Introduction To Management individual assignment.doc

Question AUsing appropriate examples, explain how organizations can gain competitive advantage.Answer:Competitive advantage is the ability of one organization to outperform other organization because it produces desired goods or services more efficiently and effectively than its competitors.EfficiencyMany organizations are training their workforces in the new skills and techniques needed to operate heavily computerized assembly plants. For example, Wal-Mart. Sam Walton used to say, “If youll take care of your employees, your employees will take care of your customers, and your business will take care of itself”. He believed Wal-Marts Associates were one of Wal-Marts most important sustainable competitive advantages. (references: Essentials of Contemporary Management & Global HR News:”THE WAL-MART WAY”Cultural kool-Aid Creates Cult-Like Commitment)QualityEmployees involved in total quality management (TOM) are often organized into quality control teams and are responsible for finding new and better ways to perform their jobs; they also must monitor and evaluate the quality of the goods they produce. For example, TOSHIBA has Quality Strategies, one is improve quality through failure detection and analysis improvement. ( references: Essentials of Contemporary Management & The Toshiba Quality and Reliability System )InnovationThe process of creating new or improved goods and services that customers want or developing better ways to produce or provide goods and services, poses a special challenge. For example, a team composed of Apple employees came up with the idea for a new model of iPhone, such as they introduced iPhone 4s in October 2011 after iPhone 4.( references: Essentials of Contemporary Management)Responsiveness to customersOrganizations compete for customers with their products and services, so training employees to be responsive to customers needs is vital for all organizations, but particularly for service organizations. For example, when Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, sales of the former best-selling Motorola Razr hand phone plummeted because customers demand state-of-the-art products. That shows Apple has good responsiveness to customers. (references: Essentials of Contemporary Management) Question B Identify an organization. Explain how the forces in the general environment affect this organization.Answer:Economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces in the general environment often have important effects on forces in the task environment that determine an organizations ability to obtain resources-effects that managers may not be aware of.Economic forces affect the general health and well-being of a country or world region. Singapore was in a simultaneous recession due to the Global Financial crisis in 2009. As monetary policy, government controlled its currency rate and ensured low inflation rate for sustained economic growth. Because of recession, people were spending less and less during economic downturn. But looked at the report of McDonalds in 2010, its profits were increasing.Technological forces are outcomes of changes in the combination of tools, machines, computers, skills, information, and knowledge that managers use to design, produce, and distribute goods and services. McDonalds need use of technology to collect orders and payment, and deliver food to drivers. (references: CACM Staff 2006, FAST(ER) FOOD TO GO, Communications of the ACM, April, vol. 49, issue 4, po.9-10.)Sociocultural forces are pressures emanating from the social structure of a country or society or from the national culture. For Singapore, it has different race of people so all McDonalds restaurants in Singapore received Halal certification from MUIS (The Islamic Religious Council of Singapore). The regulatory body approved McDonalds food for consumption by Muslims in 1992. ( references: website of M