Advances in strategic management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Advances in strategic management - Essay Example According to Edgar (2003) the organisation is a multinational and is also among the companies listed in the stock exchange in London since 2004. It is also an element of FTSE 259 index. It was founded around the year 1975 where it was being referred to as Hillsdown Holdings which later changed in 1980s to Lockwood Foods. The organisation has also been involved in various strategic methods for example buying off other firms producing foods such like Beechams. In 1999 the company was bought by another private firm but later recovered after three years by buying Nestle business. Other mergers and acquisition procedures have taken place in the business. Five years ago the organisation introduced the manufacture of baked beans. This strategy aimed at beating their competitor Heinz which has acquired a big market share in UK. The company therefore had to use the best methods of informing the public about their product. They therefore proposed on using a tin branded as Branston bean showing how the pleasing they look. This promotion made their competitor try to change their advert too as many people would have opted to buy from Premier Foods. The organisation current situation is that it plans to expand its market share by about half through improving awareness to the public. This was introduced after it took over one of its rival RHM which had so many branches across UK in the year 2007. Other major competitors include Unilever, Greencore etc. After carrying out BCG matrix, among the many products that the company produce we find that Branston beans packed in a tin is their cash cow since they bring the company a bigger market share thus more returns. The product’s growth in the market has made the competitors change their way of promotion since most consumers have preferred buying form Primer Company. According to the SWOT analysis carried out about the environment, it shows that the organisation has had few opportunities in the past but has been

Vincent Van Gogh Essay Example for Free

Vincent Van Gogh Essay Vincent Willem Van Gogh was born 30th March 1853 in Zudert, Netherlands. He is generally considered the greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt ( known for his Baroque style painting ), though he had little success during his life time, Van Gogh produced all of his work (some 900 paintings and 1100 drawings ) during a period of 10 years before he succumbed to mental illness ( possible bipolar disorder) and committed suicide. His fame grew rapidly after his death especially following a showing of van Gogh’s paintings in Paris on March 17 1901 (11 years after his death). Vincent grew up in a very catholic area, he was the oldest child of Theodous van Gogh, a minister of the Dutch reformed church, and Anna Cornella Carbentus. He was given the name after his grandfather, and of a brother stillborn. As an adolescent Vincent was serious, silent and thoughtful he attended Zudert village school from 1860, where the single catholic teacher taught around 200 students, he was also home schooled with his sister and later attended a school 20 miles away. As a teen he was distressed to leave his family and on 15th of September 1866 ( 13 years old ), he went to the new middle school, Willem II College in Tilburg. Constantnijn C. Huysmans, an artist from paris taught Van Gogh to draw. He continued drawing through his teens and young adult hood until he decided to become an artist. In march 1868, van Gogh abruptly left school and went back home and in july 1869, his uncle helped obtain a position with the art dealer Goupil and Cie in the Hague. After his training, Goupil transferred him to London, where he worked at Messrs. This was a happier time for him and he was successful at work and was at a young age earning more than his father. He fell in love with his landlady’s daughter, Eugenie Loyer, but she rejected him. He became increasingly isolated, and his father and uncle arranged for him to ne transferred to Paris where he became resentful at how art was treated as a commodity, on april 1st 1876, Groupil terminated his employment . He returned to england for unpaid work, the arragments didnt work so he left to become a methdist ministers assistent. At christmas he returned home and found work at the local book shop. His religious state frew he felt he needed a vacation, to support his efforts to become a pastor, his family sent him to amsterdam to study theology in May 1877 he studied for an enterence exam, which he then took and failed, feeling like a failier he went in a post missonary in a tiny village, where he wasnt happy people would say they heard him crying at night in his hut. He was later dismissed fro his dutys, and travelled back home for a year then left because of frustrations with his parents and a slight conflict between him and his father.

Sony group corporate

Sony group corporate INTRODUCTION Strategic management Strategic management can be defined as consisting of the analysis, decisions and actions an organization undertakes in order to create and sustain competitive advantages. Key attributes of Strategic Management Directs the organization toward overall goals and objectives. Includes multiple stakeholders in decision making. Needs to incorporate short-term and long-term perspectives. Recognizes trade-offs between efficiency and effectiveness. Strategy can be developed at many levels in a multi-layered organisation there may be: Corporate level strategy Business level strategy Functional level strategy Corporate level strategy describes a corporations overall direction in terms of its general philosophy towards growth and the management of its various business units. Such strategies determine the type of a business a corporation wants to be in and what business units should acquired, modified and sold. This strategy addresses the question what business are we in? Devising a strategy for a multidivisional company like Sony involves at least four types of initiatives. Establishing investment priorities and steering corporate resources into the most attractive business units. Initiating actions to improve the combined performance of those business units that the corporation first got into. Finding ways to improve the synergy among related business units in order to increase performance. Decisions dealing with diversification. Business level strategy deals with decisions and actions pertaining to each business unit. The main objective of a business level strategy is to make the unit more competitive in market place. This level strategy addresses the question how do we compete? Although business level strategy is guided by upstream corporate level strategy business unit management must craft a strategy that is appropriate for its own operating situation. Miles and Snow (1984) identified four modes of strategic orientation: Defenders, Prospectors, Analysers and Reactors. These strategies can help explain why companies facing similar environmental threats or opportunities behave differently and why they continue to do so over a long period of time. In turn the different competitive or business strategies influence the down stream functional strategies. Functional level strategy pertains to the major functional operations within the business unit, including research and development, marketing, manufacturing, finance, and human resource productivity and addresses the question how do we support the business level competitive strategy? The three levels of strategy corporate, business and functional form a hierarchy of strategy within in a large multidivisional corporation. Different levels of strategy of Sony Sony Corporation was founded by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita in 1946, now having head quarters at Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Sony is one of the biggest electronics in the world with revenue 7.7 trillion yen. Sony are making products like Consumer professional electronic equipments, Communication information-related equipments, Semiconductor, Electronic devices and components, Battery, Chemicals, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Music, PlayStation and Blu-Ray devices. Sony Corporation as a giant organization has divided its organization into five main business units as Sony Pictures, Sony Computer, Sony Music Sony Ericsson, and Sony Financial. Sony Corporation has its own corporate strategy, and the each of its five business units having their own business strategy. Corporate Strategy Business level strategy Functional level strategy In Sony Group Corporate Strategy Update FY2008 FY2010 Sony has set out some goals and revealed about its corporate strategy. In particular, the company will focus on strengthening core businesses, enhancing network initiatives and leveraging international growth opportunities to build for the future and drive further growth and profits. Main considerations in the strategy of Sony are, Further strengthening the core business Network initiatives Capitalize on Growth in BRIC Countries and Other Emerging Markets Environmental Initiatives Financial Strategies for the Mid-Term A good strategy always leads an organization towards success and improvement, in the other way a bad or inefficient strategy always takes that organization into losses and bad reputation. As we know that Japanese are good at management and most of other countries are try to implement Japanese management techniques. The term is a Japanese word adopted into English referring to a philosophy or practices focusing on continuous improvement in manufacturing activities, business activities in general, and even life in general, depending on interpretation and usage. Sony Corporation was good at strategic plans by applying these management strategies. As we discussed earlier a bad or inefficient strategy leads the organization into bad reputation, in the case of Sony they are failed to implement an efficient strategy which Sonys net profit for the July-September quarter for 2006 falling 94% to 1.7 billion Yen, compared to 28.5 billion Yen for the same period last year. From there they are tr ying to implement better strategies and to regain their reputation and brand value and to regain their number one position in electronics industry. Portfolio approach to strategy Portfolio approach was one of the early approaches to chart strategy and allocate resources in multi-business organizations. As corporate strategists jumped on the diversification bandwagon they soon found a challenge in managing the resource needs diverse businesses and their strategic missions, particularly in times of limited resources. Responding to that challenge the Boston Consulting Group pioneered an approach called portfolio techniques that attempted to help managers balance the flow of cash resources among their various businesses while also identifying their basic strategic purpose within the overall portfolio. The top managers at larger farms need a method for spotting product lines that deserve more investment as well as lines that arent living up to expectations. So they conduct a portfolio analysis, in which they evaluate they evaluate their companys products and divisions to determine which are strongest and which are weakest. Much as securities analysts review their portfolios of stocks and bonds, deciding which to retain and which to discard. Strategic business unit (SBU) Strategic business units are the key business units within diversified firms. Each SBU has its own managers, resources, objectives, and competitors. A division, product line or a single product may define the boundaries of an SBU. Each SBU pursues its own distinct mission and often develops its own plans independently of other units in the organization. BCG matrix To evaluate each of their organizations SBUs, marketers need some type of portfolio performance framework. A widely used framework was developed by Boston Consulting Group. This market share/ market growth matrix places SBUs in a four quadrant chart that plots market share against market growth potential. The position of an SBU along the horizontal axis indicates its market share relative to those of competitors in the industry. Its position along the vertical axis indicates the annual growth rate of the market. After plotting all of a firms business units, planners divide them according to the matrixs four quadrants as shown in the figure. Stars represent High market share and High growth rate. These products or SBUs are high growth market leaders. Although they generate considerable income, they need inflows of even more cash to finance further growth. Cash cows command High market share in Low growth markets. Marketers for such an SBU want to maintain this status for as long as possible. The business produces string cash flows, but instead of investing heavily in the units own promotions and production capacity, the firm can use this cash to finance the growth of other SBUs with higher growth potentials. Question marks achieve Low market share in higher growth markets. Marketers must decide weather to continue supporting these products or SBUs, because question marks typically require considerably more cash than they generate. If a question mark cannot become a star, the firm should pull out of the market and target other markets with greater potential. Dogs manage only Low market share in Low growth markets. SBUs in this category promise poor future prospects, and marketers should withdraw from these businesses or SBUs as quickly as possible. In some cases these products can be sold to other firms where they are better fit. Drawbacks of BCG matrix Ignore the dynamism of markets. Omit the true value of competitor activity. Competitor reaction is not embraced in the model and the related concept of market share does not substitute for the strategic dimension known as sustainable advantage. Refer only to one dimension of market attractiveness (market growth) and omits other valuable dimensions such as nature of competitors, potential size, company capability and barriers to market entry. Exclude the interrelationships between SBUs which are so important in building strategy. Be essentially deterministic in nature, in that service position within one of quadrants demands a strategic direction which is well rehearsed from previous experiences. BCG fails to recognise that strategic direction also relies on marketing acumen and creativity which might suggest a risk strategy in given circumstances rather than the predictable route. GE matrix To overcome the drawbacks listed for the BCG matrix a portfolio approach evolved which is GE matrix. GE matrix is similar to BCG matrix but in GE matrix it is having nine cells for more accurate analysis and also it take Industry attractiveness and Business strength as the parameters. Industry attractiveness is determined by parameters Market size Industry rivalry Demand variability Market growth rate Industry profitability Global opportunities Macro environmental factors Business strength is determined by Market share Distribution channel access Profit margins relative to competitors Brand equity Growth in market share Production capacity Conclusion Here in this report we discussed about different levels of strategy and how the flow of hierarchy works in organizations. We also discussed about Sony Corporations corporate strategy and the other levels of strategy and how Sony implementing its strategy. Portfolio approach to strategy development is widely used approach while developing a strategy, BCG matrix is one of the most popular portfolio approaches to strategic development. Here we also discussed about pits and falls of BCG matrix and we also discussed about GE matrix and how it overcome the drawbacks of BCG matrix. References Burgelman RA, Christensen CM Wheelwright SC, 2004, Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation, 4th edn, McGraw-Hill, Boston, Human Resource Management: Theory and PracticeBy John Bratton, Jeffrey Gold Strategic Management: Creating Competitive AdvantagesBy Gregory G. Dess, Marilyn L. Taylor Formulation, implementation, and control of competitive strategyBy John A. Pearce, Richard Braden Robinson http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/matrix/ge-mckinsey/ Tourism marketing: a collaborative approachBy Alan Fyall, Brian Garrod Contemporary MarketingBy David L. Kurtz Strategic management: a fresh approach to developing skills, knowledge and creativity By Paul Joyce, Adrian Woods

Foucault, Consumerism, and Identity Essay -- Philosophy

Foucault, Consumerism, and Identity Michel Foucault presents those revolutionary sorts of analyses that are rich not only for their content but for their implications and novel methodological approach. Just beyond the surface of his works lies such philosophical wealth that one can be overwhelmed by considerations of which vein to mine first, and what to make of the elements therefrom extracted. I’ve broken earth in several attractive sites this last week. Some, it seemed, hid their treasures too deep for the scope of this excavation. Some presented me with granite barriers which I do not yet have the tools to penetrate. At other sites, the earth gave way easily and I made great progress, only to be flooded out. Finally, at the fifteenth hour, I have struck something shiny. I wish to use Foucault’s accounts of socialisation, categorisation, and discipline, as the background for my analysis of a modern entity I call the â€Å"identity package.† I will define this concept and show how it fits into and is suggested by Foucault’s works. Following this I will deal briefly with supposed problems with Foucault’s account (or lack of an account) of subjectivity. Narrative gives coherence to a life. Particular episodes make sense in light of a uniting theme. The simplistic world view of the Middle Ages left people satisfied with fairly simple narratives. One knew their personal obligations and had a vague idea of how they fit into the systems of king and God. For the sovereign and the elite, their special status was confirmed in ceremony and artistic representations.1[1] The masses were unrepresented. The lack of demand for empowerment or change may be partly due to the fact t... ...of this system. The process of categorisation seems to have an assimilative function. If you can’t beat them, label them. If it fits into our picture, it is ours. Put this way, it seems like we are imprisoned in a menacing matrix of metaphysical manipulation. However, as I have shown to be the case in pop culture, we are complicit in our captivity, in fact, all too willing to participate. 1[1]Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, tr.Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage,1995) p.192 2[2]With an increase in bureaucracy came an increase in the importance of meticulous knowledge; with this, more power and a more distinct role for the researcher. 3[3]Modern advertising calls this â€Å"appeal to a certain demographic†. 4[4]Quoted in: Michael Clifford, Politcal Genealogy After Foucault, (New York: Routledge, 2001) p.99 Foucault, Consumerism, and Identity Essay -- Philosophy Foucault, Consumerism, and Identity Michel Foucault presents those revolutionary sorts of analyses that are rich not only for their content but for their implications and novel methodological approach. Just beyond the surface of his works lies such philosophical wealth that one can be overwhelmed by considerations of which vein to mine first, and what to make of the elements therefrom extracted. I’ve broken earth in several attractive sites this last week. Some, it seemed, hid their treasures too deep for the scope of this excavation. Some presented me with granite barriers which I do not yet have the tools to penetrate. At other sites, the earth gave way easily and I made great progress, only to be flooded out. Finally, at the fifteenth hour, I have struck something shiny. I wish to use Foucault’s accounts of socialisation, categorisation, and discipline, as the background for my analysis of a modern entity I call the â€Å"identity package.† I will define this concept and show how it fits into and is suggested by Foucault’s works. Following this I will deal briefly with supposed problems with Foucault’s account (or lack of an account) of subjectivity. Narrative gives coherence to a life. Particular episodes make sense in light of a uniting theme. The simplistic world view of the Middle Ages left people satisfied with fairly simple narratives. One knew their personal obligations and had a vague idea of how they fit into the systems of king and God. For the sovereign and the elite, their special status was confirmed in ceremony and artistic representations.1[1] The masses were unrepresented. The lack of demand for empowerment or change may be partly due to the fact t... ...of this system. The process of categorisation seems to have an assimilative function. If you can’t beat them, label them. If it fits into our picture, it is ours. Put this way, it seems like we are imprisoned in a menacing matrix of metaphysical manipulation. However, as I have shown to be the case in pop culture, we are complicit in our captivity, in fact, all too willing to participate. 1[1]Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, tr.Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage,1995) p.192 2[2]With an increase in bureaucracy came an increase in the importance of meticulous knowledge; with this, more power and a more distinct role for the researcher. 3[3]Modern advertising calls this â€Å"appeal to a certain demographic†. 4[4]Quoted in: Michael Clifford, Politcal Genealogy After Foucault, (New York: Routledge, 2001) p.99

Critically Assess the Uses and Limitations of Financial Statements Essay

Critically assess the uses and limitations of financial statements The definition for a financial statement is a written report which quantitatively describes the financial health of a company. (www. investorwords. com) It consists of a balance sheet, income statements and a cash flow statement. This essay will critically asses the uses and limitations of each of these types of financial statements for a business. A balance sheet shows the financial condition of a business at a specific date (Langemeier & Klinefelter 2008). It shows what is owned by the business, what is owed and the owner’s share (net worth) of the business. The balance sheet has three main uses. Firstly, it is used for reporting purposes as part of a limited company’s annual accounts. These must be shown to Companies House, HM Revenue and Customs and any shareholders unless agreed otherwise. It is also used to let potential investor’s or lenders asses the worth of a business at any given time. This way they can judge whether they think they should be investing money into the business according to how solvent the business is, how liquid its assets are, how the business is financed and how much capital is being used. Finally they can be used by the business itself to analyse how to improve its management. There are a few limitations of a balance sheet as some values of current assets are estimated (www. businesslink. gov. uk); therefore the balance sheet does not reflect a 100% accurate financial position of a business. Also, the fixed assets in the balance sheet have taken the depreciation of the asset into consideration and so the true value is not shown. Finally, intangible assets such as goodwill cannot be measured and are therefore estimated figures too and may be very inaccurate thus causing the whole balance sheet to be incorrect. Therefore a balance sheet is useful in many ways as long as whoever is interpreting the figures takes into consideration that a few of the figures are not accurate. An income statement, also known as a profit and loss account, measures the profits or losses a business has made over a certain period of time (money-zine. com). If a business wishes to expand and needs a bank loan they will need to produce their profit and loss accounts for the previous three years so the bank can see whether they will be able to repay the loan. These must be accurate records or it will be taken into account as fraud. There are many advantages of keeping accurate and up to date records. Firstly, it gives a business the information it needs to be managed and help it grow. If a business can see where its strong or weak points are then it can find ways to improve for example by cutting down on expenses. It also enables a business to produce their income statement quickly if required and filling in their tax return easier and quicker which in turn reduces the risk of interest for late tax payments. These financial statements are usually available to the public which means competitors can see how each other are doing, however very few people understand them when all transactions are recorded in larger companies. There are also some limitations of income statements one being that its data does not tell the user anything about what may happen in the future or factors that may affect future growth of the company. It is simply limited to accounting data. The second limitation is that not all businesses use an acceptable accounting method. An example from www. money-zine. com states that â€Å"if a business decides to accelerate depreciation then they hurt short-term net income and earnings (depreciation expense is larger). If they use straight line depreciation, net income in earlier years will be higher – but it will be lower in the future (all things being equal)†. The final type of financial statement is a cash flow statement. It records the inflow and outflow of cash over a period of time. The cash flow statement allows investors to understand how a company’s operations are running, where its money is coming from, and how it is being spent. According Hertenstein Article 26 there are three main people that want to see a business’s cash flow statements. Firstly stockholders want to know if the business is generating enough cash to pay dividends. Secondly suppliers want to know if their customers will be able to pay if offered credit. Thirdly investors want to evaluate future growth potential. These types of financial accounts are cheap to maintain because you do not have to be a trained accountant to produce them as they are not a complicated as the other types of financial accounts. Though the cash flow statement is a very useful tool of financial analysis, it has its own limitations which must be kept in mind at the time of its use. The main limitation is that the cash flow statement only records cash transactions and so ignores the basic accounting concept of accruals and tems bought on credit and therefore are not suitable for judging the profitability of a business. Also cash flow statements are prepared using historical information which is in the past. Therefore it does not asses what may happen in the future to a business’s accounts. In conclusion, there are many uses for financial statements as they provide a solid picture of a business’s performance when compared to each other, and the users can easily spot flaws in the entity’s financial position and manage these accordingly. However their limitations must be considered when analysing the data as they only supply the reader with past and present quantitative data and do not address any of the qualitative economic variables such as the morale of the employees or the quality of the management team. There is currently no way of measuring these intangible assets, even though a business’s human resources are some of its most valuable assets.

Inhumanity Breeds Inhumanity

In Elie Wiesel’s Night, the protagonist Eliezer enters a spiritual struggle to maintain faith, not only in God but in humanity. Turned upside down, his world no longer makes sense. He becomes disillusioned through his experience of Nazi cruelty, but even more so by the inexplicable cruelty that fellow prisoners inflict upon each other. Eliezer is appalled by the human depth of depravity and capacity for evil, his own included. Within the story there seems to be an emphasis on how inhumanity begets inhumanity. Seeing the Jews as inhuman, the Nazis cruelly treat them as animals, in turn producing cruel and animalistic behavior among the prisoners. The first example of inhuman behavior by prisoners in the story is when Eliezer and his family board the train. At first, Eliezer didn’t think the Germans seemed all that monstrous. He describes them as distant but polite. However the incremental removal of human identity and community had already begun. They seemed human like any other group of people. Over a few months time however, they became more monstrous. The Jews were stripped of their homes, possessions and dignity and forced into cattle cars bound for extermination camps. Eliezer comments on the overtly inappropriate sexual behavior displayed by some of the prisoners during the ride in the cattle cars. Such behavior presumably stems from being denied basic human respect, prompting lower self respect in the prisoners. Although hardly as violent as the Nazi’s actions, this behavior foreshadows the downward spiral in human depravity that will result from the tortuous experiences of the concentration camps. As the prisoners endure more and more horrific and monstrous Nazi abuse, they themselves become abusers. Forced into a â€Å"kill or be killed† survival situation, the prisoners often turn on each other in similar fashion to the ways in which they have been mistreated. The Kapos provide an example. As prisoners themselves, they inevitably endure the same horrendous conditions of the camps, granted mildly less horrendous than the average prisoners. Yet rather than encouraging or aiding fellow prisoners under their charge, the Kapos actually further the Nazi cause with their unnecessarily cruel and dehumanizing behavior, and destruction of hope. One Kapo remarked to Eliezer, that in the camps, it was every man for himself†¦There were no fathers, brothers, sons or friends, just survival alone without thought of anyone else. The position of Kapo symbolizes how the holocaust’s cruelty breeds more cruelty for its victims, turning decent people violently against each other in a race for self preservation. Eliezer’s narrative further details how inhuman behavior is spawned by inhuman treatment. Beaten, starving and pitted against one another for survival, sons beat or abandon their fathers. Eliezer witnesses a son beat his father for an improperly made bed, another abandon his father on the blizzard run, and yet another beat his father to death for a crust of bread. Although appalled by such behavior, Eliezer finds himself resenting his own father, feeling him to be a burden rather than the support he actually is. Even as his father lies dying, Eliezer asks himself why he shouldn’t eat his father’s rations. As the Nazi dehumanization reaches its climax, Eliezer finds that self preservation becomes the highest virtue and struggles to maintain any semblance of human dignity. Night demonstrates how cruelty breeds cruelty, and abuse creates abusers, spreading like an infection. If human beings are treated as animals, they will often begin to act like animals. There is no doubt that all humanity is capable of depravity, and under the right circumstances, incapable of controlling its manifestation!

GI Jane essays

GI Jane essays Women in military positions is an issue that has been very controversial for many years. Today, the typical occupational field of female service members is mainly administrative or medical but filmmakers are attempting to show otherwise. In the 1997 hit movie G.I. Jane, directed by Ridley Scott, one female whose determination reaches heights beyond anyones expectations smashes this image of females in the military. The portrayal of women in the movie G.I. Jane not only suggests that women can do anything the military men can do but also shows some political corruption and manipulation. Historically, female military members served as primarily medical doctors, nurses, typists, translators, seamstresses and other clerical occupations. There were a few instances where women did seem to have an interest in joining the men in infantry type positions during the World War II era, but all attempts to enlist were denied. The roles women played in the military were very important and essential for support of the armed forces but limitations were soon challenged. The women in some areas of the military, (ie. The Navy Nurse Corps), were not even given a rank equivalent to those of the men, and in 1942 President Roosevelt approved a congressional enactment to give those women a relative rank. The interests of women to attempt to enlist into infantry positions and contribute in wartime situations grew after WWII due to the increase in womens rights activations and demonstrations. New womens rights leaders came forth to fight for equality of women and made large gains, but women in combat situations was still an issue the military could not approve of. Today, women rank highly amongst all military members and fill many important positions. They are todays aircraft mechanics, computer operators, air traffic controllers, sailors, Commanding Officers and leaders in all branches of the United S...