Evaluate relevant HR theories enabling effective recruitment and HR in IKEA, including interviewing techniques?
In: Operations Management
You are the Supply Chain Director for a global company. You recently received questions from the following divisions:
You are required to provide recommendations and explanations on:
In: Operations Management
Entry to the AI, robotics and blockchain: Make use of value chain management theories and discuss how the rural poor can gain access to the technology or 5G (fifth generation cellular network technology)? Note: please consider the role of Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA)
In: Operations Management
Topic 10c: Cultural Issues
Describe a specific aspect of the culture of your organization (e.g., communications, HR policies, etc.) that you think is a positive or negative contributor to the overall performance of the organization. Explain your selection.
In: Operations Management
Topic 10a: Organizational Culture
Bauer and Erdogan (Lardbucket Books, 2012a) present a typology of organizational culture dimensions - values that might be used to describe an organization’s culture. Their typology is an extension of an existing typology – the organizational culture profile (OCP), which contains seven organizational culture dimensions: (1) innovative culture; (2) aggressive culture; (3) outcome-oriented culture; (4) stable culture; (5) people-oriented culture; (6) team-oriented culture; and (7) detail-oriented culture. The authors add three more dimensions: (8) service culture; (9) safety culture; and (10) strong culture. Which one (or more) of these descriptors fit your organization? Explain your selection(s) and describe how these dimensions impact, either positively or negatively, project performance.
In: Operations Management
Topic 10b: Project Management Maturity Models
de Souza & Gomes (2015) briefly discuss five project management maturity models. Select and research one model (other than the Kerzner model). Briefly describe the maturity stages associated with the model, assess where your organization fits in the hierarchy and explain why. Describe what cultural changes would have to occur for the organization to reach the next level.
In: Operations Management
In: Operations Management
Name three different types of stock and identify the benefits of holding ownership in them; what are hallmarks that define a share of stock according to the court in United Housing Foundation v. Forman?
In: Operations Management
IT Investment at North American Financial1 Caroline Weese checked her makeup and then glanced at her watch for the tenth time. Almost 10:45. Showtime. As North American Financial’s (NAF) first female CIO, she knew she had to be better than good when she met with the company’s senior executives for the first time to justify her IT budget. They had shown their faith in her three months ago by giving her this position, when NAF’s long-serving senior vice president of IT had had to retire early due to ill health. But women were just beginning to crack the “glass ceiling” at the bank, and she knew there was a lot more riding on this presentation than just this budget.
That said, the budget situation wasn’t great. As she well knew from her earlier experience in more subordinate roles, the CIO had the unenviable task of justifying the company’s $500M budget to a group of executives who only saw the expense of IT, not its value. This was especially frustrating because NAF’s IT management was excellent, when looked at by any standard. NAF’s IT group consisted of almost 7,000 professionals who followed all the recommended standards, such as CMM, CMMI, ISO9001, and ITIL, to ensure that its IT processes were efficient, cost effective, and on par with, if not higher than, industry standards. It had been certified at a minimum Level 3 CMMI and was an industry leader in delivering projects on time, on budget, and in scope. But in the past few years, NAF executives had implemented rigorous cost containment measures for IT, leaving the CIO to struggle to be all things to all people.
They want innovation, they need reliability and stability, and we’re required by law to meet ever more stringent government regulations, but they’re still nickel-and-diming us, Caroline thought indignantly. She envied the bank’s business units that could clearly show profit-and-loss statements, and their ability to make strategic decisions about what to do with the excess capital they often had. In her world, business strategies changed regularly and thus IT’s goals had to as well. But strategies were not linked to budgets, which were typically set six to nine months in advance. As a result, IT was always struggling to keep up and find the resources to be flexible.
She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, pasted a smile on her face, and pushed open the door to the executive conference room to face her colleagues and her future. The room was full of “suits”—a few females here and there, but mostly tough, middleage males who expected answers and action. Following a few pleasantries about how she was adjusting to her new role, they got down to business. “The thing we’re most concerned about, Caroline,” said Bill Harris, NAF’s CEO, “is we simply don’t see where we’re getting value from our IT investments. There’s no proof in the bottom line.” Matt Harper, NAF’s CFO added, “Every year we approve hundreds of millions of dollars for IT projects, which are supposedly based on sound cost–benefit analyses, but the benefits never materialize.” Heads around the room began nodding.
Caroline’s mind was whirling. What did they really want from her? Pulling her thoughts together quickly, she responded. “If you’re looking for IT to tell you which projects will deliver the most business value, or if you want me to monitor the business units after the projects they asked for are implemented to see if they are delivering value, you’re asking me to do something that’s well beyond IT’s scope of expertise. We’re not the experts in your business case, and it shouldn’t be up to us to monitor how you use the technology we give you. I’ll take full responsibility for the quality of our work, its timely delivery, and its cost, but we really have to work together to ensure we’re investing in the right projects and delivering benefits.”
“What do you recommend then?” asked Sam Patel, head of Retail Banking. “I think we need an IT Investment Committee that I would co-lead jointly with you, Matt,” Caroline said while looking pointedly at the CFO. “We need a strong partnership to explore what can be done and who should be responsible for doing it. Finance is the only place where all the money comes together in this organization. Although I have to pull together an IT budget every year, it’s really contingent on what each business unit wants to spend. We don’t really have an enterprise IT budgeting process that looks across our business silos to see if what we’re spending is good for NAF as a whole.” Matt looked thoughtful. “You could be on to something here, Caroline. Let’s see if we can figure this out together.”
The rest of the meeting passed in a blur, and before Caroline knew it, she and Matt were trying to identify who they should assign to help them look at their IT investment challenges. These were significant. First, there was inconsistent alignment of the total IT development budget with enterprise strategies. “We have enterprise strategies but no way of linking them to enterprise spending,” Caroline pointed out. IT budgets were allocated according to the size of the business unit. Smaller lines of business had smaller IT budgets than larger ones. “For some small business units like ours, government mandatory projects eat up our entire IT budget,” complained Cathy Benson, senior vice president of Business Banking Product Management. This made it extremely difficult to allocate IT resources strategically—say, for example, to grow a smaller business unit into a larger one.
Second, project approvals were made by business units without addressing cross-unit synergies. Looking at the projects IT had underway revealed that the company had eighteen separate projects in different parts of the business to comply with anti–money laundering regulations. “We’ve got to be reinventing the wheel with some of these,” complained Ian Ha, senior director of NAF’s Risk and Compliance department. Third, although business cases were required for all major projects, their formats were inconsistent, and the data provided to justify the costs lacked rigor. “There seems to be a lot of gaming going on here,” observed Michael Cranston, director of Financial Strategy. “A lot of these numbers don’t make sense. How come we’ve never asked the business sponsors of these projects to take ownership for the business benefits they claim when they ask for the money in the first place?”
Fourth, once a project was approved, everyone focused on on-time, on-budget delivery. No one ever asked whether a project was still necessary or was still on track to deliver the benefits anticipated. Do we ever stop projects once they’ve started or review the business case ‘in-flight’? mused Matt. Finally, no one appeared to be accountable for delivering these benefits once an IT project was developed and implemented; rather, everyone just heaved a great sigh of relief and moved on to the next project.
Because the total IT budget for new development work was allocated by business unit, the result was a prioritization process that worked reasonably well at the business unit level but not for NAF as a whole. Enterprise executives created enterprise strategies, but they didn’t get involved in implementing them in the business units, which left the business unit heads to prioritize initiatives within their own silo. In prioritization meetings, leaders would argue passionately for their own particular cause, focusing on their own needs, not on NAF’s overall strategies. “We really need to align this process with our enterprise priorities,” said Caroline. Matt agreed. “There’s got to be a process to bring all our investment decisions for new projects together so we can compare them across business units and adjust our resourcing accordingly.”
Looking deeper into these matters revealed that there was more to IT spending than simply prioritizing projects, however. Almost 60 percent of the bank’s IT budget was spent not on strategic new development projects but on maintaining existing systems, interfaces, and data. Another 20 percent was work that had to be done to meet the demands of government legislation or the bank’s regulators. “How is this possible?” asked Sam. “No wonder we’re not getting much ‘bang for our buck,’” Caroline exclaimed. “Every time we develop or acquire a new system without getting rid of something else, we add to our ‘application clutter.’ When we continually add new systems while holding IT budgets and head counts relatively flat, more and more of our resources have to be devoted to supporting these systems.” New systems meant new interfaces between and among existing systems, additional data and dependencies, and increasing risk that something could go wrong. “We’ve tried to get the business units interested in sponsoring an initiative to reduce duplication and simplify our applications portfolio, but they’re not interested in what they call ‘IT housekeeping.’ They don’t see how dealing with this will help them in the long run. I guess we haven’t explained it to them very well.”
Brenda Liu, senior director of IT Infrastructure, added, “We also have to keep our IT environment up to date. Vendors are continually making upgrades to software, and there are also license fees to consider. And, as you know, we have to build in extra reliability and redundancy for our critical systems and data, as well as privacy protection for our banking customers. It’s an expensive process.” “I get all this,” said Cathy, “but why can’t you explain it to us properly? How can you just expect us to accept that 80 percent of your budget is a ‘black box’ that doesn’t need justification? Although every dime you spend may be critical to this company, the fact remains that IT’s lack of transparency is damaging its internal credibility with the business.”
Round and round the issues they went. Over the next two months, Caroline, Matt, and their team hammered away trying to solve them. Eventually, they came up with a set of five principles on which their new IT investment process would be based:
1. 1. Alignment of the IT development portfolio with enterprise strategies;
2. 2. Rigor and common standards around IT planning and business casing;
3. 3. Accountability in both business and IT for delivering value;
4. 4. Transparency at all levels and stages of development;
5. 5. Collaboration and cross-group synergies in all IT work.
In their team update to the bank’s executive committee, Caroline and Matt wrote, “Our vision is for a holistic view of our IT spending that will allow us to direct our resources where they will have the greatest impact. We propose to increase rigor and discipline in business casing and benefits tracking so NAF can invest with confidence in IT. The result will be strategic partnerships between IT and business units based on trust, leading us to surprise and delight our customers and employees and amaze our competitors.”
With the executive committee’s blessing, the IT Investment Office was created to design and implement a detailed investment optimization process that could be implemented throughout the bank in time for the next budget cycle. Cathy Benson was named its new director, reporting to Matt. Speaking to her staff after the announcement, Caroline stated, “I really believe that getting this work out of IT and into the business will be critical for this process. We need to make the decision-making process clearer and more collaborative. This will help us learn how to jointly make better decisions for the enterprise.”
With the hand-off from IT officially in place, Cathy and Matt knew they had to move quickly. “We’ve got three months before the next budget cycle begins,” said Matt. “You’ve got to make it real by then. I’ll back you all the way, but you’re going to have to find some way to deal with the business unit heads. They’re not going to like having their autonomy for decision-making taken away from them. And you have to remember they need some flexibility to do work that’s important to them.” Cathy nodded. She had already heard some of the negative rumors about the process and knew she was going to have to be tough if it was going to be successful and not torpedoed during its implementation.
Calling her project team together for its first meeting, she summarized their challenge. “We have to design and implement three interrelated practices: a thorough and rigorous method of project categorization and prioritization, comprehensive and holistic governance of IT spending and benefits delivery at all levels, and an annual IT planning process that provides transparency and accountability for all types of IT spending and which creates an integrated and strategically aligned development portfolio. Then we have to roll it out across the organization. The change management is going to be massive. Now, who has any ideas about what to do next?”
Discussion Questions
Cathy Benson, the director of the newly created IT Investment Office, is tasked with the “design and implementation of a detailed investment optimization process to be implemented throughout the bank in time for the next budget cycle.” She has three months to do this and it must be in accordance with the five established principles to guide the bank’s IT investment process.
Your task is to design and implement the following:
1. 1. A thorough and rigorous method of project categorization and prioritization;
2. 2. A comprehensive and holistic governance of IT spending and benefits delivery at all levels;
3. 3. An annual IT planning process that provides transparency and accountability for all types of IT spending and that creates an integrated and strategically aligned development portfolio.
In: Operations Management
In: Operations Management
What problems might be caused by structure changes that are made to implement strategies? Examples? Also, What types of strategies related to changing organization structure might be necessary to implement a strategy? Give examples.
In: Operations Management
In: Operations Management
1) How does information and knowledge management link to competitive advantage? Discuss the reasons why or why not a dominant firm might or might not consider attacking smaller competitors to increase market share?
2) Companies have to update their strategy on a regular basis but sometimes need to look at radical change, briefly explain these two types of Strategic Change and how they might affect company organization. Define incremental and transformational change.
enter academic citations.
In: Operations Management
a) List various market entry costs (at least twenty items) for a physical shop on one hand and for a e-commerce business in the same sector on the other, b) give examples of search costs for patients searching for a good dentist, c) give examples of menu costs (cost of adjusting prices) for Marks and Spencers for their physical shops.
In: Operations Management
A Tesco case study Introduction Tesco is a customer-orientated business. It aims to offer products that provide value for money for its customers and to deliver high-quality service. Tesco wants to attract new customers, but it also wants to keep its existing customers happy. Building customer loyalty is a cost-effective strategy to grow the business. This is because satisfied customers are a good advert for the business. Tesco has more than a 30% market share of the UK grocery market, nearly double that of its nearest rival. In its 2009/2010 financial year, Tesco earned revenues of £38.6 billion in the UK and employed more than 280,000 people. To keep at the top of its game and to maintain its number one spot in the market, the company needs skilled staff at all levels and in all roles. Roles in Tesco Roles in Tesco range from business development, supply chain management and marketing to finance, store operations and personnel management. Each area of expertise requires leadership and management skills. Tesco aims to develop the leadership qualities of its people throughout the organisation, from administrators and customer assistants to the board of directors. It adopts a similar approach to leadership development for staff at all levels. This is in line with Tesco’s employment philosophy: ‘We believe in treating each other with respect, with everyone having an equal opportunity to get on, ensuring Tesco is a great place to work.’ Berian is a bakery manager Berian manages a team of 17 in a Tesco in-store bakery. One of the key challenges of Berian’s job is to ensure his team produces the right products to meet demand at key times. His usual management approach is to allow the team to take responsibility for achieving the desired result. In this way, the team not only buys into the activity, but also develops new skills. For example, when the bakery expanded its product range and Berian needed to ensure that all the products would be on the shelves by 8.00 am, rather than enforce a solution, he turned to the team for ideas. The team solved the problem by agreeing to split break times so that productivity could be maintained. Berian’s approach produced a positive outcome and increased team motivation. Tesco’s leadership framework sets out not just the skills and competencies but also the personal characteristics and behaviours it expects of its leaders. Tesco looks for managers who are positive, confident and genuine, with the capacity to inspire and encourage their teams. A key part of Tesco’s programme for building leaders is encouraging self review and reflection. This allows staff to assess their strengths and find ways of demonstrating the characteristics that are vital to the long-term development of the business. Stephen is a Tesco store manager Stephen is the manager of a medium-sized Tesco store. He has been with the company for over 10 years and his first job was filling shelves in the dairy section. He is currently working towards the Tesco foundation degree. Stephen directly manages a team of around 20 departmental managers, who between them are responsible for almost 300 people. Stephen’s leadership style is usually to allow his managers to make most operational decisions. However, if, for example, an accident occurs in the store, Stephen may take control to ensure a prompt and co-ordinated response. The best managers adopt leadership styles appropriate to the situation. Stephen’s preferred leadership style is to take a democratic approach. He consults widely as he feels that staff respond better to this approach. For example, when planning a major stock reduction programme, he encourages his managers to put forward ideas and develop plans. This increases team motivation and encourages creativity. Some mistakes may be made, but they are used as a learning experience. However, as a store manager, Stephen deals with many different situations. Some may be business critical and it is important that he responds to these in the most appropriate way. In such situations, Stephen may need to adapt his leadership approach and exert more authority. Martin is Tesco's Programme Manager for Education and Skills Martin is Tesco’s Programme Manager for Education and Skills in the UK. He has a range of responsibilities associated with people, processes and standards. Martin may use a democratic approach when setting training budgets. Managers can suggest ideas to make cost savings and they can jointly discuss their proposals with Martin. By empowering his managers, he gets them to take ownership of the final agreed budget. Laissez-faire is at the other end of the spectrum from autocratic. A laissez-faire manager takes a ‘hands-off’ approach and trusts teams to take appropriate decisions or actions with broad agreed boundaries. For example, Martin might leave an experienced departmental manager to develop a budget. This could be because he trusts that the manager has a good knowledge of the needs of the department and of the business. Factors influencing leadership style People at each level of responsibility in Tesco, from administrators and customer assistants to directors, face different types of decisions. Each comes with its own responsibilities and timescales. These will influence the most appropriate leadership style for a particular piece of work or for a given project or audience. Tesco managers have responsibilities for ‘front of house’ (customer-facing) staff as well as ‘behind the scenes’ employees, such as office staff. Before making a decision, the manager will consider the task in hand, the people involved and those who will be affected (such as customers). Various internal and external factors may also affect the choice of leadership style used. Internal factors include the levels of skill that employees have. Large teams may have members with varying levels of skill. This may require the manager to adopt a more directive style, providing clear communication so that everyone knows what to do to achieve goals and tasks. On the other hand, team leaders may take a more consultative approach with other managers of equal standing in order to get their co-operation for a project. External factors may arise when dealing with customers. For example, Berian may need to use a persuasive style to convince a customer to accept a replacement product for an item that is temporarily out of stock. Critical success factors (CSFs) In order to build a sustainable and robust business, Tesco has set out critical success factors (CSFs). These are linked at all levels to its business goals. Some CSFs apply to all employees. These are: • customer focus – to ensure delivery of ‘every little helps’ • personal integrity – to build trust and respect • drive –to achieve results, even when the going gets tough • team working – to ensure positive relationships in and across teams • developing self/others – to motivate and inspire others. Others are specific to the level of responsibility the person or role has and covers: • analysing and decision making • managing performance • managing change • gaining commitment. • By meeting the requirements of these CSFs, Tesco managers can build their leadership skills & contribute to the growth of the business. • Tesco leaders need to be inspirational, creative and innovative, ready to embrace change and with a long-term vision for achievement. Effective leaders manage by example and in doing so, develop their teams. Tesco encourages all its managers to lead by example. It requires leaders who can motivate, problem solve and build great teams. • Tesco employs people in a wide range of roles and provides a career structure which allows employees to progress through the organisation. Tesco’s process of 360-degree feedback allows its employees to reflect on their own progress and improve. Even if someone starts as working in store filling shelves – as did Stephen – they can progress through the organisation into positions of authority and responsibility. Answer all the below questions: 1. With reference to the Tesco case study, compare the leadership style adopted by Berian, Stephen and Martin. 2. In Tesco, what are the qualities that are required for the individuals to assume leadership roles? 3. In reference to the case of Tesco, evaluate the kind of leadership roles displayed by Berian, Stephen and Martin and the changes they need to make in their respective leadership style as required for the situation. 4. In this Tesco case study, explain what is the leadership and managerial competences that Berian, Stephen and Martin need to develop respectively. 5. What should be the development plans that Managers and individuals in Tesco should take
to develop themselves as leaders for achieving the critical success factors set by Tesco. Given the nature of tasks, roles and responsibilities in Tesco for each individual, what are the leadership and managerial skills that should be exhibited by the concerned managers given the Internal and External environment changes.
In: Operations Management