Describe the strategies for your organisation in future to maintain the business profitability after the impact of covid-19. [30 marks]

1. A supply chain manager is trying to reduce her inventory costs by coming up with better ordering policies. The retail shop sells gaming consoles. One of the consoles has a steady demand and it is fairly steady.

The data is: Demand = 1400 per year; Cost per unit = $400; holding cost = 10% of the unit cost/per year; Ordering cost = $600 per order

1. Find the EOQ.
2. Compute the optimal number of orders per year
3. Compute the total joint costs of holding and ordering costs per year

What are the six pieces of information we need to understand a proposed capital investment as described by Peter Drucker? List them and provide a short explanation of each.

Coronavirus: A visual guide to the economic impact  

Global shares take a hit
Big shifts in stock markets, where shares in companies are bought and sold, can affect many investments in pensions or individual savings accounts (ISAs).
The FTSE, Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nikkei have all seen huge falls since the outbreak began on 31 December.
The Dow and the FTSE recently saw their biggest one day declines since 1987.

Investors fear the spread of the coronavirus will destroy economic growth and that government action may not be enough to stop the decline.
In response, central banks in many countries, including the United Kingdom, have slashed interest rates.
That should, in theory, make borrowing cheaper and encourage spending to boost the economy.
Global markets did also recover some ground after the US Senate passed a $2 trillion (£1.7tn) coronavirus aid bill to help workers and businesses.
But some analysts have warned that they could be volatile until the pandemic is contained.

In the United States, the number of people filing for unemployment hit a record high, signalling an end to a decade of expansion for one of the world's largest economies.
  


Factories in China slowed down
In China, where the coronavirus first appeared, industrial production, sales and investment all fell in the first two months of the year, compared with the same period in 2019.
China makes up a third of manufacturing globally, and is the world's largest exporter of goods.


Restrictions have affected the supply chains of big companies such as industrial equipment manufacturer JCB and carmaker Nissan.
Shops and car dealerships have all reported a fall in demand.
Chinese car sales, for example, dropped by 86% in February. More carmakers, like Tesla or Geely, are now selling cars online as customers stay away from showrooms.

Growth set to stagnate
If the economy is growing, that generally means more wealth and more new jobs.
It's measured by looking at the percentage change in gross domestic product, or the value of goods and services produced, typically over three months or a year.
The world's economy could grow at its slowest rate since 2009 this year due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The think tank has forecast growth of just 2.4% in 2020, down from 2.9% in November.
It also said that a "longer lasting and more intensive" outbreak could halve growth to 1.5% in 2020 as factories suspend their activity and workers stay at home to try to contain the virus.

Questions:
1. Elaborate the impact of this Covid-19 from the article. [30 marks]

Discuss the differences and similarities between these two business forms :

1.Similarities and differences between limited partnership in USA vs Limited partnership in Lebanon

2. Similarities and differences between Sole proprietorship in USA vs. Establishment in Lebanon

Explain the rationale of Induction, deduction, and abduction reasoning in the below examples:

a) John is a human and John can swim, therefore all human can swim.

b) The teachers told the headmaster "The students have handphones. Please take them".

c) Adam sees Aminah as the most beautiful lady. Therefore, Aminah is the most beautiful lady

You are the Human Resource Manager of a busy branch and have stopped to talk to one of the clerks in the office to see what progress he is making. He complains bitterly that he is not learning anything. He gets only routine work to do and it is the same routine. He has not even been given the chance to swap jobs with someone else. You have picked up the same message from others in the office. You discuss the situation with Jean Howe the recently appointed supervisor. She appears to be very busy and harassed. When confronted with your observations she says that she is fed up with the job. She is worked off her feet, comes early, goes late, takes work home and gets criticized behind her back by incompetent clerks.

You are required to write an essay

a). to state what is going wrong

b). give recommendations as to what you will do.

Question:

Clothing industry that is classified as non-essential service under the Movement Control Order (MCO) Phase 1 and Phase 2 by the Government of Malaysia, develop an e-business strategy applying the 7 dimensions model by Robert Plant (2000).

Please do not copy paste. Write in your language (500 words)

Q. Quality Circles enrich work life. Discuss.

Please do not copy paste. Write in your language (500 words)

Q. Quality Circle leads to total performance. Discuss.

Question:

Design a unique customer management themes for clothing industry to manage the customer experience in a new way that is useful after the MCO is lifted.

Please do not copy paste. Write in your language (500 words)

Q. Quality circles are voluntary. Discuss.

TS Inc. is a small, growing aviation company; the CEO makes the hiring decisions based on his years of experience as well as his gut feeling. He started the business 10 years ago with 10 employees and the company has grown to over 30 employees. Since you have been hired, you have guided management through several stages of the recruitment and selection process to hire an aircraft maintenance engineer. TS Inc. has used proper selection methods, such as screening, testing, and structured interviews, but is not sure about how to integrate the data from these various sources. In the past, the president relied on his gut feeling about applicants and made poor hiring decisions. At TS Inc. recruitment rests on the shoulders of the president. Like most small companies, TS Inc. frequently uses employee referrals as a method of recruitment. The company wants to use Internet recruitment technologies but is not well versed in information technology. The CEO is very concerned about poor hiring decisions and turnover costs.

1. The CEO has asked you, the HRM, to explain some of the differences between the use of his practice-based selection approach and an empirical-based process. Also explain what challenges you anticipate he would face in using validation techniques.

2. Define and describe one potential decision making model TS Inc. could use. Explain the decision-making model and discuss its advantages and disadvantages.

3. Explain TS Inc.’s president’s decision-making style, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this method of decision making.

4. TS Inc. has made costly selection errors in the past when the company underestimated the potential of an aircraft maintenance engineer, which resulted in a no-hire decision. Explain this type of selection error and discuss the potential impact of such an error and why TS Inc. should be concerned.

5. What would be some effective e-recruitment method for recruiting aircraft maintenance engineers?

Please do not copy paste. Write in your language (500 words)

Q. Problems in quality circles

The restaurant business is always in flux, with workers coming and going in a revolving-door fashion. This is true even of high-end concepts like Barcelona Restaurant Group, a collection of seven wine and tapas bars located in Connecticut and Atlanta, Georgia.

At Barcelona, life is all about authentic cuisine, exceptional service, and a great time. The restaurant group offers eclectic Spanish cuisine with an authentic ambience that recalls a neighborhood eatery in Milan or Rio de Janeiro. At Barcelona, wait staff are friendly, and chefs are known to create personalized dishes that impress regulars. Barcelona’s flavorful tapas are infused with olive oil, lemon, and smoky paprika, and the comprehensive wine list features top vintages from Spain, Portugal, and vineyards around the world.

It takes the right mix of people to deliver this upscale culinary experience, and that’s a job for Barcelona COO Scott Lawton. “Human resources is one of the most important things we do in our business,” says Lawton. “This is a transient business, so people are constantly moving. The minute you stop looking for talent you’re actually sliding backwards—so, we’re always hiring.”

For anyone who has waited tables, restaurant turnover is a familiar experience. Cooks, servers, and bussers have short careers in most establishments; managers typically stick around longer. But Barcelona has exceptionally high standards for service, and this requires letting go employees who aren’t up to snuff. “In the three years I’ve worked here, only one or two managers has quit,” Lawton states. However, we’ve turned over probably 60 to 70 percent of all management in the past three years, and that’s because we were not afraid to let people go. We demand a certain level of quality, and we’re continuously raising the bar on our expectations.”

With so much talent revolving through the organization, Lawton integrates recruitment into daily operations. The restaurant keeps want ads running at all times, and managers conduct interviews each and every day. The process is highly strategic. According to Barcelona’s operations chief, smart restaurant managers can hire their way out of problems simply by selecting the right people. “We can train people all day,” Lawton states, “but we can’t train happy people with good attitudes—we can’t train that into people.” Lawton instructs managers to hire the right people with the right work attitudes.

Judging an applicant’s work attitudes is no easy task, however. To ensure that Barcelona finds the right employees, Lawton uses a three-stage recruitment process. First, leaders conduct 20-minute interviews with dozens of candidates.

Next, applicants are sent on “a shop”—an assignment during which candidates spend $100 dollars at a Barcelona restaurant and write an essay about the event. For applicants who survive the first two stages of the selection process, there is one final assessment: “the trail.” At Barcelona, the trail acts as a kind of test drive in which job candidates command the floor, interact with wait staff and customers, and demonstrate job skills. Approximately one-fourth of the candidates who go on a trail can expect to be hired.

At the end of the day, according to Scott Lawton, people either possess the necessary intelligence and skills to run a restaurant or they don’t. The industry doesn’t have much time for learning curves, and the success or failure of any establishment depends on the performance of competent self-motivated employees.

No one knows this more than Lawton. “For any company that is involved in customer service,” states the restaurant veteran, “the most important thing you can do is have the right people in front of your customers.”

Respond to the follow Questions in an essay format

a. List the three main activities of human resource management (HRM) and identify which activity is examined at length.

b. Of the various steps in Barcelona’s employee selection process, the job interview is the most brief. Do you agree with the company’s approach to interviewing? Why or why not?

c.Identify Barcelona’s three-stage process for matching job applicants with its organizational objectives and explain how each stage reveals the fit between job applicants and the needs of the restaurant.