Risks of Generic Competitive Strategies

Fundamentally, the risks in pursuing the Porters generic competitive strategies are two: first, failing to attain or sustain the strategy; second, for the value of the strategic advantage provided by the strategy to erode with industry evolution. More narrowly, the three strategies are predicated on erecting differing kinds of defenses against the competitive forces, and not surprisingly they involve differing types of risks. It is important to make these risks explicit in order to improve the firm’s choice among the three alternatives. Risks of Overall Cost Leadership Strategy Cost leadership imposes severe burdens on the firm to keep up its position, which means reinvesting in modern equipment, ruthlessly scrapping obsolete assets, avoiding product line proliferation and being alert for technological improvements. Cost declines with cumulative volume are by no means automatic, nor is reaping all available economies of scale achievable without significant attention. Cost leadership strategy is vulnerable to the Continue reading

Facilities Planning – Meaning and Importance

One of the major strategy decisions that must be made by any organization is where to locate its producing and storage facilities. For manufacturers, the problem is broadly categorized into factory location and warehouse location; within this categorization, we may be interested in locating the firm’s first factory or warehouse or locating a new factory or warehouse relative to the locations of existing facilities. The general objective in choosing a location is to select that site or combination of sites that minimizes two classes or costs — regional and distribution or sites that minimizes two classes or costs — regional and distribution costs. Regional costs are those associated with a given locate and include land, construction, manpower, and state and local expenses and regulations. Distribution costs are those directly related to the shipping of supplies and products to customers and other branches of the distribution network. Since the location of Continue reading

Process of Salary and Wage Fixation

Steps involved in determining wage and salary rates are as follows : 1. Job Analysis: A job analysis describes the duties, responsibilities, working conditions and interrelationships between the job as it is and the other jobs with which it is associated. Job descriptions are crucial in designing pay systems, for they help to identify important job characteristics. They also help determine, define and weigh compensate factors (factors for which an organization is willing to pay-skill, experience, effort and working environment). After determining the job specifications, the actual process of grading, rating or evaluating the job occurs. A job is rated in order to determine its value in relation to all the other jobs in the organization which are subject to evaluation. The next step is that of providing the job with a price. This involves converting the relative job values into specific monetary values or translating the job classes into Continue reading

Concept of Surplus in Financial Management

There are different views regarding the meaning and concept of surplus in financial management. According to one school of thought, the balance remaining after deducting the liabilities and share capital from the total of assets is known as ‘surplus‘. In the opinion of the other school, ‘surplus‘ represents the ‘undistributed earnings’ of a company, i.e., the balance of profits remaining after paying dividends to the shareholders. Still, there are others in whose opinion ‘surplus‘ is a left over which represents an addition to assets that is carried over on the ‘equity side’. But, surplus is solely equity of stock-holders and not an asset in any sense of the word. In simple words, ‘surplus‘ may be described as the net income of the company remaining after payment of dividend and all other expenses. It is the difference between the book value of the assets and the sum of liabilities and capital. Continue reading

Nurturing Innovation in Teams

Innovation in teams can be defined as the act of starting something new for the first time, something that has not yet been done by the team. The creation may rise from a study or experiment. Innovation could be termed as the brain child of creativity of the team members. Proper motivation is needed so as to be able to foster proper innovation in the team. The team must have a clear guideline and understanding of what innovation is and what it entails. Benefits of Innovation in Teams Nurturing innovation in a team also has great benefits on not only the team members but also to the organization as a whole. This includes: The organization benefits greatly by being the first organization to take a product or service to the market before any of their competitors. Innovation gives the organization an edge over its competition. By being the first organization Continue reading

Cause Related Marketing (CRM) – Meaning and Types

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a subject of much current interest within the managerial world. CSR has the attention of the business community, investors, customers, and the business media. CSR as both the philosophy and practice of for-profit organizations voluntarily acting to positively assist society in ways beyond that required to obtain profit objectives. The concept of CSR is becoming transformed such that it is no longer a radical concept concerning the responsibilities of corporations to society, but simply a tool of managing stakeholders and improving reputations. CSR is the idea that it reflects the social imperatives and the social consequences of business success. Corporate Social Responsibility is business decision making linked to ethical values, compliance with legal requirements and respect for people, communities and environment around the world. It could also be likened to open and transparent practices that are based on ethical values and respect for employees, communities and Continue reading