Among the reasons identified as being responsible for the growth in the size of benefit packages, unions, cost effectiveness of benefits, and government impetus can still affect the growth of employee benefits today. Although the employer impetus was a driving force in earlier times for the growth of benefits, it could now prove to be a bane, with the companies realizing that a lack of hard data about payoffs has forced benefits to become a costly affair. Also, with governmental legislations changing almost rapidly, there could always be a scanner introduced to tax ‘fringe benefits’. 2. Erinn Kelly, VP of Human Resources at Lawson Chemical, just purchased a local salary survey that has employee benefits data.
SWOT analysis: Toucon Collection’s strength is that consumer can trust their products. To avoid being cheated by amateurs and fly-by-night sellers, consumers desire to find a big company which could ensure them a quality, authentic products. Toucon Collection has supply problems recent years in collecting certain volume of replica products. The reason is both the rapidly increased competition and the strict governments not allowing exportation of certain artifacts because of their “national significance”. SWOT Matrix for Toucon Collection Inc. Case Selected Internal Factors Representative Selected External Factors Representative Strengths Weakness Opportunities Threats Management Experienced and observant sales manager Lack of management depth Competition Toucon has Long history and provide high quality products Amateurs and fly to night competitors Marketing Target is strong Highly limited distribution Consumer trends customers need a company they can trust Lack of products to satisfy consumers’ demand Manufacturing
IT560 Unit 4 Assignment Cecil Williams Kaplan University IT560 Unit 4 Assignment Part A - Case Study III-3 Make-or-Buy Decision at Baxter Manufacturing Company 1. What are the arguments in favor of Manufacturing Vice President Moore’s proposal to purchase the manufacturing software from EMS? Moore argues that Baxter Manufacturing Company (BMC) is losing it’s reputation as a world-class parts manufacturer and is therefore implying that the company will lose business unless they purchase the manufacturing software. Moore also thinks that the manufacturing software will improve their manufacturing efficiency and customer service. The vendor, Effective Management Solutions (EMS), has told Moore that the entire system can be up and running in six months, where the estimated time to build an in-house system is two years.
The company receives frequent requests to manufacture specialty products. It had a strict and competent management policy in place to evaluate such approaches resulting in a 90% no bid on specialty product inquiries. Corwin had a small Research and Development (R&D) section which monitored technology to enhance the existing catalogue. The Peters Company project was a complete failure and also cost Corwin its relationship with the customer. Ineffective leadership and low support from Management on a speciality project was identified as the probable trigger that instigated a series of problems at Corwin.
Though this organization was successful, they were not successful enough to be in the stuck state they were in. The growth of the Levon Corporation should have been the primary focus of everyone in the company especially the management team. Even though bringing the project management consultant in to outline to the management team the importance of project management functionality was stubbornly agreed upon it proved to be the first and most important step in the company’s change process. The employees will feel their opinions are suggestions are valued as a result of the management team taking the time to hear out the consultant. The apprehension of the management team is understood because that is the culture; however, once the functionality is implemented and the management team sees the growth and positive change, the company will be more adapt to change.
New laws and regulations come about because of social and political changes. Organizations abiding by state and federal laws and regulations may result in the organization spending more money on additional taxes, new technology development, and legal fees. Competition may consist of the startup of a new organization offering similar services and products in the same marketplace, which presents a new challenge. The customers are the most critical in the environment. As the end-users, they will usually improve the organization’s image in the community because of satisfaction with the product or service, or ruin the image of the organization in the community because of dissatisfaction with the product or service.
In order to elicit the desired change he went to the engineers with true concern for their personal welfare. After listening to their challenges, he created a clear sense of purpose that both the leader and follower wanted. The goal was to reduce the administrative paperwork that was consuming the engineers time, the engineers saw this as a time waster, as did John Terrill. As their leader, he took personal responsibility to influence executive management of the inefficiencies of all the extra paperwork. Terrill demonstrated “an important aspect of leadership…influencing others to come together around a common vision” (Daft, 2008, p. 6).
It also concerns about the business ethics issues. If the company suddenly obsoletes the line, the employees will lose their job, which will reduce all employees’ loyal and have strongly bad impact on its image and reputation. Finally, since its competitive strategy is high standards of quality, I suggest the firm to improve the Classic products in long term, which can remain the traditional conceptions as well as increasing
Even though there has been a declined in union memberships due to the decrease in manufacturing position, if both enitites were to work harder in developing measures to increase its membership and hold on to their companies they could turn it around and be successful in reaching their goals. The labor unions will need to reach out to existing members and find a way to keep them motivated and involved with the union, which will ultimately attract new membership. Companies on the other hand will need to re-evaluate existing goals and develop ways to contain costs and become profitable. One can help the other if both can learn how to play in the same sandbox. References: About.com Economics.
The most important thing when deciding to outsource of offshore production is finding the right partner. In many cases companies decide to commit some of their activities to other companies that apparently seem to be adequate but it turns out that they have different necessities. As in the LEGO case study the partnership did not turn out to be appropriate and instead of helping the company to come out of the crisis, it worsen the already troubled situation. Company should screen out the possible candidates for a partnership in terms of quality, effectiveness and efficiency, time adequacy, transportation opportunities and other criteria they value. 3) What were LEGO’s main expectations and learning from the relationships with Flextronics?