Explain the 5 levels of the Capability Maturity Model. Then, think about the organization where you work, where you have worked, or one that you have interacted with and identify which CMM level you believe they have achieved and explain your answer.

Managing Service, Information and Control

Please Read, Review, Analyze, Manage, and Solve. Answer questions and give thorough solutions and solid plans for everything below.

Going Lean at Starbucks

It started off as a day basically like any other. You went into the Starbucks that you manage, helped the employees open the store, and thought about making a dent in the mountain of paperwork left over from the previous week. But then, you got an unexpected visit from a team at the corporate office. They started talking about the need to lower labor costs, improve efficiency, and increase productivity. When you asked them how they planned on doing all that, their response was “lean production.”

They informed you that lean production is a management philosophy derived from Toyota that is focused on reducing waste. Whether it’s wasted motion, wasted time, or wasted parts, the goal of lean production is to eliminate waste so that all the members of an organization can do their work efficiently. The executives then show you all the “waste” that’s in your stores right now—baristas bending over to scoop coffee from a counter below, others waiting for coffee to fully drain before starting a new pot, one worker carrying trays of pastries from storage to the display case, another spending ten seconds per drink to read the milk label. They even show you a map showing the winding trail that a barista takes in making a single drink. It looks like a big pile of spaghetti, you think to yourself.

With lean production, the executives explain, you can reduce the amount of motion that employees spend making drinks, and the amount of time they spend reaching for stuff, reading labels, or moving from here to there. This will make your store more efficient and productive, so that the same number of employees can serve more customers.

You’re intrigued by all of this, as nothing would please your supervisors more than increased revenue and lower costs. But you’re also worried about how your employees will react. Many of them came to work at Starbucks because it wasn’t like other fast-food chains that only focus on speed, speed, and speed. How will they feel once you tell them that they’ll have to change the way they work to become faster? What if they feel like you just want them to be coffee-making robots, leaving them no time to interact with customers or experiment with new drinks? Consider these issues with the questions below.

1. How would an increase in efficiency and production benefit your employees?
2. How would you address employees’ concerns that they are being transformed into coffee-making robots?

The Problem with Cups

Starbucks has always strived to take leadership in environmental issues, whether it was by encouraging customers to compost used coffee grounds or offering free coffee drinks to customers who brought in their own reusable mugs. But the company faces a major problem that has few solutions—cups. Across all of its stores, Starbucks uses more than 3 billion paper cups every year, most of which end up in the trash. Though the company would love to recycle these cups, it can’t, since most processors don’t have a process for recycling paper cups that are lined with plastic, as the Starbucks cups are. The plastic lining also prevents the cups from being composted.

3. How can Starbucks maintain its commitment to reducing waste as it keeps sending paper cups to landfills?
4.   What steps do you think Starbucks could take to reduce the number of paper cups it uses?
5.   Describe the strategies managers can use for waste prevention and reduction.

Conclusion on Caterpillar Inc overall.

Case Summary

Microsoft is the world’s largest supplier of computer software. It has dominant market share of PC operating systems with its Windows system. High barriers to entry prevent significant competition in the operating systems market. The primary barrier is that a large number of software programs must be able to interface with any operating system to make it attractive to end users. It would be extremely difficult for any competitor to create a new operating system and create or encourage the creation of completely new software to compete with Windows. However, the development of Internet Browser programs, specifically Netscape, threatened this barrier, by allowing software developers to create software that could run using the browser software as a platform for the program. Therefore, software could be created that could still be used with Microsoft Windows, but would not have to be.

Microsoft recognized this development as a threat to its operating system monopoly. Initially Microsoft attempted to divide the market with Netscape, but Netscape refused. To defend its operating system, it set about to overtake Netscape with its own internet browser, Internet Explorer. To defeat Netscape, Microsoft leveraged its operating system monopoly to gain market share in the internet browser market.   Microsoft forced computer manufacturers to include Internet Explorer and strongly discouraged them from including competing browsers with the bundled software. It also leveraged its operating system power to encourage Online Service Providers (AOL, etc.), Internet Content Providers, and Internet Service Providers to use Internet Explorer and discourage them from making competing browsers available. The actions by Microsoft were effective in taking market share away from Netscape and protecting the Windows Operating System.

Discussion Questions

1. What is the primary barrier to entry in the operating systems market? How does Netscape’s product threaten to remove this barrier?
2. What is Microsoft’s pricing and distribution strategy for Internet Explorer? How does this compare to Netscape? Why would Microsoft pursue this pricing strategy?
3. Is the internet browser software market a separate relevant product market from the operating system market?
4. How does control of the start-up sequence and desktop screen allow Microsoft to leverage internet providers to use Internet Explorer? How effective was this strategy?

5. What are some of the ways in which Microsoft’s actions adversely effect competition and innovation? Does this show evidence of harm to consumers?

Define and discuss Porters’ Generic Strategies

A fundamental building block in human resource management is job analysis. 1.) Describe what is meant by job analysis. 2.) Describe how job analysis is used to develop human resource management programs. 3.) What are major arguments for job analysis? What are major criticisms of job analysis?

•Explain how to prepare for the ultimate crisis in an organization through succession planning

In business terms, what’s the difference between trying to steal clients from your old employer and trying to steal market share? In ethical terms, what’s the difference?

Change Management is a process used to ensure that overall business risk is minimized by responding to customers business requirements while minimizing value and reducing incidents, disruption, and re-work. Of the following is seven Rs of Change Management (Raised; Reason; Return; Risks; Resources; Responsible; Relationship) Discuss.

Change management is an important part of business management. Using Change Management, organizations can respond to customer requirements while minimizing value and reducing incidents and disruption. Why is organizational change management important? What are the benefits, risks, and impacts?

Explain why this approach was taken by considering the stage in the product life cycle as well as the promotion objectives. TOPIC BOBBI BROWN

SUBJECT: MARKETING

Suppose you worked at a company that implemented a new wellness policy that required that you take health screenings each year for weight, cholesterol, tobacco use, and other health indicators. According to the wellness policy, if you do not achieve a high enough wellness score you will be required to make changes in your diet, exercise habits, or eliminate tobacco. Those who do not comply with the wellness policy face financial penalties. How would this wellness policy make you feel about working for this employer? Would you feel better (the employer is being unfair by trying to regulate my health), worse (the employer is being unfair by trying to regulate my life), or indifferent to your employer for having this wellness policy? How would the policy affect your job behavior? Would you increase you effort, maintain it, decrease it, or start looking for another job? What explains your positive or negative reactions to this wellness policy?

Write 5 paragraph Discussing a Movies or a Music or a Toys that you remember watching/playing/listening to as a kid and how these compare against socialized roles (whether it be male, female or both)