Posts by Helena Mullock
Introduction This article explains core process mapping that directly contribute to the production of Tasty-Beans brand of canned beans owned by Tasty-Beans Co. by to be delivered to Sainsbury’s Plc distribution centres, one of the largest supermarket chains in UK. Moreover, the paper contains in-depth illustration of lower-level mapping that focuses on packaging element of core business processes. Core business processes of Tasty-Beans Co. in general, and packaging element are explained in this paper with the application of ‘Four V’s’ and IGOE frameworks. Tasty-Beans Operations Core Process Mapping Business process can be defined as “well-understood interplay of activities that targets a certain business objective” (Draheim, 2010, p.75). Accordingly, for the case of Tasty-Beans, business process relates to the process of manufacturing and selling canned beans for the purposes of profit maximisation. Business processes can be divided into two categories: core and support. Core processes related to the production of products and services in direct manner, and they include operations, inbound and outbound logistics, and marketing and sales (Burlton, 2001). Support processes, on the other hand, “do not add value, but are necessary to assure that the core processes continue to function” (Harmon, 2007, p.86), and support processes include human resources development, development of technology, procurement and overall infrastructure. BPNM stands for Business Processes Modelling Notation and it assists with finding and utilising possibilities for increasing the levels of effectiveness of various business processes. Mapping of Tasty-Beans Co. canned been manufacturing operations provided below only comprise core processes: Analysis of Sub-Section Process: Packaging Illustration of Mapping of Tasty-Beans Co. canned been manufacturing operations provided above captures main activities within core elements of operations in general manner. Each of lanes within the pool such as inbound logistics, packaging, marketing and sales and outbound logistics can be further expanded in a lower level map in order to…
1. Introduction Rapid and dramatic changes in consumer technology market in the global scale are compromising the effectiveness of competitive advantage for many players in the marketplace. Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) can be specified as one of the giants in the industry and the company is finding difficult to address modern challenges in its market in an effective manner. HP is experiencing loss of sales and profitability due to a combination of certain factors discussed in this paper. Behind the overall 7% sales decline in the third quarter of 2012 lay 25% decline of sales of PCs and 15% decline of consumer printers (Walters, 2012). The public acknowledgement of the issue of declining profitability and pessimistic sales growth forecast made by HP President and CEO Ms. Meg Whitman on October 3, 2012 has caused the fall of HP share prices by 11% on the same day. Moreover, according to estimations of a global research agency, Millward Brown (2012), HP brand value has declined 35% in 2012 compared to 2011, and the company has moved down from 18th place to 26th in the list of Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands within the same period. This article represents a critical analysis of declining profitability of HP using an analytical method. The article starts with introducing HP corporate profile and relevant background information. This is followed by a critical analysis of major factors contributing to the loss of profitability at HP. Namely, factors discussed in a detailed manner include increasing popularity of computer tablets, economic uncertainties in Europe, and leadership challenges. Moreover, this article proposes recommendations for HP senior level management in dealing with its current problem of declining profitability and contributing to long-term growth of the company. 2. HP: Corporate Profile Founded in 1939 by W.R. Hewlett and D. Packard, HP has been…
Introduction Described as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century by the current president of Russia Vladimir Putin (BBC, 2005, online), the collapse of the Soviet Union has caused profound changes in global political and economic affairs, impacting the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) has been formed in 1922 and it has enjoyed the culmination of its influence in the global scale following its victory in World War Two within the period from mid 1960s to mid 1980s being able to send the first man to the outer space in 1961 and achieving relative stability in the standard of life of member state citizens. Initially, Soviet Union comprised only six member states in 1922 – Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Azerbaijan, Georgian and Armenian Soviet Socialist Republics; however its size has been gradually increased during the following two decades until 1941 to reach the numbers of member states to 15 through expanding into Central Asia and Balkan states. Nevertheless, due to the range of reasons discussed below the existence of USSR came to its end officially in 1991. Although more than two decades have passed since the collapse of the USSR this topic is regularly explored in academic levels due to its importance and impact to the formation of present geo-political situation. This essay attempts to analyse the major reasons and implications of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Economic, cultural, social and political factors contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union are discussed in this essay and implications of this event on regional level for former USSR blog countries, as well as, on the global landscape are assessed. Economic factors contributing to the collapse of the Soviet Union Assessment of economic factors that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union…
Introduction Increasing forces of globalisation have altered the terms and nature of conducting business considerably and irreversibly. As a result of globalisation businesses have been presented with a range of opportunities to contribute to the level of their revenues and these opportunities primarily include outsourcing various business processes abroad and exporting products to other countries. General Electric Company (GE) is a globally diversified technology and financial services company and its products and services include aircraft engines, power generation, water processing, and household appliances to medical imaging, business and consumer financing and industrial products (General Electric Co, Bloomberg, 2013). GE has achieved an international growth of 18% during 2011 which has contributed to company consolidated revenues of $147 billions during the same period of time. Moreover, 13,000 jobs were created by GE in US during 2011, and international sales of American-made products by GE had amounted to $18 billion during that year (GE Annual Report, 2011). This report evaluates the impact that globalisation has had on the policies of GE and specifies changes needed to be implemented taking into account the recent economic crisis in the USA and the global financial recession. The report addresses GE policy changes impacted by globalisation in an individual manner by referring to other relevant publications, and changes proposed for GE in the report have been justified in a detailed manner. Impact of Globalisation on GE Policies GE has attempted to take full advantage of possibilities provided by globalisation by formulating relevant policies mainly during the last decade under the leadership of its CEO Jeff Immelt. Financial Time’s Crooks (2012) recites the following words from Immelt: “When I became CEO [in 2001] we were 70 per cent inside the US industrially. Now we are 60 per cent outside the US”. The specific impacts of globalisation…
Introduction There always have been disparities between countries in terms of the levels of economic developments and this tendency is most likely to continue in the future. However, there have been attempts by highly developed countries to assist the level of economic development of developing countries through various programs involving financial aids and recommendations. A set of policy recommendations proposed by the US to developing countries has been known as Washington Consensus, and there are mixed opinions about the implementation and outcome of these recommendations (Bandelj and Sowers, 2010). This article critically analyses the ideology of Washington Consensus. The article starts with discussions about factors and circumstances that have caused the emergence of Washington Consensus. This is followed by discussing positive implications of Washington Consensus for certain countries by referring to relevant facts. Moreover, the article highlights major points of criticism of Washington Consensus and the attempts to assess the level of their validity of these points and discusses reasons and circumstances for introduction of Post-Washington Consensus also known as Washington Consensus II. The article is completed by attempting to the future of Washington Consensus prescriptions in modern dynamic global geo-political environment. Emergence of Washington Consensus The term of Washington Consensus has been coined by in 1989 by John Williamson to label “list of ten policies that more or less everyone in Washington would agree were needed more or less everywhere in Latin America” (Williamson, 2008, p.14). Williamson had specified these ten reforms proposed to Latin American countries as a greater level of fiscal discipline, re-ordering of public expenditure priorities, taxation reforms, liberalisations of interest rates, increasing the levels of competitiveness of interest rates, liberalisation of trade, liberalisation of inward foreign direct investment, privatisation, deregulation, and property rights. Latin American countries were facing severe economic challenges throughout the 1980s, and this…
According to Azhar (2003) organizational culture is the combination of important assumptions that are shared in common by each members of an organization and are often unstated. Organizational culture is basically made up by two major common assumptions: values and beliefs. Values are the assumptions that have been forwarded by the leaders of the organization and considered to be ideals that are desired by all the members of an organization. Beliefs on the other hand are the assumptions about the reality and created by experience. Robbins (1986) on the other hand, defines organizational culture as a uniform perception of an organization which has common characteristics. Organizational culture, according to the author is something descriptive and effectively it can distinguish one particular organization from another. It can also integrate individuals and groups of organization systems. Organizational culture is also defined by Rousseau (2000) as a set of commonly experienced stable characteristics of an organization which shows the distinctive features of an organization which differentiates it from others. Similar to the definitions of Azhar (2003) that has been stated above, Rousseau (2000) also define the organizational culture as set of norms and values that are shared by individuals and groups across the organization. Organizational values and beliefs refer to the common ideas about what the shared goals of an organization are, what types of behaviour should the members of an organization follow in order to achieve the common goals of an organization. These organizational values in turn form out the standard norms and guidelines for the organization that makes it distinct from others. Organizational culture is also defined by Schein (2004) as a pattern of shared assumptions that have been accepted by a group of individuals as they solve their problems. Because they have used these assumptions to solve their problems and…
The term luxury has been defined as “something inessential but conductive to pleasure and comfort” (The Free Dictionary, 2014) and “great comfort, especially as provided by expensive and beautiful things” (Cambridge Dictionaries, 2014). Accordingly, luxury industry can be defined as an industry where consumer perceived value about products and services plays greater role and the actual benefits offered by those products and services. Moreover, luxury industry is closely associated with intangible aspects of products and services. In order to establish our luxury clothing brand, we have to make sure that there is a growing marketplace and ever growing demand for luxury clothes in the countries we wish to have our presence. According to market research analysis, there is a growing demand for luxury clothes both in the UK and worldwide. Although there is a common consensus that luxury brands suffered significant losses during and after recession, the market data discovered in this business plan proves the opposite. The Figure 1 shows that demand and growth of the marketplace for luxury clothes have been consistently rising for the last 5-6 years. Although there is a slight shift of growth for luxury marketplace to the emerging markets such as China, overall snapshot for the luxury clothes worldwide tends to be growing at significantly fast rate of around 7-8% for the next few years. The most obvious of these reasons is that there have been more people who have a large amount of disposable income from whom we have seen an increased desire for luxury goods. Brands that manufacture luxury goods have noticed this increase in demand, and have responded by tailoring their particular strategies to making sure that this demand is met in more areas of the world by opening stores in major cities that are entirely dedicated to the sale of…
By Helena Mullock
Category: Industry Analysis