Organization Paper

In my discussion question, I stated that I believed that the Pampered Chef is organized in a network structure. A network structure consists of “independent, mostly single-function firms that collaborate to produce a product or a service” (Bateman, T. S. and Snell, S.A., 2007). I believe this is how the Pampered Chef is organized because they are a direct sales business, with independent sales people working towards the company’s mission. The mission is twofold: to provide opportunities for individuals to develop their natural skills and talents to their fullest potential and to enhance the quality of family life through quality kitchen products backed with support and information (Our Company: Our Mission). I plan to address how the Pampered Chef operates in the network structure as it pertains to physical assets, human resource and technology.

Doris Christopher began the Pampered Chef in her basement in 1980. She started by going to local kitchen equipment producers and asking them for a dozen of each of a select few items (Mamis, 1995). Starting with only 71 items, she developed the kitchen show and created recipes that enticed customers to purchase the products (Our Historical Timeline). Over the last 25 years, the company has expanded from her basement to a building to eventually four buildings to its current location, a single facility in Illinois (Our Historical Timeline). The company has grown from a $3000 home business to an enterprise worth over $700 million (About Our Founder).

The Pampered Chef relies on its current sales force to recruit new consultants. They usually make the business look not only easy but also fun. Free and discounted items, flexibility, and exotic vacations are just a few of the incentives that the company offers to attract new consultants (Your Business). The company offers numerous ways for consultants to train or learn about the products. With a small start-up fee, a new consultant receives a variety of products, recipes that specifically use those items, DVDs and CD-ROMs that highlight the products or offer training, and access to the consultant-only website (Your Business). The website offers a variety of features, such as access to a multitude of recipes, training courses, downloadable business materials. The company offers bonuses to those that meet certain sales and recruiting criteria. These bonuses include extra discounts on items, extra commission on lower level consultants’ sales, recognition at conferences and bonus pay for expenses, just to name a few. The company produces new training videos at least twice a year, when the new selling season begins. The Pampered Chef also encourages new consultants to seek information and training from the consultant that recruited them and the field managers above them (Mamis, 1995).

This company has evolved drastically, technologically speaking, since its founding. Mamis (1995) wrote that in the beginning, inventory was haphazardly kept in Christopher’s basement. As orders came in, her employees would fill the orders by picking the items off the shelves, carrying as much as they could, and piling it on the counter. After four years of operating this way, Christopher purchased a nearby warehouse and gave her employees shopping carts (Mamis, 1995). Over the last twenty or so years, the company has expanded to its new location which is a 780,000 square-foot “Home Office” (Our Historical Timeline). They now use a computer driven system to fill the orders. The company has expanded globally to Canada, Britain, and Germany (Our Historical