With roughly 8,000 locations, the Blockbuster Company is a market leader in rental movies and video games. The businesses rented movies and video games to consumers for personal use. Blockbuster’s eyesight is to be a one-stop-shop for games and films. Its objective is to continue growing its fundamental rental business while leveraging its company image, massive database, retail locations, and cinema interactions to convey an even wider scope of home entertainment to existing and new viewers. The corporation has operations in the United States of America, Europe, Latin America, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Asia. Blockbuster’s headquarters are in Dallas, Texas, and the company employs 58,561 individuals on a full-time, part-time, and occasional basis. The business made $5,287.9 million in income during the fiscal year ending January 2009, down from 4.6% in 2008. Blockbuster blamed the profit reduction mainly on non-cash asset impairments against its goodwill and other long-lived investments. By renting Continue reading
Management Case Studies
Management case studies are real-life examples of issues and problems found in particular workplaces or business organisations. Case study assignments give the opportunity to relate theoretical concepts to practical situations. Most case studies are written in such a way that the reader takes the place of the manager whose responsibility is to make decisions to help solve the problem. In almost all case studies, a decision must be made, although that decision might be to leave the situation as it is and do nothing.
Case Study: The Effectiveness of Dove Real Beauty Sketches Campaign
The 3-minute advertisement of Dove launched in 2013 is a part of the company’s Real Beauty campaign. Dove is a beauty product company, a division of the FMCG giant Unilever. The advertisement named Dove Real Beauty Sketches is a video edited film of 3 minutes of an experiment that the company did. It invited a forensic sketch artist to draw the women. This artist sat is a separated space where he could not see the women. The Dove Real Beauty Sketches advertisement begins with a piece of soothing instrumental music. The sketch artist introduces himself. Then a female voice, presumably that of one of the participants, say that when they enter the hall, they can see someone sitting with a drafting board. Another participant informs the viewers that neither they nor the man can see each other. First, the women described themselves, and then strangers, who had been acquainted during Continue reading
Case Study: Fraudulent Accounting and the Downfall of WorldCom
The WorldCom scandal can be called the worst case of accounting fraud in the NSE, and it prompted the initiation of radical reforms that continue to determine how publicly traded companies conduct various transactions. WorldCom was an international telecommunications company with the second largest long-distance telephone connections. WorldCom had the reputation of a telecommunication giant with immense innovation power. However, the company’s CEO Bernard Ebbers could not use WorldCom’s strengths to create a competitive advantage but instead chose to collude with some employees and defrauded the company’s shareholders of over $11 billion. According to the Fraud Diamond and Fraud Triangle theories, four main elements define the thought process of an individual who commits occupational fraud. They include the incentive, opportunity, rationalization, and capability. The incentive presupposes that the person committing the fraud has something to gain from it. Mostly, they have a reason that drives them to commit the fraud. Continue reading
Case Study: General Electric’s Two-Decade Transformation Under the Leadership of Jack Welch
When Jack Welch became CEO of GE in 1981, he set out to reenergize one of America’s largest companies. Through a revision of GE’s mission and values Jack Welch grew GE from a $24+ billion company to into a $74+ billion company, ready to face competitors and future challenges. Welch realigned goals and motivation, forcing managers to stretch to previously unknown limits. Any company not number one or two in their industry was divested or closed and though sometimes perceived to be a destroyer, he restructured GE into one of the world’s most staid corporations. Jack Welch’s management and motivation approach included three main areas: Goal setting and preparing the company on a corporate level for its competitive challenges; Empowering employees at all levels of the organization; and Communicating his new goals and visions through the entire organization, using such tools as extensive training programs, newly formed teams and 3600 Continue reading
Case Study: Starbucks Growth Strategy
In 1971, three academics, English Teacher Jerry Baldwin, History Teacher Zel Siegel and writer Gordon Bowker opened Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spice in Touristy Pikes Place Market in Seattle. The three were inspired by entrepreneur Alfred Peet (whom they knew personally) to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment. The store did not offer fresh brewed coffee by the cup, but tasting samples were sometimes available. Siegel will wore a grocers apron, scooped out beans for customers while the other two kept their day jobs but came by at lunch or after work to help out. The store was an immediate success, with sales exceeding expectations, partly because of interest stirred by the favorable article in Seattle Times. Starbucks ordered its coffee-bean from Alfred Peet but later on the three partners bought their own used roaster setting up roasting operations in a nearby ramshackle building and developed their own blends and Continue reading
Case Study: Managing Employee Discipline
Mr. Harry, Branch Manager, Luxemburg Main Branch of XYZ Bank was wondering as to what could be done to restore the punctuality of the staff in his branch. A majority of the staff members were taking time off from the work, on a number of occasions, during the day, which resulted in work remaining incomplete, and in the payment of overtime wages for its completion. The problem was generally not faced by other banks in Luxemburg, except the PQR Bank, another Indian bank having branches in Luxemburg. Other local and British banks were able to exercise sufficient control over their staff to ensure proper attendance and maintain office decorum. Initially, Mr. Harry tried to persuade the staff to be punctual. He sermonized them on several occasions. None of this, however, made any dent on the problem. Failing in these methods, he resorted to punishment of the erring members of the Continue reading