The Federalist and Republican Eras

In the time of economic recession and deterioration of the company’s performance, it is extremely important to maximize the efficiency of the management of the company. Therefore, Gap should split the functions with an experienced manager who has an extensive experience in controlling the organization. His or her experience can help the company to survive through hard times and overcome negative effects of the economic crisis.

At the moment, Gap needs to benchmark with a company which is well-known in the market. The brand of such a company is recognizable and respectable. Therefore, if Gap benchmarks which such a company, it will likely to gain new customers who prefer buy products of renowned brands. In such a way, Gap can benefit from sharing the brand image of such a company. Therefore, it is possible to recommend benchmarking with J.C. Penney, which has already proved to be able to improve its marketing performance. Hence, Gap can accelerate its own growth too due to benchmark with J.C. Penney.

Basically, the control is important but the control should not oppress employees. In fact, Gap’s performance heavily relies on the creativity of its employees. Therefore, the company needs to establish a democratic system of control which allows employees work autonomously, but in terms of the strategy defined by the company and the control over the implementation of this strategy is crucial.

Obviously, it is necessary to balance control and creativity. To balance them, it is important to introduce elements of self control when employees are divided into teams which work autonomously but they regularly control each other’s performance by means of exchanging employees who perform functions of control officers.