Research Korner: Business Strategies

Strategic Management: The Case of eBay

Strategic Management: The Case of eBay     1.0 Introduction With achieving sustainable competitive advantage as the goal, organisational changes are considered to be an important part of the development process of a particular company. Aside from globalisation, technology also plays an important role in the changes among modern organisations. Technological boom, specifically through the dotcom and World Wide Web, had become one of the inevitable ways in obtaining a wealth of information about a certain issue or topic. For the organisations, the Internet was perceived to be a significant avenue for doing business and marketing per se such as being done by eBay with their online auction. Individuals are able to obtain and purchase their needed and wanted items directly, without the hassle of traveling and physically looking for the products through online auctions. Strategies are deemed important in responding to various internal and external threats and problems which can directly and indirectly impact organisational decision making. This report purports to present and discuss the case of eBay through investigating the strategies that the company employs. Likewise, the paper will also address the building blocks unique to the company. How eBay operates despite the fierce competitive nature of online auctioning business will also be addressed.      2.0 Company Background Founded on 1995 by Pierre Omidyar, eBay was considered a pioneer in the online auction industry whereby people are brought together on a local, national and international basis to serve the purpose of creating a person-to-person community where ever individual could have an equal access through the same medium which is the Internet. eBay offers wide varieties of products and services for bargain hunters, hobbyists and collectors and sellers, changing the way people engage in trading hence eBay had changed the face of e-commerce from its inception. eBay participates in the demand-based or dynamic pricing segment of online commerce where transaction prices are determined entirely by buyers. The auction is the most familiar form of demand-based pricing (Bunnell and Luecke, 2000, pp. 8-9). As Bunnell and Luecke (2000) put it, eBay has become the world's leading auction market and one of a handful of major dotcom companies to actually turn a profit while also expanding the e-commerce industry (pp. 4-6). Today, eBay is continuously the brand preference with over 39 market presence and with $60 billion of the total value of sold items on the site’s trading platform.   3.0 Current Strategy of eBay Basically, eBay introduced several crucial innovations tailor-made for the internet at the business level, a strategy which was conceived to be an improvisation. One being the online auction business model wherein eBay served as the value-added facilitator of trade between a buyer and a seller in a highly individualistic manner. The online auction model developed by eBay marked an important extension of e-commerce, offering millions of individuals a low-cost opportunity to engage in a new type of economic activity. Gomes- Casseres (2001, p. 2) firmly believes that eBay had built an online person-to-person trading community in the Internet. In addition, there had been a growth in the organisational structure which was primarily manned by Pierre as the visionary and his colleague Jeffrey Skoll as the strategist and then further growing to include Meg Whitman and other teams, striking a balance between over- and under-structuring. The integration of new systems and practices was seen to be a way to creating value than just focusing on efficiency of the people and the processes with further focus on internal innovations (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1998).   Throughout the history of eBay, regeneration and experimentation were both inherent, which were seen to be instrument of innovative processes and responding to competitive schema. EBay had developed proprietary software capable of supporting a robust, scalable user interface and transaction-processing system which can handle all aspects of the auction process. EBay users can browse through listed items in a fully automated way. The sellers are allowed to list items that they want to sell while the buyers bid on items of interest. The items on eBay’s site are arranged by topics and each type of auction has its own category. It sends e-mails when users register for the service, when they place a successful bid, and when they are outbid, and it communicates the outcome of auctions in which they participate. The same system sends daily status updates to active sellers and bidders and maintains user registration information, account information, current auctions, and historical listings. All of this information is archived to a data warehouse.   Further, eBay has been bounded by two things: a clear mission to be the world's largest person-to-person online auction company, and a focused strategy with five key elements: expanding the user base, strengthening the eBay brand, broadening the trading platform by increasing product categories and promoting new ones, fostering community affinity and enhancing site features and functionality. EBay must realised to live in the present and so strategies must be refreshed and realigned basically through clarifying the purposes of the company itself. Priorities and responsibilities must be well-established (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1998) and for eBay, there are three main strategies implemented which are: building strategic partnerships at all levels of value chain, seeking customer feedbacking and working on with the information collated and monitoring the external environment. Within eBay, functions were further subdivided intended for overseeing strategic direction and growth, business model and site development and community advocacy as well as strategic planning and analysis, competitive analysis, new business planning and incubation and customer support operations.   When Whitman arrived in 1998, brand building recognition at eBay was prioritised. The related problems of consumer product marketing were divided into two: first was clarifying what eBay stood for by which in their judgment is a personal trading community and second, brand building exercises or marketing per se. EBay made acquisitions in order to support its growth as a supplement to word-of-mouth and public relations advertising into tapping opportunities through national magazines and online alliances. These acquisitions aid in the expansion and improvement of the company’s services. EBay’s boldest and most costly effort of gaining greater name recognition began in August 1998, when it entered into a three-year marketing deal with America Online (AOL) aiming at further enhancement of the site and value-adding features to be established. Other online allies include Kinko’s, First Auction, Z Auction, Netscape and GO.com.   Broadening the products and services portfolio was another priority strategy for eBay, reaching to almost 3, 000 categories. At the onset, eBay utilised content-specific chat rooms and bulleting boards to provide real-time interface between buyers and sellers; customised home pages were also sought. EBay also collaborated with an online portal of the collectibles in exchange of affiliation referrals for Collecting Channel. Regional auctions were also established, focusing mainly on profitable markets in the US. It is believed that these regional auction sites could localise products while also providing buyers with the advantage of cutting off shipment or delivery charges. Such strategy was known as co-adoption where eBay diversified the firms into units and then collaborated with individuals within the system. Such action was known to be an element of expanding the traditional business model where eBay now shifts its focus on exploiting economies of scale and scope and extending offerings to new market segments (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1998).   The sense of community was further developed through designing an online tool with which could address more personal yet secure interactions between buyers and sellers and which is embedded on trust. Interest-based chat rooms were created, allowing a more transparent interface among individuals. These Feedback Forums, however, did not guarantee an honest community and so fraud and other illegal activities were witnessed. Synergism as another co-adoption strategy was realised. A SafeHarbour program was launched with features including Mister Lister bulk-listing tool, help boards, and My eBay, which allows a user to track multiple auctions simultaneously and also About Me, which allows a trader to customise home pages. EBay’s share of the total system consists of Sun database servers running Oracle relational database management systems and a suite of Internet servers that operate on Microsoft's Windows NT. Generally, the most important chore-reducing features have been added through arrangements with partner firms or third-party suppliers such as iShip, Mailbox Etc., Wells Fargo and E-Stamp. These are long-term strategies for eBay as the company launches more experimental products and services and creating more alliances toward nascent markets and emerging technologies (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1998).      4.0 Building Blocks at eBay 4.1 Time Pacing EBay belonged to an otherwise chaotic market, time pacing is important in the sense that any mistake that could impact real-time interfaces could affect the credibility of the company (Eisenhardt and Brown, 2008). Indeed, there are specific times when eBay was not able to respond to the ever-growing demand of traders as evident by 22 hours downtime mainly because of server problems leading to the crashed of the website in 1999. This had made eBay believed that advantage is indeed temporary and so the need to continuously look for new source of advantages (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1998). The sense of urgency was thereby developed but eBay was realised to be lacking strategic capabilities of responding to changes during that time especially because eBay was attempting to do all things at the same time. For instance, the website crashed due to the fact that the auction house is managing the processes of flow of users on the site, processing new members, accepting bids and managing huge database of list of categories while also integrating new products and services information. Nevertheless, when problems like this occur, eBay acts promptly and respond through adding workforces whom will oversee specific functions while also avoiding problems such as this.     4.2 Edge of Time In continuously evolving to be the business of tomorrow, eBay could still rely on its business model but could also consider expanding it. Black (2007) mentioned that e-commerce is becoming increasingly important to consumers, sellers, and entire communities and online marketing has become and will continue to become a full and complete business model for other companies. The increasing importance of e-commerce and the use of the Internet, led many online companies, such as eBay to engage in online auctioning. Ten aspects are attributed to the success of eBay, namely, commitment, well-spent funds, an effective and persistent marketing and public relations, great products or services to sell, not selling of junk, great customer service, efficient and pleasant facility, polished listings and photos, paying attention to details, and good recordkeeping (Mansfield 2006). These ten aspects are perceived to be contributory to the success of eBay in the industry as the leading online auction house, and determine its edge over its competitors.   4.3 Edge of Chaos The success of eBay has inspired other online companies to engage in the same business, of perceiving the same attention that it receives from consumers. With this, several competitors can be pointed out, which are also online companies that engage in the same services that eBay offers. Amazon.com and Yahoo! Auctions are the two main rivals. Amazon.com was the second largest online auction house, which is perceived to be a competitive threat to industry leadership position of eBay, is also a one-stop-shop online auction site. Compared to the business model of eBay which is trader-centric, that of Amazon.com’s is more inclined as profit-oriented. On the other hand, Yahoo! Auctions was the first online navigational auction house over the Internet, a reputation that sets its identity apart from the other two main auction houses. The advantages of eBay over Amazon.com and Yahoo! Auctions are three-fold: wider portfolio with over 3, 000 categories, low to zero transaction costs and information-support, manifesting that changes inside eBay are diverse and emergent (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1998).   In comparison with perhaps Fable, this report maintains that although eBay has proved to be lacking in strategic time pacing at certain point, experimentation and regeneration have been the survival strategies. Fable was more focused on short-term successes, missing the opportunities for new products growth. In opposite, one of the primary objectives of eBay was to strengthen products and services portfolio as evident by the incessant acquisitions of alliances and partnerships to boost categories and site features and functionality. Compared to Fable which is highly dependent on ‘repeated layering’, eBay is an epitome of a well-developed organisational structure where the top management especially Pierre was willing to accept what he cannot do for eBay and resorting to seeking the help of strategists such as Skoll and Whitman. For eBay, change is an opportunity that must be taken advantage instead of seeing it as a threat (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1998). Finally, Fable was not able to reap the benefits of changes but for eBay, the company is equipped with the capability to transition while maintaining a superior performance.   5.0 Conclusion   EBay is well aware that in order for the company to maintain its competitive advantage and make it sustainable in the long run, the company must take advantage of the changes at the corporate, organisational and business levels. EBay embraces the five building blocks which are applied randomly throughout eBay's history: improvisation, co-adaption, regeneration, experimentation and time pacing as evident by the strategies discussed. The company also embraces the 10 principles of competing on the edge about strategy, organisation and leadership.   6.0 References   Black, G S 2007, ‘EBay Users and Non-Users: Comparison and Implications for eBay Entrepreneurs’, at Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Annual Conference, Austin, Texas.   Brown, S and Eisenhardt, K 1998, Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos, Harvard Business Press.   Bunnell, D and Luecke, R A 2000, The EBay Phenomenon: Business Secrets Behind the World’s Hottest Internet Company, John Wiley and Sons, New York.     Eisenhardt, K M and Brown, S L 2008, ‘Time Pacing in Markets that Won’t Stand Still’, Harvard Business Review.   Gomes-Casseres, B 2001, ‘The history of eBay’, International Economics and Finance, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-2.   Mansfield, R 2005, eBay to the Max: Be a Trading Post Owner, Trading Assistant & Power Seller, Que Publishing.

Strategic Management: The Case of eBay

Strategic Management: The Case of eBay 1.0 Introduction With achieving sustainable competitive advantage as the goal, organis...

Use a global company :Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a global manufacturer, distributor, and marketer of non-alcoholic beverages. Coca-Cola sells syrups and concentrates to authorized bottling and canning operators. Coca-Cola has equity stakes in 20 percent of these operators. In addition, Coca-Cola sells fountain syrups directly to restaurants. The company also sells bottled and canned products directly to retailers. The company’s products include sparkling beverages, juices, and bottled water. Roughly 75 percent of the company’s revenue is international, and 53 percent comes from concentrate and syrup sales of Coke. Fundamental to Coke’s investment and long-term growth strategy are its marketing expertise, brands and bottling system. To support its brands and increase consumer awareness of its products, Coke makes significant investments in sales and marketing. To develop its brand strategy Coke’s global marketing force heavily invests in product and packaging research, developing targeted consumer advertisements and promotions and soliciting customer feedback. Coca-Cola also leverages its relationships with bottlers and local vendors, to create and implement local marketing campaigns. A strong force behind Coke’s global success is its ownership interest in and partnering with bottling and canning operations worldwide. The company maintains business relationships with three types of bottlers: ·         Independently owned bottlers, in which the company has no ownership interest ·         Anchor bottlers, in which the company has invested and has a non-controlling ownership interest ·         Bottlers in which the company has invested and has a controlling ownership interest Coke’s bottling companies /partners are large, geographically diverse, with strong financial resources for long-term investment – providing Coke with strong strategic business partners and local access on every major continent. Coca-cola in combination with its bottling partners has an extraordinary global distribution network that through economies of scale creates a formidable barrier to competition. Coca-Cola also has a large economy of scale in advertising expense, and the company’s strong brands provide a barrier to competition. The industry is very concentrated, with Coca-Cola being one of the largest companies. The barriers to entry are lower for generic products sold in grocery stores under private labels. Here the stores will be willing to allocate some shelf space to its private label products, and it is possible that if these are sold at a low profit margin and are well-received by consumers, then Coca-Cola’s bottlers may need to price its products cheaper, with the eventual result that Coca-Cola will need to drop its concentrate prices so that the bottlers can stay in business. On the other hand, even if consumer develops a taste for the private label product, it will likely only be available at that particular grocery chain, and the consumer will stick with Coke elsewhere. Another source of competitive advantage for Coca-Cola is its brand image. The Coca-Cola brand is known as authentic, optimistic, and part of the American lifestyle.             The Coca-Cola company has long been recognized as an organization with significant brand equity with over four hundred brands available in virtually every nook and cranny of the world. The flagship brand Coca-Cola soft drink has stood the test of time – over 120 years. In fact, Coca-Cola alone is recognized as the most valuable brand in the world by respected Inter-brand Corporation. Valued at over US $67 billion, the Coca-Cola brand has effectively become a part of modern world culture. Though its advertising campaigns have changed over the years, Coca-Cola has always stood for a “real” cola drink with authenticity. This identity has been built over the decades with consistent values and differentiated elements. Many competitors have taken aim at Coke, but the brand continues to command number-one position globally in ranking of brand equity. Benefiting from the pioneer advantage, throughout more than a century the Coca-Cola brand has pursued one single objective, now on a worldwide scale: to continue to grow the cola category. It was in the competition first with sodas in America, then with other soft drinks, and now with virtually all other types of drink, including water in Europe or tea in Asia. Coke’s brand essence is the refreshing bond between people everywhere. IN making its brand the number one drink in the world, it benefited from being made from a syrup that is easy to transport at low cost, with high efficiency. To grow the business through the expansion of the category, the strategy rests on three facets, which are always the same: availability, accessibility, attractiveness.

Use a global company :Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a global manufacturer, distributor, and marketer of non-alcoholic beverages. Coca-Cola sells syrups and concentrates to auth...

Leadership in HSBC

TABLE OF CONTENTS  TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Task 1 Current theories and models of leadership and their applicability. PAGEREF _Toc231702440 \h 2 Current Leadership Theories. PAGEREF _Toc231702441 \h 2 Leadership Effectiveness. PAGEREF _Toc231702442 \h 4 Task 2 Current and future requirements. PAGEREF _Toc231702443 \h 9 Current Requirements of Leadership. PAGEREF _Toc231702444 \h 9 Future Requirements of Leadership. PAGEREF _Toc231702445 \h 10 Task 3 Proposals for the development of leadership. PAGEREF _Toc231702446 \h 11 References. PAGEREF _Toc231702447 \h 14   Task 1 Current theories and models of leadership and their applicability Current Leadership Theories Leadership is one of the most pressing issues and one of the least understood concepts in the corporate world. The history of leadership encompasses through several paradigm shifts and voluminous body of knowledge. As a universal activity, leadership is fundamental for effective organizational and social functioning.  The very nature of leadership is its influencing process and its resultant outcomes. Such process is determined by the leaders and followers characteristics, dispositions, behavior perceptions, attributions and the context wherein the process of influencing occurs. The moral purpose of leadership is to create an empowered follower that leads to moral outcomes that are achieved through moral means (Antonakis, et al, 2004, p. 5).             In defining leadership, we must take into consideration its distinctness from power and management. Power refers to the potential of any leader to influence others that include referent power, expertise, the ability to reward or punish and others. Management refers to objective-driven approaches in acquiring stability based on rationality, bureaucratic means and the fulfillment of contractual obligations.  Whereas, leadership refers to purpose-driven that results in changes that are based on values, ideals, visions, symbols and emotional exchanges. Based on these definitions, we can say that leadership and management both requires power, however, management implicates the cognitive domain of employees compared to leadership that has direct effect on affective domain (Ibid).      Since leaderships rely upon providing directions that satisfies the motivational needs of others, there is a relationship between leadership and motivation. As an individual power, motivation can stand on its own. Leaders, on the other hand, act to provide satisfaction. To wit, successful leaders understand the needs of others and subsequently apply perception and influence to show others that the most satisfaction is achieved when following the leader’s view. Leadership cannot succeed without motivation (Bittel, 1992, p. 269). According to Antonakis, et al, leadership is fundamental for effective organizational and social functioning.  The very nature of leadership is its influencing process and its resultant outcomes. Such process is determined by the leaders and followers characteristics, dispositions, behavior perceptions, attributions and the context wherein the process of influencing occurs. The moral purpose of leadership is to create an empowered follower that leads to moral outcomes that are achieved through moral means (2004, p. 5). As a universal activity, leadership refers to purpose-driven that result in changes that are based on values, ideals, visions, symbols and emotional exchanges. There are two theories on leadership that shape leadership aspect of most organizations of today as transactional and transformational theories. Transactional theory is also known as management theory. The transactional nature of leadership deals with the task-oriented leaders. They tend to focus on role of supervision, operations and group performance in achieving finite goals. A system of reward and punishment is the basis of this theory; hence, the relationship is very dependent. Many economists believed that the integration of transactional with the transformational leadership is more favorable instead of just substituting the former with the latter (Martin, 2006, p. 47). Transformational leadership, also refer to as relationship theory, builds upon the connection between leaders and followers. Transformational leaders have a strong sense of mission and an ability to influence subordinates. They lead the group from “what is” to “what is describable” to “what ought to be”. The main functions of transformational leaders are idealized leadership, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration (Martin, 2006).             Leadership can be distinguished as explicit and implicit and formal and informal. Explicit leadership is base on leader’s actual behavior (overt) that are measured and evaluated and implicit leadership theory is founded on conceptual structure, definition and expectation of the people on how a leader should behave (covert). Assessing the implicit leadership theory always incorporates explicit elements (Silverthrone, 2005, p. 68). Leadership Effectiveness             Effective leadership per se takes on influencing followership. Leadership organizations ensures that decision-making is placed at the proper level and purports that proper checking and balances are in place. The Board of Directors is responsible for conducting thorough review through solid and diverse experiences and credentials. The board also embodies the corporate governance guidelines, codes of business conduct and financial ethics. The corporate officers support the board and occupy the management role. The leadership’s role mainly focuses on driving growth and sustainability thus it requires a close contact with different committees and units. First, there is a clear distinction on the roles played by the leaders and the employees; they know their stand. Second, leaders manifest faith towards the capability of the employees regardless of the gender. The workplace is not discriminating in any way. Third, individualized consideration and reasonable sanctions are other positive aspects of their leadership. Fourth, because of fear, poignantly, the workforce is more disciplined. Avoiding punishments also forces the employees to work productively. Fifth, the knowledge that ‘their hardwork will be recognized’ worked as implicit motivators. And finally, informations are disseminated faster and easier; thus, reciprocation is usual and acknowledged. The leadership style itself must be improved. The organization must combine another leadership style which is transformational with transactional leadership (Goethals, et al, 2004, p. 697). Concerns with business operations and discipline within the workplace are evident. Though the people will be motivated more if the organization will provide for a ‘sense of purpose and ownership’ as a motivation. Influence over followers, task goals and organizational culture should be a priority for leaders. Interaction patterns must be likewise examined (Deresky, 2006, p. 423) and identify the possibility of face-to-face exchanges. In this way, the leaders can directly, beyond doubt identify the needs of their people. In considering how the leaders influence the organizational culture, the structure of leadership must be also explored. Since there are many leadership styles that could be used then the manner of influencing the culture-building process conforms to many ways as well. For one, transactional leaders work within their organizational culture and transformational leaders change them. While also, leaders worked on transforming organizational visions into reality then the performance and productivity of the organization as a whole must be aligned around that vision. Culture-building, in lieu with this, necessitates a purpose-driven leadership. However, as Edgar Schein puts it, leaders are exposed to different orientations and role definitions and the impact of founders as leaders as well. Schein maintains a ‘culture embedding’ that claims that culture manages management more than management manages culture especially when organizations approach the organizational midlife. Bass argued that leaders could function as founders of cultures, of counter cultures and even act as agents of change in dominant cultures. Antecedent leaderships are the main source of organization’s culture and it affects the subsequent leader-subordinate relationships in several ways (1990). The founding or organizational cultures relates to a preconceived ‘cultural paradigm’ that could either strengthen or damaged the entire organization. As culture-builders, leaders understand the power of culture, values and integrating them into the organization. The need for leaders to be cultural facilitators is manifested in the daily management structures and routines in order to achieve organizational purposes or end values.    Organizational evolution in midlife is apparent in the changing dynamics of culture and leadership. As groups mature they develop subgroups. The consideration of microcosm reflects a degree of relativity. The creation and management of subcultures are other tasks for leaders. However, there are major bases of differentiation as functional, geographical, differentiation (by product, market and technology and by hierarchical level), ‘divisionization’, mergers and acquisition, joint ventures and structural opposition groups. Occupational functions help organizations to be more articulated and, thus, shorten the communication gap. Since occupational functions are exercised at all levels of the organization, a diversified workforce based on functions will exist. Another thing is that the creation of subcultures conforms to several geographical units that logically alter the communication. The impact of strategic alliances and organizational members’ resistance, in addition, calls for an organizational change that may sacrifice the organizational culture. The culture of an organization is intertwined with the philosophy, purposes, functions and structures and wherein organizational members develop mutually-accepted ideas and beliefs regarding what is real, what is important and how to respond. Further, the importance of leaders is viewed as main transmitters of organization’s culture and values. Leaders act as builders, as maintainers and as watchdogs of organizational culture and values per se (as cited in Bass, 1990, pp. 586-588). Aside from the reality that leaders create culture, countercultures and changing the dominant cultures, the leaders’ role also deals with managing the culture and maintaining them as always acceptable. Leaders must develop new values and recognize emerging values while exploiting existing values. An aggressive approach is necessary at this stage to facilitate the expansion of organization’s knowledge and value base. Organizations may further identify themselves with internal and external sources of knowledge, values and corporate culture. Internal processes involve creation, as discussed above, integration and dispersal of culture within the boundaries of the organization. External process is a two-step process wherein organization members are exposed to outside culture and then transfer them to other members inside the organization (Choo and Bontis, 2002 p. 280).                   All of the factors mentioned above are organizational evolution that calls for necessary evolution of leadership functions and roles. More than being integrators and facilitators, leaders are required to have keen observation and scrutinizing skills. For an instance, when the organization is faced with the conflict that emerge from its founders and when maintaining cultures is gradually being insufficient to the organization’s needs and demands, then the organization must congregate with an external organizational specialist – an OD practitioner, for example. So as not to distort existing, effective values and knowledge, leaders must carefully examine the emerging trends in culture and employee behaviors. In this process, leaders could manipulate the culture for their own term and not on the OD practitioner’s side (Harvey and Brown, 2006). In effect, leaders could maintain equilibrium and maximize autonomy while motivating changes even in the presence of an external force (Schein, 2004).             As overseers, leaders are also expected to be cultural change agents in order to unlearn things that are no longer serving the organization well. The process of unlearning involves anxiety, defensiveness and resistance to change from both leaders’ and subordinates’ side. Change must begin with the leaders. When leaders find themselves possessing dysfunctional processes, then these must be changed. Thinking of themselves as change agents, leaders must think of themselves as providers of ‘psychological safety’ and a genuine believer of cultural dynamics and the attributes of their own organizational culture. Since culture cannot be manipulated then the leaders must ‘walk the talk’ and not the other way around. In addition, safeguarding the changes in culture directly points to assessing the cultural dimensions. This can be done through internal interventions to facilitate leadership commitment and the exploring the views of the macrocosm. This involves the acquiring knowledge on their values, shared assumptions, identifying barriers and analyzing them (Schein, 2004).   Task 2 Current and future requirements Current Requirements of Leadership Amongst the function of leadership and governance, one of the most important is sound decision-making. Though this function is also the least visible since most of the decisions are made behind closed-doors with only the top management to witness, decisions are applied organization-wide, from top to bottom; hence, decisions are observable and often consequential. Optimal decisions are revealed in the course of transcendent dedication, vigilant attention and decisive realization. Transcendent dedication refers to an overarching commitment to the goals of the organization. Vigilant attention is a vow made by top management to maintain assertive and analytic while reaching a decision. Top management’s effort to assure that decisions reached and are executed at every corner of the organization is hereby referred to as decisive realization (Gandossy and Sonnenfeld, 2004, p. 65).  According to Yogendra Malik, there are three classes of factors that affect leadership decisions as personality structure of a leader, expectations of the people around him and characteristic behavioral patterns of the culture that he/she is a part of (1983, p. 78). Other factors that affect leadership decisions are documented as nature and behavior of followership, perceptions of power – sources, use, effects and nature, domains or the specific application of leadership, e.g. political, non-profit, educational, etc., and leadership styles and theories. Some organizations typify styles based on conformity while theoretical applicability deals with human behaviors in the context of leadership (Goethals, et al, 2004). Future Requirements of Leadership             The framework of leadership over 21st century organizations is too complex and uncertain than ever. As Gandossy and Efron put it, organizations who are able to build and to destroy strength and speed by other organizations will dominate. The topic of leadership will be embedded on the continuous prevalence of speed and uncertainty and the continued disruption and enablement of technology. Further, demographics will dictate much of the trend in businesses. Contemporary leadership swiftly shifted focus into a more collaborative and complementary as well as knowledge- and talent-based leaderships (pp. 161-165).       Since works are virtually done anywhere, anytime, the span of leadership control widens and crosses geographical and cultural boundaries. Global leaders are honed by means of developed, and continually developing, global processes to assess and caliber talent. The challenge, however, is the systematical movement of such talent in building global capabilities (pp. 168-170). The basics of modern leadership besides the aforementioned is the direct integration of leadership processes in business strategies that support selecting, aligning, developing and rewarding leaders whom act consistently towards accomplishing organizational objectives. The “fit” criteria of leaders will drive them in achieving high performance. The basis would be the measures on a continuum from a growth strategy to a return strategy and from incremental change to transformational change even with uncertainties – physically or virtually (p. 154).    Task 3 Proposals for the development of leadership             HSBC thrives toward ethical leadership wherein customers are served to generate reasonable return for owners and shareholders, provides stable jobs for their employees in a progressive and responsive manner and help communities where the bank operates while staying within boundaries of regulations. HSBC also complies to local laws and regulations, takes apolitical stance and emphasizes performance over conformance. Since HSBC is operating under ‘Key Business Value’ principle, the company expects and demands the highest of standards among the employees. HSBC is very particular with commitment, loyalty, hardwork and integrity. Aside from this, HSBC is a fair and an objective employer though the interest of the group is placed ahead of the individuals. While also, HSBC uses merit approach with respect t to recruitment, selection and promotion as well as delegation of authority based on accountability. Moreover, the company promotes good environmental practices and sustainable development. More than the usual definition of leadership as communicating the need to the people, HSBC takes into account a less-word-more-action leadership style or exemplary leadership. Such attitude considers transparency as part of effective leadership. Integrity, in addition, is another key term for HSBC as a central idea of ethical leadership. HSBC fully understand the role of their employees as ‘the eyes and the ears’ of the business and also recognizes the fact that the satisfaction and commitment of ‘internal customers’ are also crucial for the company. As such, HSBC employees proved to have higher productivity through enhanced systems and adequate management. HSBC also safeguards ‘corporate memory’ through keeping the most productive, most loyal and high-caliber employees. In effect, HSBC has relative low employee turnover as documented and find easiness to retain and attracting more employees. For the company, the implications include reduced recruitment and training costs. Within working teams and groups, the profound effects are comprise by a higher-level commitment of the workforce wherein team members are more than willing to contribute ideas and adapt to the organizational changes. Since managerial initiatives also serves as support mechanism, team leaders and members are willingly supports the corporate image and takes pride in their respective works.  Structured leadership is another concern for process interventions. Despite possible clashes between teams, team members and leaders, process interventions are carried-on through clarifications, synthesis, inquisitions, listening, reflections, providing support, modeling, agenda-setting, periodic feedbacks and structural suggestions. The communication model present within the organization is the Content-Processes-Roles (Church and Waclawski, 1998, p. 67). This model can be used to identify what is needed to be communicated, how it is communicated and who does the communicating. This model will provide the organization a focus to integrate effective leadership with self-esteem, performance and productivity. Since the company is already using a technology-based communication, surveys regarding the effects of leadership style to the employees’ performance and implications of leadership disposition in their daily productivity. Likewise, the organization could fully utilize ‘collaborative softwares’ towards pooling different employee perceptions on current leadership and perceptions on using computer-generated interactions. The data gathered will serve as point of discussion on what areas are in most need of improvement.   References Antonakis, J., Cianciolo, A. T. & Strenberg, R. J. (2004). The Nature of Leadership. Sage Publications, Inc. Bass, B M 1990, Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research and Management Applications, 3rd ed., Free Press, New York. Bittel, L. B. (1992). What Every Supervisor Should Know. McGraw-Hill Professional. Choo, C W and Bontis, N 2002, The Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital and Organizational Knowledge, Oxford University Press, US. Cheng, V. (2007). ‘Living and Leading in Transparent Times’ – Keynote Speech. Ethical Leadership for the New Generation’ Youth Summit. Baptist University Hong Kong. Church, A. H. & Waclawski, J. (1998). Designing and Using Organizational Surveys. Gower Publishing, Ltd. Deresky, H. (2006). International Management: Managing Across Borders and Cultures. (5th Ed.). Prentice Hall. Gandossy, R. P. Effron, M. (2004). Leading the Way: Three truths from the Top Companies for Leaders. John Wiley and Sons. Gandossy, R. P. & Sonnenfeld, J. A. (2004). Leadership and Governance from the Inside Out. John Wiley and Sons. Goethals, G. R., Sorenson, G. J. & Burns, J. M. (2004). Encyclopedia of Leadership. Sage Publications, Inc. Harvey, D. & Brown, D.  (2006). An experiential approach to organization development, (7th ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Martin, B (2006). Outdoor Leadership: Theory and Practice. Human Kinetics. Schein, E. (2004).  Organizational Culture and Leadership, (3rd ed.)   San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass (paper). Schein, E. (1995). The Leader of the Future. Drucker Foundation (paper). Silverthorne, C.P. (2005). Organizational Psychology in Cross-cultural Perspective, NYU Press.

Leadership in HSBC

TABLE OF CONTENTS TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Task 1 Current theories and models of leadership and their applicability . PAGER...

Environmental Analysis of Travelodge UK

Environmental Analysis of Travelodge UK   The Travelodge UK chain of budget hotels is the second largest in the United Kingdom, with 380 branches in the UK, Ireland and Spain which are offering more or less 20,000 rooms. The chain employs innovative marketing strategies that have resulted in 6.5 million guests staying in their hotels in 2010 and 2.2 million people visiting their website each month.[1]    Travelodge is the lowest-priced hotel that offers more value for money spent and is committed to a healthy environment with its 100% smoke-free policy. The hotel allows  browsers to compare its rate with those of other establishments and to check what it offers for the lowest price, which is basically towel, pillows and tea. It also provides personalized directions to the location of the preferred hotel branch of customers, as well as a mobile booking service for time-pressed customers. Travelodge prioritizes the privacy and security of customers in their online and mobile transactions and has a customer-friendly website. The chain’s focus on low price and the C and D market is its competitive edge and what makes it attractive to budget-conscious travelers. This also accounts for its 31% market share in budget hotels.[2]   The business strategy suitable for Travelodge UK can be analyzed using several models or frameworks. The Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental (PESTLE) analysis tool considers the bigger picture in which the business is operating. By understanding the operating environment of a business independent of its internal operations, the business can take advantage of the opportunities and minimize  the threats both present therein. PESTLE is useful in understanding risks connected with market growth and decline, and their relevance in the position, potential and direction of the business.[3] Porter’s 5 Forces modeling framework for business analysis considers the following factors:[4] Rivalry – refers to the striving of firms for a competitive edge over their rivals. Threat of Substitutes – refers to the impact on product demand of price changes in products of other industries. Buyer Power – refers to the price determination by the buyer in a market where there are many suppliers. Supplier Power – refers to the impact of high-priced raw materials to the business. Threats of New Entrants and Entry Barriers – refers to the entry of new firms in the industry that will pose competition and the artificial lowering of prices by the business to prevent potential market entrants. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix tool considers the life cycle of a product in a portfolio to determine the priorities of a business. The categories in a portfolio are the following: [5] Stars – refer to high growth, high market share products that use plenty of cash. Cash Cows – refer to low growth, high market share products that need minimal investments. Dogs – refer to low growth, low market share products that should be minimized and avoided by a business. Question Marks – refer to high growth, low market share products that demand plenty of cash and effort to increase market share. The Ansoff growth vector matrix considers the business’s present and potential products and markets via the following product-market combinations:[6] Market Penetration – refers to achieving growth with existing products and markets. Market Development – refers to achieving growth by introducing products to new markets. Product Development – refers to developing new products for existing markets. Diversification --  refers to achieving growth by developing new products for new markets.   After reviewing these business analysis frameworks, my choice for the most suitable and recommendable for Travelodge UK is the PESTLE analysis tool. This well established and patronized budget hotel business must continuously monitor economic, social, technological and environmental developments both locally and globally in order  to make adjustments as needed. Regular and potential customers are seeking more  value for money spent, convenience, excellent customer service and environment friendly settings in these times of economic uncertainty. 	 	 		 		 		 		 		[1] “Strategic Analysis of 		Travelodge, UK”, 4 June 2011, <http://ivythesis.typepad.com/term_paper_topics/2011/06/strategic-analysis-of-travelodge-uk.html> 		 		[accessed 8 June 2011] 	 		 		 		 		 		[2] ibid 	 		 		 		 		 		[3] “PEST/PESTLE Analysis Tool – 		History and Templates”, RapidBI, 29 January 2007, 		 		<http://rapidbi.com/created/the-pestle-analysis-tool/>  [accessed 8 June 		2011] 	 		 		 		 		 		[4] “Porter’s Five Forces” 		QuickMBA, 2010, <http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/porter.shtml> 		 		[accessed 8 June 2011] 	 		 		 		 		 		[5] “BCG Matrix”, Value Based 		Management.net, 7 January 2011, 		<http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_bcgmatrix.html>  		[accessed 8 June 2011] 	 		 		 		 		 		[6] “Ansoff Matrix”, 		VectorStudy.com, 2008, <http://vectorstudy.com/management_theories/ansoff_matrix.htm> 		 [accessed 8 June 2011]

Environmental Analysis of Travelodge UK

Environmental Analysis of Travelodge UK The Travelodge UK chain of budget hotels is the second largest in the United Kingdom, wit...

The Construction of an Information System that enhances “the Flexible Work Practices” to a Company

The Work-based Project Introduction During the turn of the century, the world experiences more drastic changes than before, which include changes in the environment, culture, education, knowledge, the society, and technology. The world has evolved into a massive ball of information and technology that led to the expansion and the development of the society in several aspects. However, despite the improvement of the performance of many companies, these changes also contributed to the distress of some, which are not apt for these changes. From this, it can be understood that, existing and persisting in the business industry is not as easy as it seems. Because of these, many business organisations and companies are encountering a variety of problems and issues that determine the success or failure in the business arena and in the industry. These problems and issues arise from the external and internal changes that the company encounters. With regards to this, certain business improvement procedures should be practiced in order to enhance the business practices and development of the company. In this paper, the discussion of the construction of an Information System that enhances “the Flexible Work Practices” to my company will be shown. Change is a part of every organisation. Sooner or later, organisations have to change and adapt to a competitive environment, it is a must for organisations to change in order to stay on top of the competition.  This paper will be discussing the issues of business improvement efforts within our company.             The Business Improvement             Project life cycle, basically subdivides the project into a number of definable phases or stages.  In the case of our company, the development of an information system that enhances “the Flexible Work Practices” are considered with respect to the efforts that will enhance the business practices of our company. These were divided into four (4) phases/stages as adopted in Cleland, & Gareis (1994) i.e. concept and initial phase, design and development phase, implementation or construction phase, and commissioning and handover phase (See Figure 1). Figure 1.  Project Life-Cycle               Basically, the business improvement efforts in our company are often implemented to provide a facility or to produce a product that will give a client a return on investment. And in our case, the implementation of project in our company is to enhance the “Flexible Working Practices” of our employees.  By looking at the bigger picture the designers are able to trade-off the cost of the construction with the cost of maintenance, upgrading, expansion and disposal over the life of the facility.  The extreme case would be a cheap construction which turned out to be expensive to maintain, difficult to upgrade and expand, and an environmental disaster to dispose to.             One of the methods in addressing the problem is to make the company responsible for all aspects of the life-cycle, thus eliminating any short term construction gains. These are often called BOT contracts (Built, Operate and Transfer), or BOOT (Built, Own, Operate and Transfer), or ROT contracts (Refurbish, Operate and Transfer) where a company is given a licence to finance, build, operate and sell. Governments find these contracts attractive as they are seen to provide facilities without having an impact on budget (Burke, 2003).      Time Planning             A time plan or a schedule must be prepared to enable the manager to budget time and energy effectively.  Timescales and time allocation is allows the company to eliminate wastage and allocate resources appropriate to tasks importance (Blair 2009). With setting the appropriate timescale, the company can focus and prioritise the activities in accomplishing the project. Timescales also allows the persons involved in the project become prepared for meetings, monitor project progress, and plan each day and week efficiently (Blair 2009). This would enable the company assess the progression of project and make certain improvements when necessary. Proper time allocation also allows the company to reject excessive workloads and ensure that long-term projects are not neglected (Blair 2008). With proper monitoring of projects, short-term goals can be easily completed and long-term goals can be given priority.   Figure  2. Project Plan and Timescales 	 		 		 		 		Classical Project Schedule (10 weeks) 		 		 		 		time frame (weeks) 		 		 		 		payment 		 		 		 		involved staff 	 	 		 		 		 		1st 		 		 		 		2nd 		 		 		 		3rd 		 		 		 		4th 		 		 		 		5th 		 		 		 		6th 		 		 		 		7th 		 		 		 		8th 		 		 		 		9th 		 		 		 		10th 		 		 		　 		 		 		 		PM* 		 		 		 		SA* 		 		 		 		AP* 	 	 		 		 		 		 		Project Kick-off 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 	 	 		 		 		 		Signing the Agreement 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		 		30% 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 	 	 		 		 		 		Preparation of Project Plan 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		　 	 	 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 	 	 		 		 		 		 		Implementation Process 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 	 	 		 		 		 		User Requirement Capture / Gap Analysis 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		 		20% 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		　 	 	 		 		 		 		Programs Development 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 	 	 		 		 		 		Training IT / User 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 	 	 		 		 		 		User Acceptance Test 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 	 	 		 		 		 		Parallel Run 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		 		30% 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 	 	 		 		 		 		Live Run　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		　 		 		 		 		20% 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 		 		 		 		Y 	 * PM: Project Manager, SA: System Analyst, AP: Analyst Programmer               In implementing the new IS development as for our company, several problems may occur. However, despite the presence of these problems, they can be solved by effective communication. One of the problems to be encountered is dealing with the impetus for change, for all organisations are resistant to change. An organisation will only undertake change when it can no longer meet the demands placed on it in the current mode of operation, and these demands come from customers, the problems the organisation is attempting to solve, and by the threat of competition from other companies (Ward 2009). Through effective speaking and listening, both the employees and the management can focus on informing each other of their beliefs and perceptions regarding the new implemented system. With this, the employees can speak to the management of their fears and lack of knowledge regarding the system. Moreover, the management or the leader can ask the project manager to make some adjustments regarding the problem, such as providing training for the staff and making the software program more user-friendly.   Time Definition By definition, time management is actually the ability to efficiently help give more worth to the time and energy spent with the goal to make life better and easier. As indicated in the previous presentation i.e. Figure 2, the timescales of the project will be divided into two major parts (i.e. Project Kick-off and Implementation process). Basically, these defined stages are based on the network analysis presented in the next section. For the success of any business project on careful planning, the manager must plan, organise, and control a project that consists of a number of interrelated activities.  The best known network models are PERT which stands for Program Evaluation and Review Techniques and CPM which stands for Critical Path Method.              PERT is used to plan the program in advance and to estimate the expected completion time of the entire project (Cleland & Gareis 1994).  It indicates the activities that might need modification regarding completion time.  In short, PERT allows the manager to compare actual progress of each activity and concentrate those activities that are behind schedule and may cause delay of the project. On the other hand, the CPM was developed to aid in the scheduling of some management works like routine plant overhaul, maintenance and construction work.  Since such work projects fall under repetitive operations of which the management has experience on data involving time and cost among others, and relatively small variance in their performance time, and CPM reasonably assumed that the completion time for each activity involved in a work project is known.  Moreover, the CPM incorporates no statistical analysis in its determination of time estimates.  Thus, in accordance to the convenience use of CPM, our company consider the use of this method.   Cost Planning There are main activities involves in the cost management project that includes cost monitoring and cost control.  These activities need to be thoroughly and carefully followed up based on the project requirement. In our company, project cost management includes cost monitoring and cost control which will be shown in preceding sections. Actually, finding ways to reduce costs sometimes may be crucial to firms and is a necessity most of the time. The learning phenomenon and the learning curve offer opportunities for cost reduction programs in general and in the pre-project planning areas in particular. In the pre-project planning stage, the type of learning curve to be used subsequently may be affected by the level and content of organisational planning. More precisely, the more preplanning that is done in all aspects associated with the launching of a new IS, the lower the cost of the initial unit. With the cost of the initial unit being the starting point of the learning phenomenon, the lower it is through effective pre-project planning, the greater the savings generated by the resulting learning curve.   Earned Value Analysis   When running an improvement business project, it is important to understand the values and issues that workers have in order to address them and keep everyone on board for the duration of the project. Workers are not always keen to participate but engaging them at this early stage of the project will help ensure success. With respect to the success of the projects, the approach to arrive at a price base for the purpose of tender assessment must be considered.  From the presentation, several factors can be determined, which need improvement. Primarily, the contracts to be used in the projects must be appropriate, which suits the style and preferences of its employees. The management style of the project managers must then be given enough attention to ensure the organisation and control of the tenderers. Function also includes organising, which determines what needs to be done, how will it be done and who will do it, leading to directing and motivating all parties and resolving conflicts, controlling, and making sure that the organisation has achieved its stated purpose (De Bono, 2005). In short, the scope in the project management entails the refreshing and reinforcing of the tasks and responsibilities of the project manager. Due to the problems and the target project plan that have been distinguished by our company, it is decided to create a plan in relation to project measures.   Implication and Financial benefits of Business Improvement             The changes in technology and management underwent by our company allowed us to adopt serious changes in strategy and development. From the desire to cope with the technological advancements of the century, the company is making plans of implementing a new Information Systems technology that will enhance the flexible work practices of our employees. Basically, the opportunities before our company are significant.  The company has the technical solution and the market expertise to become the dominant force in the market i.e. to enhance the flexibility of employees. But as is typical in the software industry, the window of opportunity will not remain open for long.  The possibilities are virtually limitless, but the company needs to introduce into the marketplace as soon as possible to ensure that they were able to take advantage of future opportunities even more lucrative than those presented herein. To be able to cope with competition against other companies, our company must therefore plan actions properly and implement the plan immediately. However, given the intention for change, the company must not also forget the presence of technical and non-technical problems that they can encounter, such as choosing the software program itself, its compatibility with the organisation’s system, budget, time and people. This is why, the adequate allocation of resources, including time and money must be planned accordingly to achieve success. In relation to this, effective management and well-planned project implementation must be practiced to encourage teamwork and business progress. This can be done through effective communication, with good interpersonal, speaking, writing and listening skills. Aside from these, the organisation can also seek professional help from IS professionals for additional guidance.   Conclusion             Planning is one of the fundamental functions in management. It underlies the factors that will lead the organisation into achieving its main goals. Thus, it is crucial to lay out a plan to organise the activities that are to be undertaken by the entire organisation. The process of planning though entails setting the desired outcomes and drafting the set of actions to be implemented. It is a complex process that will require analysis of the organisation’s strengths and weaknesses as well as the external factors such as the opportunities and threats. Moreover, an action plan needs to be implemented to assess the effectiveness of the set goals of the organisation. In order to this, the managers will have to communicate the information to subordinates. This undertaking entails competent interpersonal skills that will persuade and motivate the employees to work hard and in the long run, achieve the plans. In the case of our company, the planning of projects implementation should also include other external factors that might cause significant effect to the overall implementation of the project.  These factors are sometimes immeasurable since it is more related to the characteristics of project manager itself. To be able to carry out plans, the managers must provide continued motivation to the employees towards excellence and high performance. This pursuit involves the development of the managerial skills to create an efficient team that will lead to increased productivity. Observing the work conditions of the employees which involves the interaction and work flow is crucial to facilitate adjustments and improve the procedures.   References: Blair, GM (2009). Personal Time Management for Busy Managers, viewed 12 May, 2009, <http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art2.html>.   Burke, R. (2003). Project Management: Planning and Control Techniques. (4th ed.). West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons.   Cleland, D.I. and Gareis, R. (Eds) (1994). Global Project Management Handbook, McGraw-Hill International Editions.   De Bono, S (2005). Assessing Managerial Attributes Case Study of Maltese Managers in the Service Industry, DBA Executive Summary.   Ward, JA (2009) Implementing Quality Initiatives in Information Systems, viewed 12 May, 2009, <http://www.jamesaward.com/implementing%20quality%20initiatives.htm>.

The Construction of an Information System that enhances “the Flexible Work Practices” to a Company

The Work-based Project Introduction During the turn of the century, the world experiences more drastic changes than before, whi...