The Coca-Cola Company has created a great source of opportunities where many have got a chance to work and earn a living. This jobs are got through various means where some of this means are through the online recruitment and other ways where the applicant are able to access. Through this and other means the company has a workforce of about six billion people from about two hundred countries in the globe. The company recruits women and minorities at all levels of the organization and hence ensure maximum rates of preservation and preferment (Kurtz, & Boone, 2009). The company has its recruiting efforts towards building partnership with the community based organizations.

There are several trends that can be applied to ensure that there is an improvement in the recruiting efforts of the Coca-Cola Company. One of this ways is the talent branding, in this case the greater the employment brand the better the candidates the company gets. The value of a strong employment brand can be priceless but it not only helps the company attract the best people but also keep the people the company already have (Griffin, 2007). The second way to that can be used to improve the recruiting efforts is by internal hiring. This involves recruiting the employees that the company has already has instead of going for others outside the company. The company in this case send messages to the entire workforce informing them that there is a room for them to advance their careers and even opportunities within the company. For example the company may decide to recruit some of the supervisors who have served for long for the management position (Griffin, 2007). The company can also ensure that in cases where they have talented managers they can improve and brand their talents highly which will invite more for them.

The human resource management position in such a company is admirable because with the strategies above it will be enjoyable and very engaging. The position will give room to utilize the abilities that the employee has fully and even improve the capability he or she has to do the same work (Aswathappa, 2005). It will ensure much improvement and help to the society in general and the workforce in the company already. However much the selection process varies depending on the post there are several parts of the process that are similar. This is inclusive of interview, group exercises, and psychometric tests, presentations among others.

References

Griffin, R. W. (2007). Fundamentals of management: Core concepts and applications. Boston, Mass: Houghton Mifflin.

Aswathappa, K. (2005). Human resource and personnel management: Text and cases. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.

Top of Form

Kurtz, D. L., & Boone, L. E. (2009). Contemporary business. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Defusing and preventing potential conflict- customer service 

One of the main factors that affect long-term-success of an organisation is attracting customers and more importantly retaining them. Only an inexperienced customer would entertain the assumption that unsatisfied customers will continue tolerating being offered poor services or buy products that do not satisfied their need. The customers usually shave many choices so if an organization and its employees does not satisfy their needs, they are likely to prefer competitors where results are pleasant to them (Nelson & Quick, 2013).  The wrong behaviour expressed towards the customers such as negative words-of –mouth make a firm to lose dissatisfied customers to competitors. The employees behaviour while relating with customers also determines the customer satisfaction and this their loyalty to the organisation’s brands.

The approach used by Nordstrom focuses on the individual needs of the customers by offering them the best service including selection, value and quality is very appropriate in solving or preventing conflict with to a larger extent. Focusing on the customer needs serve as the basic principle of creating a good relationship with the customer (Nelson & Quick, 2013). This helps in any conflict that may arise between the customers and the employees of the organisation. The decision by the organisation employee to exchange the tire with another product that the client wanted even when they do not deal with tires shows the application of accommodating style of conflict management. In applying this style the firm was willing to satisfy the customer needs at its own expense in order to win over their loyalty. This goes a long way in avoiding any confrontation with the customers. By dealing with individual cases of returns by the customer separately, it help in understanding the behaviour of the customer and how to avoid any conflict while dealing with them (Sharp, 2002). It also helps to create an emotional link with the customer, where thereafter their needs are actually satisfied. The extent of replacing products long after purchase to keep the customer happy assist in preventing any confrontation with the customers especially where they claim that their products were faulty.

Moreover, integrating the online and store division prevents the products from running out of stock frequently and this improved the company’s customer’s service. This builds trust with customers and ensures that there no complaints arising due to disappointment from customers in case they unsuccessfully search for products. An online integration also means that customers will not have to visit the stores and look for products but engage the platform to seek the available products and thus avoid time wastage. By embracing online customer reviews, the firm offers the customers an avenue where they can raises the opinion on the services offered. The online review system for customers assist the firm to avoid a conflict since it is able to anticipate the buyer’s needs. An online system help the firm to compile the information from customers opinions and after analysing it, build come up with a strategy to provide services that are focused on customer needs. An online forum is a good approach of preventing any conflict since customers can provide feedback after their review (Sharp, 2002). The feedback can be very useful to the firm as it can give an opportunity for a firm to notice problems as they arise and be able to respond quickly. Thus the approach is focused on customers’ needs and their quick satisfaction assist to avoid any unforeseen conflict.

References

Nelson, D. L., & Quick, J. C. (2013). Organizational behaviour: Science, the real world, and you.496-509

Sharp, D. (2002).Customer Relationship Management Systems Handbook.161

 Factors influencing the demand for health food in the market

The rate of customers purchase health food has increased and the worldwide market is growing in a rapid rate.  This makes the demand to grow in a faster rate as customers are concerned with food safety and   their purchasing decision is made for health foods (Baourakis, 2004).  There are various factors which influence the demand and some of them are;

 Availability

 There are many specialist retailers and distribution channels   which dominate the market.  Health food is readily available as it sold in supermarkets and specialist shops. Distributing channels such as mail order and farmers makes it easy for customers to access health foods (Baourakis, 2004).  For example in UK, there are 10 retail outlets which are controlled by specialist retailers.  A research on demand and supply has confirmed that the demand will increase in higher rate and the only problem which will affect the economy is lack of supply (Baourakis, 2004).  For example in Germany, the internal demand is very high and it is not possible to   meet the demand.  Despite the fact that UK is making much effort to ensure that it meets the demands of its customers, 75% of health food is imported.

Health

Consumers are concerned with healthy foods which are not grown with chemical and they are rich in nutrients.  They are motivated by health aspects and the mentality that health foods contain nutritional quality (Baourakis, 2004).  In addition, health fruits and vegetables are fresh compared with conventionally food. Customers also avoid food safety problems and so they go for affordable quality food.

Ethical issue

Consumers are concerned with environmental issues.  They   want to preserve soil fertility, reduce water pollution, and encourage animal welfare and biodiversity.   Intensive farming is contributing to environmental problems. Generally, consumers are valuing environment, human being, and animals.  For example, 50% of Italians who consume health foods are environmental activists (Baourakis, 2004).

Reference

Baourakis, G. (2004). Marketing trends for organic food in the 21st century. River Edge, NJ: World Scientific.

Strategy and competitive advantage

The rivalry between UPS and FedEx is growing and becoming more intense and aggressive. The intensity and stiffness of the competition is much contributed by the fact that these firms are similar in many ways which include the products they sell, the production resources, the market and the competitive dimensions they hold (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson 166). The two firms however differ in various aspects of operation as discussed. First, UPS store is considerably small compared to that of FedEx. The UPS store primarily serves the small businesses and retail customers who require small packages. The store of FedEx on the other hand is very big and corporately own because their market stronghold lies in the corporate clients who can afford and prefer the sophisticated products. The way the two firms structure their operations is also very different.

UPS usually manage all of its operations through a single operation network while the FedEx uses the strategy of different units of business (Duke, Joanne, Franz, & Hsieh 57). This offers it a distinct competitive advantage to the firm. Finally another difference is seen on the effect of e-commerce between the two firms. It is evident that UPS has greatly benefitted from the online marketing because small package deliveries are usually on higher demand that the large packages. It is however not the case for the FedEx company because online purchases are usually cherished at local and regional levels as opposed to express and the long-haul dealings which the company engages in (Duke, Joanne, Franz, & Hsieh 57).  

Despite being so similar in the various aspects of production, marketing and sales, the firms are current putting more stress on different segments as they attempt to make the stakeholder value more superior. This would save the firms from the head-to-head competition which is expensive and cost ineffective to maintain. To start with, FedEx is planning to extend its brand to the customers in a seamless way which would grant them access of the entire portfolio of all the integrated services including the transportation and delivery (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson 166). This would expose the customers various access benefits hence becoming a competitive strategy for the FedEx firm. On the other hand, UPS firm has laid out a strategy which would position the firm to be the primary coordinator of the information, goods and funds flow throughout the entire market. In this regard, UPS has agreed to purchase the Hungary-based pharmaceutical-logistics company which shall strengthen the European market (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson 166).

FedEx is also restructuring most of dealings and operations with an ultimate aim of increasing efficiency.  More emphasis have also been put to enhance the transportation and services of the international markets by establishing independent express and ground networks in a more synergistically manner. Most of these competitive strategies are still under development but much has been achieved through them (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson 166). The outcome of the competitive strategies have kept the FedEx firm to be the largest international air shipping firm in the world while the UPS firm becoming the largest package delivery firm in the world.

Considering the different business models that have been embraced by the two similar firms, UPS may be more successful in the future. This is because the modern e-commerce favors most of the UPS’ operations whereby the more revenue is expected. In addition, the UPS firm has already been able to reach the size that of FedEx in terms of the total assets of the company. The likelihood of UPS winning the market in the future is also substantiated by the fact that FedEx is having challenges in adjusting to the modern business environment (Duke, Joanne, Franz, & Hsieh 57).  

Work cited:

Hitt M. A., Ireland R. D. & Hoskisson R. E., Strategic Management :competitiveness and globalization 2015, Cengage Learning

Duke, Joanne C., David Franz, and Su-Jane Hsieh. "Evaluating Constructive Lease Capitalization And Off-Balance-Sheet Financing: An Instructional Case With Fedex And UPS." Accounting Perspectives 11.1 (2012): 57-69. Business Source Complete. Web. 21 July 2016.

Ethics and Social Responsibility

Having been an employee of Starbuck Coffee I have been able to understand how and why the organization engages in social responsibility. Social responsibility suggests that an entity involves its self in an ethical framework in order to act for the benefit of the society at large (Ferrell, 2014). In order to achieve social responsibility, it is upon every individual to perform as required in order to maintain a healthy balance between the economy and the ecosystems.  The organization made a business decision to get its self-involved in corporate social responsibility in order to help the society. The company mainly focuses on the production of sustainable green coffee. It has been able to achieve this through the thought of setting strategy that will achieve product quality, accountability, social   the surrounding environmental leadership (Ferrell, 2014). By the use of these guidelines, the company has been able to support Ethos water to billions of people who have no access. Through the project, the company has been able to committee billions of grants to facilitate it social responsibility. The project is maintained for the welfare of the environment and the society.

For a company to engage in social responsibility there has to be a developed system that tailors the company social responsibility according to its environment. This is done in order to ensure that the company maintains a good balance between its objective and the social responsibility. Integrity has to be maintained within the organization and the society to ensure that the business and the environment are protected (In Idowu, 2009). As the success of the social responsibility depends on individual there are bound to be complications. When the company concentrates so much on social responsibility it might affect the main objectivity of the organization. This means that the profits will reduce and it will not be in a position to achieve a balance in its business. The ethical implications of the action are at times overlooked for benefits gained that are usually material and for personal gains. By so doing the company may attempt to cheat environmental regulations. With a faulty system of social responsibility belief, there is a risk of disregarding the environment and the inhabitants resulting into severe consequences (In Idowu, 2009).

As a result of ethical implication the decision-making process for the business will be adversely affected. This puts the company in a dilemma as its ethics is affected. Leaders in the organization face the trouble of restoring trust and how to put ethics first becomes difficult to achieve (Simpson, & Taylor, 2013). The process of decision making becomes slower and more complicated due to conflict of interest. The cost of the values increases significantly which affects the business as the society tends to withdraw themselves with the company (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2010). As a way of restoring trust to the community, more funds have to be committed in order to get rid of the damaging reputation may affect the decision-making process as there are so many consultations made making the whole process rigid. Respecting the stakeholders in the business as their interest is placed first will further affect the decision-making process. What they consider being important for the business will affect the business decision made (Simpson, & Taylor, 2013). As a result of the society being affected by the implications of social responsibility their views, needs, wants and preference will be considered further slowing the decision-making process.

The organization applies corporate social responsibility as a way business ethics. The organization applies social responsibility through a set of standard or values in order to govern the actions and the behavior of individuals in the organization and the organization as a business. The organization first understands what is require in order to engage in corporate responsibility and the various methods it can use in order to ensure that the organization objective is not compromised (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2010). The organization applies corporate responsibility by first taking into account the expectation of the stakeholders, and how it can contribute to a sustainable development without straining the organization. The organization also applies corporate responsibility by complying with the applicable laws and also by ensuring that they are in consistency with the international norms. The organization also embraces customer satisfaction at all times and by ensuring that it contributes optimistically to the community and the environment (Simpson, & Taylor, 2013).

By engaging in corporate social responsibility the operation of the organization if greatly influenced. As a result of engaging in social responsibility, the organization is forced to be more transparent as the stakeholders including the customers, employees, communities and suppliers demand for disclosure. This means that the business is scrutinized and all the accounts are audited and accountability is demanded. There is also the increase of customer’s interest as it is evident that the organization has more ethical conduct which exerts a growing influence on the customer’s decision on purchasing (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2010). This makes the company more cautious about the quality of the product and how to run the business. Due to corporate responsibility, there is the growth of investor pressure that influences how the business is conducted. This is because of the assets they invest that are worth trillions of money. There are also competitive labor markets as a result of corporate responsibility as employees are progressively looking for more than benefits and good paychecks. As a result, employees are looking for employers who have philosophies that match their own principles. Corporate responsibility has also influenced business affairs as suppliers relations have become increasingly important  as they take steps to ensure that they partners engage in a socially responsible manner (Simpson, & Taylor, 2013).

Corporate responsibility has been on the rise due to the numerous benefits that an organization gets for engaging in social responsibility. The companies benefit due to the improved financial performance, workforce diversity, increase in sales and reputation, the ability to retain more employees and generally greater quality and productivity. The society and the general public greatly benefit due to the charitable contributions made, community education and employment and product quality and safety are enhanced through social responsibility (Simpson, & Taylor, 2013). Social responsibilities greatly benefit the environment as there are material recyclability and enhanced product functionality and durability. Corporate responsibility also advocates for renewable resources and integration of the environment into the business plan. I order to make it successful management training should be enhanced as it plays an important role in corporate responsibility in order to implement the strategies in a more efficient way (Simpson, & Taylor, 2013).

Reference

Ferrell, O. C. (2014). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2010). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases : 2009 update. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

In Idowu, S. O. (2009). Professionals Perspectives of Corporate Social Responsibility. Heidelberg : Springer,

Simpson, J., & Taylor, J. R. (2013). Corporate governance, ethics, and CSR. London: Kogan Page.

Finance Plan

2. Restoring confidence through reforms

The past few years have seen an increased necessity to hold the board of directors accountable for performance of the investors’ organisations and the demand for greater transparency and engagement. The investors’ interests in more interaction and disclosures have arisen out of the successive waves of scandal in the corporate world has in turn restructured the corporate governance landscape. Globally, such scandals involving big multinationals have made the stakeholders to demand for more adherence to standards of stating earning, profits and the need for having reliable auditing. The loss of stockholders’ confidence in early 2000s resulted from the financial scandals and economic downturn (Rezaee, 2007). There is a need for a standard way of stating earnings and profits so that financial information can be meaningful to the stakeholders and such information can be subjected to a reliable auditing.  This will eliminate incidences of manipulation which will build trust and thus restore confidence in governance.

There have been reforms in United States regarding corporate governance which include implementation of rules related to SEC. This involves new requirements involving corporate governance for listing at NYSE developed in August 2002.the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002  have mandated some a list of best practices in governance and outlines new offences concerning corporate fraud (Chang, 2008). This happened in line with the actions of institutional investors as they strive to increase their monitoring efforts for their investments in many public companies. The challenge of these investors has been getting to know the directors they elect to manage their investments. Furthermore, SEC as the main watchdog against corporate fraud has small staff and does not perform direct tasks of rooting out this fraud.  Along with the assumption that SEC can rely on private entities as the fundamental restraint against massive wrongdoing, the result has been complete failure.  There has also been an alarming turnover rate at SEC that has seen experienced staffers leaving to look for higher paying employment. The case has been worsened by the tendency where SEC collects more funds for the government that it receives back. Since the 2008-2009 financial crisis the congress has been pushing for responsibilities on the agency regardless of the limitations it faces (Prial, 2013).

4. CEO compensation

The schemes used to pay CEOs and which are tied to organization’s performance have constantly been manipulated by the companies, a practice that can seem to bilk taxpayers’ big amounts of money. Significant portions of executive compensation have been a contingent once the companies hit certain threshold of good performance (Mullaney, 2015). These remunerations have been attached to the perception that CEOs are more important than other employees and their performance has the biggest influence on the overall performance of the organisation. The astronomical salaries and bonuses paid to the top executives have resulted to a compensation scale that is skewed towards top management. Since CEO compensation is tagged to the performance of the firm, there was a pairing back of CEO compensation in the early 2000s due to the fall in stock market that was experienced then, but the compensation returned to its normal level after the stock market had mostly recovered by 2007. The financial crisis in 2008 made the level of CEO compensation to fall again which made the CEO-worker compensation ratio to fall in tandem (Institute for Policy Studies, 2015). The differing payments between the CEO and the workers can thus be attributed to compensation systems that encourages  and rewards to employees with short-term incentives like bonuses which is then funded while ensuring that whole  pay budget is not blown off. These changes do not mean that the top notch employees are performing better. In fact, it is not surprising to conclude that only about half of annual incentives for top employees result to better performance. Furthermore, the high and rising CEO compensation reflect income that would have used to assist others in an economy (Davis and Mishel, 2014). However, the year 2016 has seen a relative and consistency in merit budget for CEOs in U.S but have varied greatly in other countries due to inflationary trend (Rourke, 2016). This consistency can be attributed to the need for equality among all the employees in the corporate world.

5. Independence of board members

The widespread accounting and corporate scandals in the early 2000s made regulators and U.S stock exchange to approve various regulatory reforms so as to attain improvement on corporate governance which included the need to increase the board of directors’ independence. The approval of new rules by the Securities Exchange commission made it a requirement for listed companies to have most of the members of boards being independent directors (McKnisey &Company, 2013). A primary aim of the reforms has been to enhance the monitoring function by the board more so financial reporting monitoring. To achieve the benefits of these reforms and increased value, a lot of training for these independent directors would be necessary. This involve directors with less impact and experience learning from those with high impact and experience especially when it comes to developing strategies. This would include increasing information accessibility since independent directors do not have as much information as the managers. To further improve the board performance, there have been proposal to separate the titles of chairman and CEO so as to avoid management that has de facto control (Tonello, 2011). Moreover, to avoid the case of individual compensation especially the board members, being done at the expense of maximising stockholder value, there have been proposals to involve separate compensation programs that include unions, proxy advisories, human resources, executives and federal or regulatory agencies (Tonello, 2011). This will ensure that the stockholders are involved in decision making and more so the decisions that involve the determination of CEO compensation and how it should vary with that of other staff. A good example is the approval by the investment committee in 2016 of CalPER of Global Governance codes, where boards are required to consider all facts that are relevant in determining independence of directors (Hoang, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, 2016).

6. Involving institutional investors in decision making

The institutional investors have increasingly become part of corporate governance but have relied heavily on the decisions made by management, which includes the board of directors, to in performing their roles in corporate governance. The investors, however, represent the interest of the shareholders by ensuring that they look after the safeguard their rights and shares and ensure that they access basic information on their investments. The effectiveness of the whole system of corporate governance depend to a great extent on the assurance that the institutional investors will make use of the rights of their shareholders and thus fully exercise effectively their ownership roles in the firms that they invest in. Issues have arisen from the misdirection of management boards of directors on the investment in the NYSE (OECD, 2011).

The lack of independence on the institutional investors has resulted to them welcoming the board’s requirements   and their recommendation. Despite the institutional wishing to get involved in the various decisions made by the management and the board of directors, they finally let go off their guards due to this increased dependence. They are thus by-passed in implementation and determination of very important issues such as compensation of the executives, investment portfolios and other NYSE investment decisions (OECD, 2011). The investors on the other hand have tried to engage shareholders through voting. Many laws and policies mandate voting by some institutional investors or encourage them to do so. Portfolio stocks institutional voting has largely been removed from the hands of money managers except in cases where the votes have economic significance that is bigger like mergers and elections. Most institutional investors have resulted to delegating the voting decision to voting function from within or outsourcing of this function from proxy advisory organizations.  The failure by institutional investors to disclose voting policies, whether the voting is done internally or outsourced would amount to misrepresentation of the rights of the shareholders. This is because any voting by the institutions is supposed to be done on behalf of the shareholders, thus the requirement for them to disclose the procedures put in place for decisions relating to their voting rights (Small, 2014). To further get involved in the process of decision making, institutional investors have aimed at being actively involved in management in 2016 as they look to combat monetary policies that are divergent and anticipated volatility of the market (Offner, 2016).

8. Transparency of board members

With increased pressure for the separation of CEO and the roles of board chairman by activist shareholders, proxy advisory organizations, regulators and institutional investors there have been suggestions for elimination of CEO roles in the board of directors including determining its compensation (Tonello, 2011). This has also included call to increase independent board members to deliberate in privacy issues. There has also been greater call for Corporate Reporting Dialogue in order to achieve greater consistency, coherence and compatibility the reporting frameworks, standards and other related requirements. This has been aimed at ensuring great transparency now that the CEO does not determine who will be on the board of directors list (The Institute of Internal Affairs, 2015). A fair dialogue will be achieved if the board does not consist of people with conflicting interests such as family members. The overall effect where there are conflicting interest would be the board rubberstamping the management decisions without questioning. This also would worse if the managers are unqualified. The year 2016 has seen companies face increased demand for improved and quality engagement between boards and investors so as more information can be disclosed on strategies, board assessment procedures and succession plans for CEO’s (Offner, 2016).There is a need for the board of directors to fulfil their oversight roles in the process of financial reporting and audit process with audit committee being given the authority to authorize or carry out investigations into matters they are responsible for.

References

Chang, J.-C. (2008). Earnings informativeness, earnings management and corporate governance under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Baltimore: Morgan State University.

Prial, D. (2013).SEC: Self-Funding vs. Congressional Appropriations. Retrieved from: http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2013/05/16/sec-self-funding-vs-congressional-appropriations.html

Rezaee, Z. (2007). Corporate governance post-Sarbanes-Oxley: Regulations, requirements, and integrated processes. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.

Almadani, A. (2015). Globalization and Corporate Governance. International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology, Vol. 5, No. 5.

 Mullaney, T. (2015).Why corporate CEO pay is so high, and going higher. Retrieved from: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/18/why-corporate-ceo-pay-is-so-high-and-going-higher.html

Statement of Common Principles of Materiality of the Corporate Reporting Dialogue. http://corporatereportingdialogue.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Statement-of-Common-Principles-of-Materiality1.pdf

Institute for Policy Studies, (2015).Money to burn; how CEO pay is accelerating climate change. Retrieved from: http://www.ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/EE2015-Money-To-Burn-Upd.pdf

Davis, A., Mishel, L. (2014).CEO Pay Continues to Rise as typical workers are paid less. Retrieved from: http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/

OECD (2011).The Role of Institutional Investors in Promoting Good Corporate Governance, Corporate Governance, OECD Publishing. doi: 10.1787/9789264128750-en

Small, C. (2014). The Role of Institutional Investors in Voting. Retrieved from: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/05/14/the-role-of-institutional-investors-in-voting/

McKnisey &Company, (2013).Improving board governance: McKinsey Global Survey results.1.

Matteo Tonello, (2011).Separation of Chair and CEO Roles. Retrieved from: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2011/09/01/separation-of-chair-and-ceo-roles/

The Institute of Internal Affairs, (2015). Quality ensuring excellence. Model Audit Committee Charter. Retrieved from: https://global.theiia.org/standards-guidance/Public%20Documents/MODEL_AUDIT_COMMITTEE_CHARTER.pdf

 Offner O. (2016).Institutional Investors to Embrace Illiquid Assets and Active Management in 2016 – BlackRock Study. Retrieved from: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160125005960/en/Institutional-Investors-Embrace-Illiquid-Assets-Active-Management

 Hoang,C., Dorsey & Whitney LLP,(2016). Institutional Investors and Trends in Board Refreshment. Retrieved from: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2016/04/08/institutional-investors-and-trends-in-board-refreshment/

Rourke, M. (2016). 2016 Trends and Developments in Executive Compensation. Retrieved from: http://www.meridiancp.com/insights/thought-leadership/2016-trends-developments-executive-compensation/

"The Missing Reservation"

Q 1

The hostess’s actions according to the restaurant were right. As the company had witnessed their guest’s failure to honor their reservation, the employees were supposed to explain to the customer in a polite way that their tables were to be set in the shortest time possible in order to make them comfortable. On the other hand, the hostess was not supposed to explain to the customers as it made her appear rude. The restaurant manager was ought to take a step and be the one to explain to the customer the reason as to why there was no reservation rather than delegating that task to the duty manager who served as a hostess, therefore her actions were not consistent with customer quality philosophy. She would have first welcomed the customer together with the children and offer them a place immediately as they waited for their table to be ready rather than leaving them in order to attend to other duties. After making them settle down the hostess would have made a step of calling the restaurant manager in charge who would explain to the customer the reason as to why there made no reservation (Evans, 2016).

Q 2

Being a customer at the restaurant it would have been shocking to receive such a letter. The letter was not polite to its valued guests as it did not show what steps it was going to take in order to make sure that it does not happen again. The restaurant manager received the letter as asked the hostess to reply on his behalf showed the lack of customer’s appreciation in the company. Upon receiving such a letter as a customer to the restaurant I can only make one judgment that the company does not take into consideration the customer’s compliance and give them the necessary attention they require (Evans, 2016). The total quality lead would have responded differently and in a more polite way in order to make the customer valued. It was rude for them to say that their records showed no reservation while the truth of the matter is that Mark did make a reservation. The fact that the hotel manager did not respond shows negligence in his work. It also creates a bad reputation for the manager as they show no respect to the customer and hence they don’t value them (Evans, 2016).

Reference

Evans, J. R. (2016). Quality and performance excellence: Management, organization, and strategy. Cengage Learning

Marketing management

Introduction

Marketing management relates to the organizational focus on practical application of marketing techniques and methods within the enterprise. This involves managing of the firm marketing resources and activities. Marketing has gone beyond borders due to the globalization of firms. This makes the firm's international and hence international marketing strategy. To market an organization there are managers who are in charge. They are responsible for influencing the level, timing and the composition of marketing due to customers demand (Chandrasekar, 2010). Their roles vary from one organization to another significantly depending on what the business is based upon, corporate culture and business size. A firm needs to possess a detailed objective to give a clear understanding of the business and the market it operates in to create an effective, cost-efficient strategy of marketing. Marketing management and strategic marketing form a strong foundation of an organization.

In the fashion industry, marketing management plays an important role. With marketing management, there is the necessity of investing in research. This enables the collection of data that is required to enhance proper and accurate marketing analysis. This involves market and marketing research to obtain relevant information (Kazmi, 2007). This includes the application of marketing techniques to conduct a successful research. Some of these techniques include quantitative marketing, experimental technique, and observational technique. This facilitates in know the fashion trends and what the consumers are looking for with different age and different time span. He marketing managers the surrounding environmental situation to come up with fashion trends that are suitable for the period (Hutt, M. D., & Speh, 2013)

Competitive intelligence in marketing management helps in identification of trends and provides an information foundation to the organization in market analysis. A brand audit is examined throughout the process of the brand. This makes a comparison with the competitors easy together with its effectiveness. To launch a new product several question arises such as how well is the current fashion is trending, what is are the organization strengths and weakness the opportunities and the threats existing or likely to come up with a new product, how competitive the product will be in relation to price and production cost, the current position of the organization to that of competitors and the strategic issues facing the business (Hutt, M. D & Speh, 2013).

 The launching of fashion products such as clothes and shoes have to be properly determined by the economic trends. This is because the brand determines the business market share to be increasing, decreasing or if it is stable. Every organization aim is to maximize profit and reduce production cost and at the same time increase the market share for the organization (Chandrasekar, 2010). Additionally, marketing management determines the economic value the product is likely to generate for the organization. This will in return increase the financial strength of the organization and increase its borrowing powers. This makes the organization to be in a better position to produce and go global. This portrays a bigger picture of a committed organization and with a great reputation with customers. Furthermore, a brand audit in marketing management determines whether the organization has the strength and the resource elements to enhance competitiveness. This makes the fashion organization to have a competitive advantage over other rival organization. The marketing management team should maintain distinctive competencies to allow the establishment of a successful brand as a result of research for the organization present and future performance (Kazmi, 2007).

Reference

Hutt, M. D., & Speh, T. W. (2013). Business marketing management: B2B. Australia: South-Western, Cengage Learning.

Chandrasekar, K. S. (2010). Marketing management: Text and cases. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill.

Kazmi, S. H. H. (2007). Marketing management: Text and cases. New Delhi, India: Excel Books.

Capism project

After the successful launch of the company, the government made the decision to split a monopoly into similar competitors, a move that made it difficult to assess operating strategies that were inefficient and also identifying products that were not doing well in the market.     Even though the financial report for the previous year indicated that business was good, the conditions in the company are not as good especially with the poor state of the financial management, deteriorating state of the products and unsuccessful marketing strategies. However, a change in the current situation is expected after successfully conducting a capism business simulation.

The simulation was helpful in that it helped to identify ways in which the company could create new products and develop the already existing ones; decide on how to market them; which channels to use; and how to ensure that there is enough capital to run the company (Capsim, 2015). The section on the capstone courier helped to identify the customers buying patterns, how to position products, and also had relevant information on financial records that are very helpful in planning the company’s operations. After completing a situational analysis, it was evident that the company was not doing so well in the market. In 2016 and 2017 for example, the company made a profit of 4000 dollars. This is however expected to drop to lower, if any, profits in the coming years if the situation is not rectified. The company does however maintain a 15% market share, meaning that its focus ought to be on enhancing its products (Annual report, n.d).

After analyzing the perfomas and annual report, a plan was formulated on the capstone spreadsheet. The R&D department will be in charge of designing products that will be desirable to the target market. The marketing department will then engage in efforts to promote and price these products to the targeted customers. Depending on the sales forecast, the production department will take the responsibility of ensuring that appropriate product units are made to meet the demand created.  The finance department will ensure that there are adequate financial resources and that the company can operate smoothly throughout the year (Capsim, 2015).

References

Capsim, (2015) “Team member guide” Capstone

Annual report (Attached pdf)

Cost accounting

In chapter 19 of ‘Fundamental accounting principles’, John J. Wild addresses the issue on job order cost accounting. This is a process where an organization engages in activities to determine the cost that was incurred in manufacturing a product or delivering a service. It entails all activities that go on in an organization that will eventually result to a cost being incurred by the organization in the long run. One such cost is the one paid to pay employees for the hours they work in the organization. A clocking card is used as a way of keeping record of the amount of hours that an employee has worked in the organization and the total labor cost that is owed. The labor cost is paid in accordance to the working hours the employee clocked in and the job performed for a given period. The Job is defined as the part that the employee plays in the customization or development of a product or service on behalf of the organization (Chiapepetta, Shaw & Wild, 2011).

In some scenarios, an employee may be involved in the production of several units of a customized service or product and is thus said to be assigned a job lot. For this purpose, a job cost sheet is drawn to account for the separate jobs that were assigned to the employee for a specific period. All this information is essential and is fed to a cost accounting system which is responsible for the assigning activities depending on the organization’s inventory. Depending on the type of organization, a general accounting system is most applicable as it helps to plan activities involved in the manufacturing of products depending on the inventory in the organization (Chiapepetta, Shaw & Wild, 2011).

Reference

Wild, J. J., Shaw, K. W., & Chiappetta, B. (2011) Fundamental accounting principles, New         York: McGraw-Hill Irwin. 

            Research

            Evidence based can be described as an important strategy that exists within the national frameworks service development where patients acquire data in regard of things to expect from the services of health.  The evidence thus forms the basis of clinical guidelines which are produced for clinical excellence by the national institute (Keele, 2010).  On the hand research is a logical and a planned process which is undertaken with the aim of evaluating the existing relationships between different events or in for the purpose of predicting outcomes. Research is therefore a systematic inquiry which utilizes order methods which are scientific in answering questions for the purpose of developing solutions.  Research is therefore aimed at investigating the efficiency and effectiveness of health services. Research s purposed to add knowledge to individuals understanding in order to disapprove or approve the developed hypothesis.  Thos differ with the purpose of evidence based practice because it utilizes the present evidence in developing fresh decisions. However research utilizes fresh knowledge in developing solutions. The fundamental difference between evidence based and research is that evidence based utilizes evidence in decision making while research utilizes knowledge creation through research procedure (Keele, 2010).

            An example  of practice projects for evidence based include developing a quick response  in decreasing outside code blue incident and  assessing  pain treatment adequacy within the initial 24 hours.  On the other hand an example of research is an investigation of the effectiveness and efficiency of health services (Keele, 2010).  Evidence based process is utilized in closing up the gap that exists between research that is being conducted and the gap of practice. This form of practice is not based on opinions but on facts which explains in explaining why things work in a certain mode.  While research provides knowledge by creating evidence based utilizes the developed knowledge in explanations provisions (Keele, 2010).

            Reference

Keele, R. (2010). Nursing Research and Evidence Based Practice. Jones & Bartlett Learning. Copyright

            Case Study: Delta Airlines and the Trainer Refinery

            Question 1

            In regard to the cost that is involved in airline operation, the costs are often very high.  This is because the airline industry necessitates huge overheads costs amount which is required in the form of labor.  This generally involves other materials that are pricey which include aircraft flee, jet fuel and maintenance of aircraft fleet.  Several highly skilled labor vacancies are needed in order to run an effective aircraft such as mechanics, pilots, flight attendants, customer representatives and others (Antoni, 2012).  Because of the associated cost, Delta received a revolutionary which was a controversial decision by buying the refinery which is located in Philadelphia (Antoni, 2012). Delta’s capability lies on low costs of operation.

            Question 2

            Delta is different from other corporations because over the previous few decades most airlines in the United States have been involved in hedging activities of fuel. These activities include purchasing jet fuel contracts for the future.  On the other hand, none has used the Delta’s example of purchasing a refinery (Carey, 2016).  Purchasing a refinery would help in permitting the airlines in participating in jet fuel pricing in America thus having greater control over the critical expenses of the airline business.  The United States airline economy is characterized by many competitors who mainly offer similar services in transportation. The price points of the competitors are additionally similar thus making it challenging to make a firm stand in reference to the airlines operators (Carey, 2016).

            However, several significant statistics enables Delta to be exceptional in regard to performance which outpaces the competitors within the airline economy in the United States. Over the recent years, Delta has continuously remained at the United States carrier’s top list.  For instance in the primary quarter of 2015, Delta was established to be on time as their flights held 84% of the general time (Carey, 2016). This was only challenged by Alaska and Hawaiian airlines. However, both airlines are significantly small corporations in comparison to Delta as they hold fewer flights and a reduced market segment than Delta. In 2015, the delta was additionally ranked second based on customer satisfaction alone.  The airline was beaten by Alaska airlines which took the first position having won by a reduced margin.  In general, the services provided by Delta airlines although were similar in various ways to those that were provided by the competitors within the economy of the airline are adequate significantly. This is because they are continuously providing their flights on a good time and also ensuring that their clients are fully satisfied by the services provided throughout their experience while traveling (Carey, 2016).

            Question 3

            When Delta airlines began viewing the trainer refinery, this would be termed as a straight die in regard to the economy. This is because the airline had shut down the majority of its operations as it was in the market with around a single airline price.  The major aim for Delta airlines in looking at the refinery trainer  was to fully  produce its  personalized  jet fuel  which would thus be  consumed  by Boston and NewYork  fleets (Carey, 2016). This was developed in order to reduce the operations costs of the airline which is associated with fuel consumption.  By producing personalized jet fuel Delta airlines hoped that it would be able to hedge itself against the future’s higher prices on jet fuel. This is because to the airline jet fuel cost was the highest ranked overhead expense that it was required to cater for.  This attempt was therefore designed in order to attempt to provide its individualized jet fuel to establish whether this would save the airline from high prices and volatility that comes inherently with jet fuel purchase for the whole aircraft fleet.  As the availability of fuel increased for Delta airlines the fuel cost began to decrease.  The capability of providing fleet fuel at decreased cost enabled Delta in achieving higher profits due to the decreased costs of operations (Carey, 2016).

            Question 4

            With Monroe refinery purchase Delta airlines have gained the capability of decreasing its costs which are based on fuel.  This is the single move that Delta has been involved in at this point.  The buying of the refinery has decreased the airline industry cost in general because fuel has been made available thus decreasing the process in the market.

            Question 5

            The merger amid virgin airlines and Delta has yielded a positive impact on the corporation in general.  Delta purchased 49% of virgin airlines for approximately 360 million dollars.   Delta required a huge share of flight routes which operated within London and network. Due to the passengers demand the company had to buy its way into the growing market (S&P Global plats, 2012).  The agreement involved 66 connections within 108 routes across North America and the United Kingdom.  Several other meager perks include clubhouse access sharing as well as sharing of loyalty reciprocal programs including boarding and handling of baggage.  The strategy was well developed in regard to investment on Delta’s part which helped the airline in gaining and retaining a greater market segment (S&P Global plats, 2012).

            Question 6

            The study is directly linked to the texts study such as joint venture, concentric diversification, and leadership based on low cost.  A delta airline was struggling with providing flight rates that are reasonable to its travelers based on increased jet fuel cost. In order to achieve leadership that is based on low cost of operation as well as reduce the rising prices of fuel Delta announced its buying of Monroe refinery to assist in fuel prices control. This was achieved through the utilization of concentric diversification approach when it purchased Monroe refinery.

            References

            Antoni, A. (2012). Delta airlines acquisition of trainer refinery. Retrieved from https://www.allfreepapers.com/Business/Delta-Airlines-Acquisition-of-Trainer-Refinery/22130.html

            Kathleen E. Carey. (2016). Delta air lines loses 428 million at Monroe energy refinery in trainer. Retrived from http://www.delcotimes.com/article/DC/20160416/NEWS/160419749

            S&P Global plats. (2012).US oil refining outlook: closures, acquisitions & delta’s surprise deal retrieved from Case Study: Delta Airlines and the Trainer Refinery