explaining at each of the five operations performance objectives provides Giordano with a competitive advantage. Also compare Giordano’s performance objectives with those of a designer/retailer that operates in UK.
A company defines its corporate strategy and then identifies the operational performance objectives it must meet to achieve the strategy. The operation performance objectives are: Price, Quality, Speed, Dependability and Flexibility. According the case study I illustrate the Giordano’s operations performance objectives in polar