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

Standard Costing as a Control Mechanism

Standard costing is technique of cost planning and control, based on scientific analysis of elements of cost in terms of standard input / output norms and standard rates / price per unit of input. The following process is involved in setting and practicing  standard  cost. Establish standard cost, component-wise, for each output Measure the actual cost, component-wise, for each output Their comparison with the actual costs and the measurement of variances. The location of responsibility for the variances and the corrective action to be taken. The analysis of variances for ascertaining the reasons for the same. Establishment of a Standard Costing System The installation of Standard Costing  System in a manufacturing concern involves the following steps: Standardization of Functions: All activities should be standardized and the technical processes of operations should also be susceptible to planning. Establishment of Cost  Center Classification of Accounts: The different accounts can be codified and Continue reading

Abey Francis

Pluralist Perspective of Industrial Relations

The Pluralist perspective of  industrial relations is just as the name suggests, they see organisations as constellations of different groups. The organisation is seen as multi-structured in terms of groups, leadership, authority and loyalty. A miniature democratic state composed of sectional groups with divergent interests over which the government tries to maintain some kind of dynamic equilibrium. The main groups within this perspective that find themselves at the opposite ends of the scales often are the workers and managers. This can be down to a number of issues such as pay, working conditions, bonuses and working hours and it is over issues like these that conflict often occurs. The pluralist perspective during the twentieth century include a widespread distribution of authority and power in society, ownership separation from management, political separation and industrial conflict and an acceptance and institutionalization of conflict in both spheres. The priciple assumption of pluralist perspective Continue reading

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Meaning of Value Analysis

The purchasing manager conducts value analysis that aims mainly at achieving cost effectiveness and maintaining the required level of quality. Value analysis is an organized effort that studies in detail the ‘value’ of material. Value Analysis reviews the design changes with the objective of eliminating high cost materials and the materials that are technically obsolete and reducing the number of parts. After analyzing the functions and cost of material, the purchasing manager evaluates the possibilities of using the material. Value Analysis can be defined as a process of systematic review that is applied to existing  product designs in order to compare the function of the product required by a customer to  meet their requirements at the lowest cost consistent with the specified performance and  reliability needed. The Value Analysis technique was developed after the Second World War in America at  General Electric during the late 1940s. Because of World War, Continue reading

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Business Risk Management – Meaning, Stages, Benefits and Limitations

Risk is the combination of the probability of an event and its impacts. It is the possibility of an event and its effect that constitute benefits or impediments to success in an undertaking. In an enterprise, identification of a hazard has both a helpful and a harmful aspects. Consequently, both the benefits and threats to the success of business operations are considered in the assessment of risk. When focusing on safety, risk only takes the perspective of negative consequences. As a result, it focuses on the alleviation and avoidance of harm. Threat management is vital in organizations’ tactical management. It entails a process where organizations tackle the risks connected to their actions with the objective of attaining constant benefit within individual activities and across a range of all actions. Businesses are affected by both interior and exterior factors relating to risks. Some risks can be categorized as external, while others Continue reading

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Role of Innovation and Creativity to Enhance Entrepreneurship

Innovation is the process of translating invention or idea into a process, good or service that creates value for customers, government or organizations. Innovation also involve implementation of new or significantly improved product that creates value to the society. The idea must therefore satisfy a specific need in order to be regarded as innovative. The customers’ change in taste and preferences requires organization to generate new ideas that can be applied to processes, products and services to satisfy the needs and expectations of the customers. The innovation is prerequisite for business organization to create revolutionary products that create new markets. The scientific knowledge generated through experimentation studies has contributed immensely to creation of many things that has not previously been in existence. With this regard, organization need to allocate resources for research to stimulate innovation that increases competitive advantage. The IT industries producing electrical like phones, tablets, laptops and desktop Continue reading

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Green Productivity for Sustainability

With the start of the new millennium, the world has seen rapid change and change in the approach of the manufacturing industry with regards to sustainable development. Formerly, lone voices were urging a concern for the environment with a thought for sustainable development while improving business performance are now coalescing into a “movement”- new thinking and new ways of approaching old problems have made it perfectly possible to address these issues together, most effective when planned as part of a total review of the life-cycle of products and their manufacturing and delivery processes- and this movement being called Green Productivity. The global economy is coming under growing pressure to pay for the restoration of damaged environments. But this economic engine is being asked to help solve other pressing problems at the same time. The challenge is to solve all of these problems in a sustainable manner, so as to generate Continue reading

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