Structural Unemployment

Structural unemployment refers to that unemployment caused by the restructuring of firms or by mismatch between the skills (or location) of job seekers and the requirements (or location)  of available jobs. A major cause of this type of unemployment is the decline of the manufacturing sector. Another cause is the replacement of workers by technology. Structural unemployment calls for industry retraining programs to move workers into growth industries.

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.

Inventory of Talent

The process addresses the supply side of planning. It requires identification of the current incumbents and the possible candidates. Candidates are usually nominated by the immediate or unit manager, and the inventory typically sweeps widely, including all viable management candidates rather than being exclusive at the outset.

Included among the candidates are in-line successors (essentially replacements waiting to move up), candidates elsewhere in the organization, and longer-term or high-potential candidates. Many companies make a specific effort to include all women and minorities who may have management potential, near-term and long-term.

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.

Full Warranty

A full warranty means:

1. The warrantor will fix or replace any defective product, including removal and reinstallation if necessary, free of charge.
2. It is not limited in time (say, to one or two years).
3. It does not either exclude or limit payment for consequential damages unless the exclusion or limitation is printed conspicuously on the face of the written warranty.
4. If the product cannot be repaired or has not been repaired after a reasonable number of efforts to repair it, the consumer may choose between a refund and a replacement.
5. The warrantor cannot impose duties on the consumer except reasonable duties (the warranty cannot require the consumer to ship a piano to the factory) or a duty not to modify the product.
6. The warrantor is not required to fulfill the warranty terms if the problem was caused by damage to the product through unreasonable use.

A full warranty does not have to cover the whole product. It may cover only part of the product, such as the picture tube of a television set. Also, anyone who owns the product during the warranty period may invoke or use the warranty.

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.

Product Knowledge

You have to be expert before you even start your business. The old saying, “We learn by our mistakes” will not do your business reputation any good if it applies to your lack of expertise. You have to know your products or service inside out. You may love a business for the product lines, but will your customers love the products too? When problems arise with a product, or when a customer asks technical questions, are you knowledgeable enough to resolve these problems and answer their questions competently and confidently?

One way to increase your product knowledge is to contact the manufacturers or local distributor. They are usually happy to send you product information and answer your questions. Some of the questions you should research about your product lines (or service) are these:

• How long have these products been on the market?
• Are they seasonal, and when do most sell?
• How often are these products upgraded or changed?
• Could you be caught unexpectedly with obsolete inventory?
• What do the manufacturers’ warranties cover?
• Are replacement parts readily available?
• Are the products competitively priced?
• Are buying trends increasing or decreasing?
• Are the products high, medium, or low in quality?
• How do the products compare to the competition?
• What are groups do these products appeal to?
• What is the life expectancy of the products?
• Could the products become obsolete due to changing technology?

After these questions are answered, you may find that the business is not viable after all. The product pricing may be too high compared to the competition, or you may discover that over the previous five years, overall demand for the products is declining due to technological changes and shifts in consumer buying trends. In another five years, the demand could become substantially less. The products may appear high in quality on sight, but you may discover that they are poorly made and not something that you would feel confident selling. Perhaps the manufacturer’s guarantees are inadequate, or replacement parts are priced exorbitantly and hard to secure.

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.

Learn from Operations of other Organizations

There is nothing wrong with learning from other organizations. You should search each reasonable source for ideas that you can adapt—don’t be afraid or too proud to borrow ideas from anyone. Remember that to copy from one person is plagiarism, to copy from lots of people is research. If you offer a service, you might start by looking at the operations of a highly successful service provider. You can learn a lot by walking around companies and thus see how they have tackled their decisions about location, layout, capacity, product design, process design, performance measures, logistics, stock control, technology used, staffing, pricing, amount of vertical integration, maintenance and replacement, and financing.  When you look for improvements, see how other organizations have solved similar problems, and don’t be afraid to borrow good ideas.

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, Line of Sight

Erosion Measures

Erosion measures refer to natural remnants of some individual’s or group’s activity that has selectively worn down certain objects. For example, if you are working in a nursing home, you might determine what the most popular activity in that home is by observing where the rugs are most worn. It might be in front of the television set or in front of the windows where people spend time looking out at the street. This could give you a possible measure for evaluating changes in the group’s activities.

 Other erosion measures might include decay and breakage. Active or aggressive physical activity can be inferred from the number of broken items (for example, windows) in a school or ward. The frequency of repair, replacement, or cleaning of certain objects in a setting may be used as an indicator of frequency of usage.

 When using erosion measures be sure that unrelated factors are not the reasons for observed changes. For example, a new junior’s zeal in cleaning may be responsible for changes in the patterns of use as detected by wear and tear on the floor. Similarly, it would help to know the amount of ordinary wear and tear on objects so that any excessive erosion or wear and tear can be related to target behaviors with more assurance.

 The second category of physical traces is accretion measures. These are objects deposited by clients in a given setting or the ordinary debris left by client interaction with or consumption of material. Thus, many of the behavior produces described earlier could be considered as accretion measures. Accretion measures also often focus on analysis of remains or even rubbish.

 Reliability and validity concerns are as important when using physical traces as they are with other measures, and these concerns are especially important when physical traces are being used to make inferences about behaviors.

 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, Line of Sight

Letters Dealing with Orders

Most ordering today is done on standardized order forms, purchase forms, and requisition forms, and is handled by means of standardized procedures. Together with telephone ordering, which has surged to new highs in recent years, forms have eliminated most individual letters about orders. As long as there are human beings ordering and filling orders, there will be errors, exceptions, special requests, and problems to write about.

 

If you are ordering without a form (the form is missing from the catalog, you are responding to magazine ad), include the description of the desired item, the quantity, the size, the color, personalization/monogram, and the price. Include your own name, address, postal code, and state your method of payment. If you are paying by bank card, include its number, expiration date, and your signature. If you are buying from a company in your home state, add sales tax to the total. Also include any stated handling charges. Specify shipping directions or any special considerations.

 

When responding to orders received, it is helpful to have an all-purpose form for problem orders. After saying something like, “Thank you for your order. We are unable to ship your merchandise at once because . . . “ list a series of possible problems so that one or more can be circled, underlined, or checked off. Some suggestions: Payment has not been received. We no longer fill C.O.D. orders—please send a check or money order. We do not have a complete shipping address; a description of the enclosed merchandise; a copy of the sales slip, invoice, or shipping label; an explanation of why you’re returning it; your request for a refund, credit to your account, or replacement merchandise, an expression of appreciation. If returning the merchandise is difficult (in the case of a large appliance, for example), write first and ask how it should be returned. Always ask for (although you may not always get) reimbursement for your shipping costs.

 

When you are canceling a prepaid order or when asking for a refund, give all possible information: order/invoice/reference number, date of order, description of merchandise. Specify whether your payment should be returned to you as cash or check, as a credit to your account or your bank card (if you charged it), or as a credit to your company’s account.

 

Arrange your order on the page so that it can be deciphered at a glance. Instead of phrasing an order as a long sentence, arrange the information in columns. Set off data so as to be quickly read—there will be a similar chance of error in your order.

 

If you need merchandise or supplies by a certain date, state it clearly. By making explicit in your letter the importance of the delivery date, you will in most instances be able to cancel the order without forfeiture if you fail to receive it in time; the letter can serve as an informal contract.

 

If your first order should go astray and you send in a second, emphasize that it is a duplicate order. Too often, the first order eventually turns up and is also filled.

 

Orders were made for forms, and vice versa. Although no two order forms are precisely alike, a few items are standard: customer’s name, business name or title, address, postal code, and telephone number with area code; customer’s account number; description of merchandise, page where it appears in catalog (optional), quantity wanted, size, color, type; monogram or personalization; price per unit; total price for each item; shipping and handling chart; sales tax information; amount enclosed; shipping information (options available plus approximate length of shipping time); space for bank card number, expiration date; and signature; spaces for signatures from purchasing department or other authorization.

 

Individualized letters dealing with orders are generally typed on letterhead or memo stationery.

 

If writing about a personal order from your home, a handwritten note is acceptable if clearly written.

 

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, Line of Sight