Kaizen – Understanding the Japanese Business Philosophy of Continuous Improvement

Operations Management

Role of Leaders in Shaping Organizational Culture

Management Principles

Organizational Culture – Development and Importance

Management Principles

Five Important Organizational Cultural Models

Management Principles

The Customer Satisfaction Model – Based on American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)

Marketing Management

Wage Determination Process

Wages can be expressed in two ways. When they are expressed in terms  of money paid to the worker they are called nominal wages. But when they are  expressed in terms of their purchasing power with reference to some base year  they are called real wages. These wages are arrived at by making adjustment in  the nominal wages for the rise or fall in the cost of living. How do we measure changes in the cost of living, or changes in the  prices that consumers pay? The measuring rod is the consumer price index  number. This index number is intended to show over a period of time the  average percentage change in the prices paid by the consumers belonging to the  population group proposed to be covered by the index for a fixed list of goods  and services consumed by them. The average percentage change, measured by  the index, is Continue reading

Abey Francis

Emerging Trends in Global Organizational Structures

Though global organizational structures tend to depict certain kind of rigidity, structure tends to change and new trends emerge. Mixed Nature of Structures Because of growth dynamics, companies change their organizational structures. Simplified organizational structures get replaced by complex or mixed structures. Until organizational re-structuring is made, new acquisitions might report to headquarters.  Circumstances prevailing in a particular country, product, or function might necessitate separate handling until a re-structuring is effected, apart from the overall structure. The structure of 100% subsidiaries is different from that of JVs. 100% subsidiaries enable a deeper network of communications. Overall structure may be incomplete and less revealing. PepsiCo is organized by product lines, namely soft drinks and snacks. This would seem to imply that each product line is integrated globally. However, each line has its own global division, which separates it from domestic operations. Structures Evolve to Suit Growth and Need A company that Continue reading

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Strategic Inflection Point

A term coined by Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel to describe a dramatic change in competitive forces. At that time, the leaders must give up the past, see closely how the industry is evolving and find new ways of competing. This point of dramatic change in the industry is known as Strategic Inflection Point. “a strategic inflection point is a time in the life of business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end” Andrew S. Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive. For example, the arrival of containers marked a strategic inflection point in the shipping industry. The introduction of the IBM PC was a strategic inflection point in the computer industry. The emergence of large discount store chains like Walmart and Tesco  may well turn out to Continue reading

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Introduction to Mutual Funds and Net Asset Value (NAV)

A Mutual Fund is a special type of investment institution which collects or pools the savings of the community and invests large funds in variety of Blue-chip Companies which are selected from a wide range of industries with the objects of maximizing returns/incomes on investments. Mutual Funds are basically a trust which mobilize savings from the people and invest them in a mix of corporate and government securities. Money collected by the investors is invested in various issues of primary and secondary markets in order to gain profits on such investments. A Mutual Fund is a Trust, which combines the investments of various investors having similar financial goals. The Trust issues units to the investors in the proportion of their investments. A fund manager then invests these funds in different types of assets, which provide returns in the form of dividends, interests, and capital appreciation. This is distributed to the Continue reading

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Relationship of Organizational Structure with Strategy and Culture

Relationship between Business Strategy and Structure Business Strategy primarily refers to the road-map laid out by an organization. The principal objective of strategy is to ensure that an organization achieves the set targets in order to sustain and grow in an increasingly competitive world. On the other hand, a structure is the manner in which the internal resources of a company get connected with each other. More specifically, structure is concerned with different groups that can be formed within an organization. For example, an organization having a functional structure will operate through the different functions such as Marketing, Finance, and Manufacturing. Business Strategy is the main driver that decides the structure an organization. Also, in case the structure of a company is not synchronized with its strategy, then the company may not be able to achieve the set targets. For example, a company with a diversified product portfolio and has Continue reading

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Six Elements of Organizational Design

Organizational design is a process of developing and changing the organization’s structure by its managers. It is a chart containing the reporting structure i.e. who reports to whom. Organizational structure is thus a framework on which an organization is patterned for coordinating and carrying out organizational tasks. Organizational design involves decisions about the following six elements: 1. Work Specialization: Work specialization describes to which the overall task of the organization is broken down and divided into smaller component parts. For example, one person would paint a wall and another person fixes a door. So by breaking jobs up into small tasks, it could be performed over and over every 10 seconds while using employees who had relatively limited skills. The main thought of this process is that the entire job is not done by an individual and it is broken down into steps, and a different person completes each step. Continue reading

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