Managing Technology

A significant organizational challenge confronting managers today is the set of issues involving the management of technology. Technology is the mechanical and intellectual processes the organization uses to transform inputs (raw materials, parts, cash, facilities, people) into products or services. Managing technology is essentially a reactive process. Whenever a supplier came up with a new piece of equipment to replace an old one, the organization buys it and trains its workers in how to use it.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

The Contemporary World

By the end of World War 11 in 1945, the Industrial Revolution was complete. The need for war goods required the development of new forms of production and technology, which later were used to produce consumer goods. Inventiveness was at high peak. Synthetic plastics and chemicals replaced natural substances as the basis for many products. Better machinery made it possible to manufacture products to produce precise specifications. (This type of precision is what lead eventually to the Apollo moon shot, which required components that were accurate to several one-hundred thousandths of an inch.)

In the 1970s, widespread use of computers enabled the management to process large quantities of data. Factories could be automated, with computer-controlled machinery carrying out many routine activities that could previously be completed only by time-consuming human labor.

By 1980, more than 80 percent of US 500 largest businesses were multinational, operating facilities in five or more foreign countries. And even for smaller companies and individual consumers, the world has become more like a large neighborhood than a huge, unknowable planet. High-speed computers, orbiting satellites, fluctuating exchange rates, and worldwide scarcities of natural resources bind us together with common needs, concerns, and goals.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Competitive Intelligence

Developing useful plans offer requires knowing as much as possible about what competitors are doing or are planning to do. Competitive intelligence is a systematic way to obtain  and analyze public information about competitors. Although this sounds a lot like legalized spying, it’s become much more popular over the past few years.

There are a variety of techniques to find out what competitors are doing. They include keeping track of competitors by having specialists visit their facilities, and hiring their workers and questioning their suppliers and customers.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Off-the-Job Training

Off-the-job training covers a number of techniques—classroom lectures, films, demonstrations, case studies and other simulation exercises, and programmed instruction. The facilities needed for  each technique vary from a small, makeshift classroom to an elaborate development center with large lecture halls, supplemented by small conference rooms with sophisticated instructional technological equipment.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Service Culture

Any policy, procedure, aspect, action, or inaction of an organization contributes to the service culture. This includes employee appearance, the way employees interact with customers, and their knowledge, skill and attitude levels. It also encompasses the physical appearance of the organization’s facility, equipment, and any other aspect of  the organization with which the customer comes into contact.

Service culture has following elements:

• Service philosophy:  Direction or vision of the organization that gives you day-to-day interactions with the customer.
• Employee roles and expectations: Specific communications or measures that indicate what is expected of you in customer interactions and define how your performance will be evaluated.
• Policies and procedures: Guidelines that define how various situations or transactions will be handled. These can help or hinder service delivery depending on your flexibility in interpreting and applying them.
• Management support: Availability of management to answer questions and assist you in customer interactions, when necessary.
• Motivators and rewards: Monetary, material items or feedback that prompts you to continue to deliver service and perform at a high level.
• Training: Instruction or information provided through a variety of techniques that teach knowledge or skills, or attempt to influence your attitude toward excellent service delivery

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Protectionism

When a government sees that local industry is threatened by imports, it may erect import barriers to stop or reduce them. Even threats to do this can be sufficient to induce the exporter to invest in production facilities in the importing country.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Going Global

Besides generating additional revenue, firms are expanding their operations outside their home country to gain other benefits, including new insights into consumer behavior, alternative distribution strategies, and advance notice of new products. By setting up foreign offices and production facilities, marketers may learn new marketing techniques and gain invaluable experience. Global marketers are typically well-positioned to compete effectively with foreign competitors.

A method used by international marketers before entering foreign markets is to conduct transcontinental product testing. Since firms must perform the marketing functions of buying, selling, transporting, storing, standardizing and grading, financing, risk taking, and obtaining market information in both domestic and global markets, some may question the wisdom of treating international marketing as a distinct subject. After all, international marketing is marketing; a firm performs the same functions and works toward the same objectives in domestic or international marketing.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

Vertical Integration Strategies

Vertical integration extends a firm’s competitive scope within the same industry. It involves expanding the firm’s range of activities backward into sources of supply and/or forward toward end users of the final product. Thus, if a manufacturer invests in facilities to produce certain component parts rather n than purchase them from outside suppliers, it remains in essentially the same industry as before. The only change is that it has business units in two production stages in the industry’s value chain system. Similarly, if a paint manufacturer elects to integrate forward by opening 100 retail stores to market its products directly to consumers, it remains in the paint business even though its competitive scope extends further forward in the industry chain.

Vertical integration strategies can aim at full integration (participating in all stages of the industry value chain) or partial integration (building positions in just some stages of the industry’s total value chain). A firm can accomplish vertical integration by starting its own operations in other stages in the industry’s activity chain or by starting a company already performing the activities it wants to bring in-house.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

 

National Sovereignty and Corporate Power

Multinational corporations present real challenges to a nation’s sovereignty and independence. The national sovereignty principle holds that a nation is a sovereign state whose laws, customs, and regulations must be respected. It means that a national government has the right, power, and authority to create laws, rules, and regulations regarding business conducted within its borders.

The second principle that shapes business-government relations in most countries is the business legitimacy principle. This principle holds that a company’s behavior is legitimate if it complies with the laws of the nation and responds to the expectations of its stakeholders. In theory, the principles of national sovereignty and business legitimacy are not in conflict.

As multinational corporations reach across national borders, their global operations may exceed the regulatory influence of national governments. This has raised concerns about the emergence of stateless corporation. These corporations have facilities, shareholders, and customers everywhere. Therefore, they seem to owe loyalty to no single nation and are able to organize and recognize around the globe. There are economic and political advantages to being, or appearing to be, stateless.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.

Industrial Competitiveness

The European Management Forum defines industrial competitiveness as “the immediate and future ability of, and opportunities for, entrepreneurs to design, produce and market goods within their respective environments whose price and non-price qualities form a more attractive package than those of competitors.”

The major factors affect competitiveness:

• The dynamism of the economy measured by criteria such as growth rates, monetary strength, industrial production and per capita performance.
• Industrial efficacy, which involves direct and indirect employee costs, per capita output, employee motivation, turnover and absenteeism.
• The dynamics of the market, when efforts to improve competitiveness are increased and better directed to more intensive market forces.
• Financial dynamism that is the strength and importance of the commercial banking sector, stock and bond markets and their ability to provide capital.
• Human resources that is the dynamism of the population and the labor force, employment, unemployment, executive quality and motivation.
• The role of the state in fiscal policies and other regulations.
• Resources and infrastructure (transport and communications facilities), domestic energy and raw material sources.
• Outward orientation, the will to promote trade actively, buying and selling goods, service-related investments or any other form of international exchange.
• Innovative forward orientation which emphasis national research and development efforts, corporate and government attitudes to exploiting new ideas, products and production processes.
• Socio-political consensus and stability, the degree to which strategies and policies reflect a society’s aspirations.

My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please visit www.asifjmir.com, and my Lectures.