Being in charge of a company as big as Lego is far from easy, especially if your heart and soul is invested in it, this severely impairs the objectivity and sound judgment. Having someone fresh come and have a fresh look at the company and inform of all the blind spots of the company.
What risks, if any, does outsourcing pose to Lego’s corporate identity Lego is a family company, never before the company was managed by anyone other but family member. Having a family business, the owners wanted to be self sufficient, to have a hold of everything. Everything that was produced under Lego logo was and still is thoroughly controlled as they were staking their name on it. To ensure that they delivered and what they believed in was what the same, Lego decided to keep it all in the family. Their company is s till doing many things itself when normally they are outsourced. However, with the outsourcing it would be extremely hard to maintain the level of control over the quality, quantity and authenticity of the products. Now they have rigorous control of production, as there are only two laces that produce blocks and other tiny parts, and it is in the Europe where salaries are sky high. However if they outsource in China, it is quite hard to control the production. There is always a possibility that on that factory they might use that unique equipment to produce unauthorized log toys, with doubtful quality and probably much lower price. This way I believe there is a great danger in damaging both reputation and the income of the company.
I believe that Lego as a company has to learn how to delegate in this day and age. It is great for both production and reputation to have everything by your side and within your reach, although, sometimes it costs too much for the company. I don’t believe outsourcing production is absolutely necessary and wise the same concerns arranging travels. However, I believe the distribution and delivery of toys is the part of the production process that can be outsourced. Also if given careful review of the travel plans and approach to it there are things that can be changed to minimize expenses of the company. However I don’t believe costs should be cut by the means of production location.
The best move for Lego at this point , for my part, is to outsource the smattering of other functions. I am up for Lego to stay a “toymaker” rather than a toy marketer. New toys appear almost every second around the world. Some of them are popular; even reach world recognition, some of them not so much. But after the peak of popularity there is usually a slide down, and in a year or two will hardly remember what it was all about. Breaking the general tendencies, Lego is a number one toy of the century, the company has said it’s name loud and clear and it keeps echoing from generation to generation. I believe that better than doing extra marketing for the company it will be more fruitful if the company would look traditionally on the expenses and what can be done with the company .
To sum up I would like to say that, even thou Lego is the family business and has a certain reputation of their products and company. With the globalization companies have to evolve, adapt to new environment and technologies to stay in the game. Unfortunately I know at least two movies about toy factories that were resistant to change and lost their businesses.