Concepts of Throughput Accounting and Theory of Constraints

Financial Management

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

Vehicles for Upward and Downward Communication in Business

The following checklists of suggested vehicles for upward and downward communication can help to gauge an organization in performing well with respect to internal communication. General manager’s routine staff meeting with supervisors: In addition to production issues, these staff meetings should also include topics of interest to employees with respect to business developments, company affairs, and any other topics that and any other topics that should be communicated by supervisors to rank and file. General Manager’s routine meeting with non-supervisory employees: In addition to production issues, these meetings should emphasize issues that involve pay and benefits, problems, complaints, rumors, and questions. Supervisor’s routine meeting with employees: Upper management should ensure that supervisors have routine meetings that cover topics beyond production that are of interest to employees. In many environments, there is a tendency for supervisors to overlook these important communications vehicles while under pressure to produce. Employee newsletter for home Continue reading

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Damages for Breach of Contract

Damages are a monetary compensation allowed to the injured party by the Court for the loss or  injury suffered by him by the breach of a contract. The object of awarding damages for the breach of contract is to put the injured party in the same position, so far as money can do it, as if he had not been  injured, i.e. in the position in which he would have been had there been performance and not breach. This  is called the doctrine of restitution. The rules relating to damages may be considered as under: 1. Damages arising naturally – Ordinary damages When a contract has been broken, the injured party can recover from the other party such  damages as naturally and directly arose in the usual course of things from the breach. This means that the  damages must be the proximate consequence of the breach of contract. These damages Continue reading

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Case Study of Starbucks: Creating a New Coffee Culture

Is it possible to convince ordinary Americans who routinely open 3-pound value cans of coffee, shovel the grounds into a paper filter, push a button, and go about their business to suddenly change their ways? Will they be willing to spend $2 or more per day on the same item? Will this eventually evolve into a $1400 per year habit of a latte and a scan each day? The answer to these questions, according to Starbucks, is “absolutely!” Starbucks began as a coffee importing firm. Howard Schultz, an employee in the organization, toured Italy in the early 1980s and watched as crowds of city dwellers began each morning with a stop at a coffee bar. Schultz tried to convince the owners of Starbucks to do something similar in the United States and was roundly rejected. Quitting the firm and launching out on his own quickly turned into a lucrative decision Continue reading

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Price Elasticity Of Demand – Concept and Types

The price elasticity of demand measures the degree of responsiveness of quantity demanded for a certain commodity to the change in its price. In other words, the price elasticity of demand is defined as the ‘ratio of percentage change in the quantity demanded to the percentage change in price. It can be expressed as follows: Price elasticity of demand (ep) = Percentage change in quantity of demand / Percentage change in price Where, ep = Coefficient of price elasticity of demand. The price elasticity of demand is always negative due to the inverse relationship between the price and quantity demanded. But for the sake of simplicity in understanding the magnitude of response of quantity demanded to the change in the price we ignore the negative sign and take into account only the numerical value of the price elasticity of demand. Types of Price Elasticity of Demand There are five types of Continue reading

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How Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship are Related?

There is an important relationship between creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. In fact, creativity is the ability to develop new ideas and to discover new ways of looking at problems and opportunities; innovation is the ability to apply creative solutions to those problems and opportunities in order to enhance people’s lives or to enrich society. Entrepreneurship is a result of a disciplined and systematic process of applying creativity and innovations to needs and opportunities in the marketplace. Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service. All products or services are the combination of three factors: nature raw materials, labor (physical and mental) and capital. Entrepreneurs, as innovators, are people who create new combinations of these factors and then present to the market for assessment by consumers. Porter (1985) argues that, while successful businesses will Continue reading

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Sales Forecasting – Meaning and Methods

Financial forecasting is a significant part of financial planning process. The financial forecasting begins with sales forecasting. Sales forecast is a forecast of firm’s future sales both in terms of volume and value. The sales forecast always begins with analyzing the historical trends in sales over the past periods. It also takes to consideration the future economic prosperity if given line of business. To determine the forecasted sales growth, the firm must rely on competitive market conditions, customers tastes and preferences, change in technology and future possibilities of market expansion. Nowadays, several statistical methods like regression analysis, time series analysis, econometric models are used to consider all these factors in providing sales forecasts. Some factors that should be considered while developing sales  forecast are as follows: Provide a projection of divisional sales based on historical growth and combine the divisional sales forecasts to provide a approximate corporate sales forecast. Forecast Continue reading

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