HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION: For MBA students and otherwise
If Congress wants to get 300 seats in the next Election,
What role will the HR department of Congress have to play in the next 4 years?
Write your inputs to us.
If Congress wants to get 300 Seats in next election? Thursday, Jun 4 2009
Uncategorized congress, HR, india, Manmohan Singh, PM, politics, rahul gandhi, sonia gandhi 9:22 pm
IF BCCI wanted to expand 10 times by 2020? Thursday, Jun 4 2009
Uncategorized 9:05 pm
HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION for MBA students and other interested professionals
If BCCI (Board of Cricket Control in India)wanted to expand 10 times by 2020, what would be the role of
their HR department?
Please give your thoughts and suggestions here.
Strategy Formulation: BCG Growth-Share Matrix Model Wednesday, Dec 10 2008
All sectors and Education and For Entrepreneurs and For Large Corporates and Government & Not for Profit and SME Sector and Uncategorized BCG, BCG Model, Boston Consulting Group, Strategy formulation tools, strategy planning 6:40 am
BCG Growth-Share Matrix:
The Boston Consulting Group, a leading consulting firm, developed and popularized a portfoilo analysis tools that helps managers develop organizational strategy based on market share of businesses and the growth of markets in which businesses exist.
The 1st step in using this model is identifying the organization’s strategic business units (SBUs). A Strategic business Unit is a significant organization segment that is analysed to develop organizational strategy aimed at generating future business or revenue.
Exactly what constitutes as SBU varies from company to company. In bigger organizations, and SBU could be a company division, a single product or a complete Product Line.
In smaller organizations, it might be the entire company.
Eventhough they vary drastically in form each SBU has the following characteristics:
- It is a single business or collection of related businesses.
- It has its own competitors.
- It has a manager who is accountable for its operation.
- It is an area that can be independently planned for within the organization.
After identifying the SBUs, the next step is to categorize each SBU within one of the 4 Matrix Quadrants:
- STARS - Star SBUs have a high share of a high growth market and typically need large amounts of cash to support their rapid and significant growth. Stars also generate large amounts of cash for the organization and are usually segments in which management can make additional investments and earn attractive returns.
- CASH COWS: SBUs that are Cash Cows have a large share of a market that is growing only slightly. Naturally, these SBUs provide the organization with large amounts of Cash, but since their market is not growing significantly, the cash is generally used to meet the financial demands of the organization in other areas, such as the expansion of a STAR SBU.
- QUESTION MARKS: These category of SBUs have a small share of a high growth market. These are “question marks” because it is uncertain whether management should invest more cash in them to gain a larger share of the market or deemphasize or eliminate them. Management will choose the 1st option when it believes it can turn the question mark into a star, and the 2nd option when it thinks that future investments would be fruitless.
- DOGS : SBUs that are dogs have a relatively small share of a low-growth market. They may barely support themselves; in some cases, they actually drain off cash resources generated by other SBUs. These are the SBUs which are likely to be shortlisted for deemphasize or elimination.
PITFALLS of the BCG Growth Matrix Model:
The matrix does not consider factors like:
- Various types of Risk associated with product development
- Threats that inflation and other economic conditions can create in the future.
- Social,Political and Ecological Pressures.
ORGANIZATIONAL DIRECTION: MISSION & OBJECTIVES Tuesday, Dec 9 2008
All sectors and Education and For Entrepreneurs and For Large Corporates and Government & Not for Profit and SME Sector and Uncategorized MISSION, mission statement, objectives, relationship of objectives & mission 4:57 pm
DETERMINING ORGANIZATION DIRECTION:
Through an interpretation of information gathered during environmental analysis, managers can determine the direction in which an organization should move.
2 important ingredients of organizational direction are Organizational Mission and Organizational Objectives.
DETERMINING ORGANIZATIONAL MISSION:
The most common initial act in establishing organizational direction is determining an organizational mission.
ORGANIZATIONAL MISSION is the purpose for which the Organization exists.
The firms organizational mission reflects such information as what types of products or services it produces, who its customers tend to be, and what important values it holds.
Organizational Mission is a very broad statement of organizational direction and is based on a thorough analysis of information generated through environmental analysis.
DEVELOPING A MISSION STATEMENT:
A MISSION STATEMENT is a written document developed by management, normally based on input by managers as well as non managers, that describes and explains what the mission of an organization actually is.
The mission is expressed in writing to ensure that all organization members will have easy access to it and thoroughly understand exactly what the organization is trying to accomplish.
IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZATIONAL MISSION:
An organization mission is very important to an organization because it helps management increase the probability that the organization will be successful.
There are several reasons why it does this.
First, the existence of an organizational mission helps management focus human effort in a common direction.
The mission makes explicit the major targets the organization is trying to reach and helps managers keep these targets in mind as they make decisions.
Second, an organizational mission serves as a sound rationale for allocating resources.
A properly developed mission statement gives managers useful guidelines about how resources should be used to best accomplish organizational purpose.
Third, a mission statement helps management define broad but important job areas within an organization and therefore critical jobs that must be accomplished.
RELATION BETWEEN MISSION & OBJECTIVES:
Sound organizational objectives reflect and flow naturally from the purpose of the organization.
The organization’s purpose is expressed in its mission statement.
Thus organizational objectives must reflect and flow naturally from an organizational mission that, in turn, was designed to reflect and flow naturally from the results of an environmental analysis.
STRATEGY PLANNING – ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS Tuesday, Dec 9 2008
All sectors and Education and For Entrepreneurs and For Large Corporates and Government & Not for Profit and SME Sector and Uncategorized environmental analysis, STRATEGY, strategy planning 1:02 pm
The 1st step of the strategy management process is environmental analysis. An organization can only be successful if it is appropriately matched to its environment.
ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS is the study of the organizational environment to pinpoint environmental factors that can significantly influence organizational operations.
MANAGERS commonly perform environmental analyses to help them understand what is happening both inside and outside their organizations and to increase the probability that the organizational strategies they develop will appropriately reflect the organizational environment.
In order to perform an environmental analysis efficiently and effectively, a manager must thoroughly understand how organizational environments are structured.
For purposes of environmental analysis, the environment of an organization is generally divided into 3 distinct levels:
- General Environment
- Operating Environment
- Internal Environment
Managers must be well aware of these 3 organizational environmental levels, understand how each level affects organizational performance and then formulate organizational strategies in response to this understanding.
THE GENERAL ENVIRONMENT:
The components normally considered part of the general environment are:
- Economic
- Social: Including Demographics and Social Values
- Political
- Legal
- Technological
THE OPERATING ENVIRONMENT:
The operating Environment includes various components like:
- Customer
- Competition
- Labour
- Supplier
- International Issues.
THE INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT:
The level of an organization’s environment that exists inside the organization and normally has immediate and specific implications for managing the organization is the internal environment.
It includes marketing, finance and accounting,planning,organizing, influencing and controlling within the organization.
FUNDAMENTALS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING Tuesday, Dec 9 2008
All sectors and Education and For Entrepreneurs and For Large Corporates and Government & Not for Profit and SME Sector and Uncategorized strategic planning, STRATEGY, strategy management 11:20 am
STRATEGIC PLANNING:
Strategic Planning is the long range planning that focuses on the organization as a whole. In doing strategic planning, managers consider the organization as a total unit and ask themselves what must be done in the long term( 3 to 5 years) to attain organizational goals.
In strategic planning, managers try to determine what their organization should do to be successful 3 – 5 years from now. The most successful managers tend to be those who are capable of encouraging innovative strategic thinking within their organization.
STRATEGY:
Strategy is defined as a broad and general plan developed to reach long term objectives.Organizational strategy can and generally does focus on many different organizational areas such as Finance, Sales,Marketing,Production, Research and Development and PR.
It gives broad direction to the organization.
Strategy is actually the end result of strategic planning. Although larger organizations tend to be more precise in developing organizational strategy than smaller organization, every organization must have a strategy.
For a strategy to be worthwhile, it must be consistent with organizational objectives, which, in turn, must be consistent with organizational purpose.
STRATEGY MANAGEMENT:
Strategy management is the process of ensuring that an organization possesses and benefits from the use of an appropriate organization strategy. An appropriate strategy is one best suited to the needs of an organization at a particular time.
The strategy management process is generally thought to consist of 5 sequential and continuing steps:
- Environmental Analysis
- Establishment of an Organizational Direction.
- Strategy Formulation
- Strategy Implementation
- Strategic Control
PROCESSES FOR MAKING GROUP DECISIONS Monday, Dec 8 2008
All sectors and Education and For Entrepreneurs and For Large Corporates and Government & Not for Profit and SME Sector and Uncategorized Brainstorming, Delphi Technique, Group Decision Making, Nominal Group Technique 2:25 pm
3 Famous Processes for Group level Decision Making are:
- Brainstorming
- Nominal Group Technique
- Delphi Technique
BRAINSTORMING:
Brainstorming is a group decision making process in which negative feedback on any suggested alternative by any group member is forbidden until all members have presented alternatives that they perceive as valuable.
Brainstorming is carefully designed to encourage all group members to contribute as many viable decision alternatives as they can think of.
Its premise is that if the evaluation of alternatives starts before all possible alternatives have been offered, valuable alternatives may be overlooked.
During brainstorming, group members are encouraged to state their ideas, no matter how wild they may seem, while an appointed group member records all ideas for discussion.
NOMINAL GROUP TECHNIQUE:
The nominal group technique is another useful process for helping groups make decisions. This process is designed to ensure that each group member has equal participation in making the group decisions.
It involves the following steps:
- STEP 1: Each group member writes down individual ideas on the decision or problem being discussed.
- STEP 2: Each member presents individual ideas orally. The ideas are usually written on a board for all other members to see and refer to.
- STEP 3: After all members present their ideas, the entire group discussed these ideas simultaneously. Discussion tends to be unstructured and spontaneous.
- STEP 4: When discussion is completed, a secret ballot is taken to allow members to support their favourite ideas without fear. The idea receiving the most votes is adopted and implemented.
DELPHI TECHNIQUE:
The Delphi technique involves circulating questionnaires on a specific problem among group members, sharing the questionnaire results with them, and then continuing to recirculate and refine individual responses until a consensus regarding the problem is reached.
In contrast to the nominal group technique or brainstorming, the Delphi technique does not have group members meet face to face. The formal steps followed in the Delphi Technique are:
- STEP 1: A problem is identified.
- STEP 2: Group members are asked to offer solutions to the problem by providing anonymous responses to a carefully designed questionnaires.
- STEP 3: Responses of all group members are compiled and sent out to all group members.
- STEP 4: Individual group members are asked to generate a new individual solution to the problem after they have studied the individual responses of all other group members.
- STEP 5: Step 3 and 4 are repeated until a consensus problem solutions is reached.
Brainstorming offers the advantage of encouraging the expression of as many useful ideas as possible, but the disadvantage of wasting the group’s time on ideas that are wildly impractical.
The nominal group technique, with its secret ballot, offers a structure in which individuals can support or reject an idea without fear of recrimination. Its disadvantage is that there is no way of knowing why individuals voted the way they did.
The advantage of the Delhi Technique is that ideas can be gathered from group members who are too geographically separated or busy to meet face to face.Its disadvantage is that members are unable to ask questions of one another.
Managers must carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of these 3 group decision making tools and adopt the one or some combination of the three – that best suits their unique organizational circumstances.
TYPES OF DECISIONS & DECISION MAKING PROCESS Monday, Dec 8 2008
All sectors and Education and For Entrepreneurs and For Large Corporates and Government & Not for Profit and SME Sector and Uncategorized Decision Making, Decisions, elements of making decisions, Leadership, MANAGEMENT 12:37 pm
A decision is a choice made between 2 or more available alternatives.
Decision Making is the process of choosing the best alternative for reaching objectives.
Managers make decisions affecting the organization daily and communicate those decisions to other organizational members.
Some decisions affect a large number of organization members, cost a great deal of money to Carry out, or have a long term effect on the organization. Such significant decisions can have a major impact, not only on the management systems itself, but on the career of the manager who makes them.
Other decisions are fairly insignificant, affecting only a small member of organization members, costing little to carry out, and producing only a short term effect on the organization.
TYPES OF DECISIONS:
PROGRAMMED DECISIONS:
Programmed decisions are routine and repetitive, and the organization typically develops specific ways to handle them. A programmed decision might involve determining how products will be arranged on the shelves of a supermarket. For this kind of routine, repetitive problem, standard arrangement decisions are typically made according to established management guidelines.
NON PROGRAMMED DECISIONS:
Non programmed decisions are typically one shot decisions that are usually less structured than programmed decision.
5 ELEMENTS OF THE DECISION SITUATION:
- The Decision Makers
- Goals to be served
- Relevant Alternatives
- Ordering of Alternatives
- Choice of Alternatives
DECISION MAKING PROCESS:
Decision making steps this model depicts are as follows:
- Identify an existing problem
- List possible alternatives for solving the problem
- Select the most beneficial of these alternatives.
- Implement the selected alternative.
- Gather feedback to find out if the implemented alternative is solving the identified problem.
THE PLANNER: Qualification and Evaluation Monday, Dec 8 2008
All sectors and Education and For Entrepreneurs and For Large Corporates and Government & Not for Profit and SME Sector and Uncategorized evaluation of planners, MANAGEMENT, planners, planning, qualification of planners 11:29 am
The planner is probably the most important input in the planning subsystem. This individual combines all other inputs and influences the subsystem process so that its output is effective organizational plans.
The planner is responsible not only for developing plans but also for advising management on what actions should be taken to implement those plans.
Regardless of who actually does the planning or what organization the planning is being done in, the qualification, duties, and evaluations of the planner are all very important considerations for an effective planning subsystem.
QUALIFICATIONS OF PLANNERS:
Planners should have four primary qualifications:
- They should have considerable practical experience within their organization. Preferably, they should have been executives in one or more of the organization’s major departments.This experience will help them develop plans that are both practical and tailor made for the organization.
- Planners should be capable of replacing any narrow view of the organization they may have acquired while holding other organizational positions with an understanding of the organization as a whole. They must know how all parts of the organization function and interrelate. They must have an abundance of conceptual skills.
- Planners should have some knowledge of and interest in the social,political, technical and economic trends that could affect the future of the organization. They must be skillful in defining those trends and possess the expertise to determine how the organization should react to the trends to maximize its success. This qualification can be overemphasized.
- They should be able to work well with others. Their position will inevitably require them to work closely with several key members of the organization, so its is essential that they possess the personal characteristics necessary to collaborate and advise effectively. The ability to communicate clearly, both orally and in writing, is one of the most important of these characteristics.
EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR PLANNERS:
- Organizational Plan is in writing.
- Plan is the result of all elements of the management team working together.
- Plan defines present and possible future business of the organization.
- Plan specifically mentions organizational objectives.
- Plan identifies future opportunities and suggests how to take advantage of them.
- Plan emphasizes both internal and external environments.
- Plan describes the attainment of objectives in operational terms whenever possible.
- Plan includes both long and short term recommendations.
Over and above all these, the subjective considerations include how well planners get along with key members of the organization, the amount of organizational loyalty they display and their perceived potential.
