Skullcandy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Skullcandy - Essay Example The aim of this report is to highlight the team structure used in the development of new products at Skullcandy. In addition, the report would also highlight the reasons for adopting such a team structure along with the size and growth of the company. The team structure applied for the new product development at Skullcandy was a mixture of topologies. It was observed that from senior management to employees, every single employee was involved in the development process. This indicates that the team structure applied was a mixture of lightweight and heavyweight topologies. Types of developments teams include; functional teams, lightweight teams, heavyweight teams and autonomous team structures. At Skullcandy, the team structure that was applied for the new product development was a combination of lightweight and heavyweight team structures. But because the company’s size was small, the company was focusing more on lightweight team structure and generally smaller firms rely on lightweight team structure.... The aim of this team was to gain initial sales contracts based on the prototypes provided by the designers. d) The last team that was involved in the new product development was for design refinement. This evidence proves that the team structure used in the development of new product was lightweight. On the other hand, the heavyweight team structure was also involved in the development of new product. Some of the evidence for the involvement of heavyweight teams area as follows; a) Josh Poulsen was responsible for handling the lightweight teams so that they could meet their deadlines effectively. b) Dan Levine was responsible for taking major decisions regarding the product. c) Before the manufacturing of the product, the last decision was taken by Rick Alden, the founder of the company, as tooling of the product entails large irreversible investment. Growth and Size Influencing Development Process The company that came into existence to provide the customers with headphones that could serve dual purpose was smaller in size but the company was growing at a very fast pace. In its initial years, the company broke its $1 million in sales in 2005 and in the following year, the company was able to increase its sales up to $10 million. In 2007, the company was able to attract most of the customers and the revenues of the company accounted for $35 millions. In the following year, the company was able to double its sales figures and revenues. The sales figure for 2008 was $86.5 million followed by over $100 million. This indicates that the company was doubling its sales figures which eventually led to the growth of the company but was unable to enhance its size. To meet the demands of the