Jul 13

Core Competencies – Competitive Base for Organizational Success

Competence is considered as the most important attribute without which a business cannot enter or survive in an industry. Competences develop from resources and skills, technology and know-how all together makes up competences. For example in the pharma industry in order to survive or operate successfully a very specific understanding of the special equipment’s needed to manufacture medicines and how a medicine works on the human body is important. That is every player in the industry needs to possess each of these competences in order for it to survive long term. Core Competences are the skills and abilities by which resources are deployed through an organisations activities and processes such as to achieve competitive advantage in ways that others cannot imitate or obtain. Core competence is a distinctive capability that enables an organisation to perform above the average industry performance.

In the 1990s this concept gained momentum after the introduction of the idea of internally developed core competencies or organisations distinctive capabilities as essential means to develop a competitive edge rather than the environment by Hamel and Prahalad (1990) in their work. And there has been considerable debate over this topic in the field of strategic management as many theorists have presented different views and a consensus has not been reached. Porter considered as an important theorist advocates the positioning view and his strategy formulation technique dominated in the 1980s and since the 1990s the resource based view of the firm has increasingly come to dominate the field of strategic management.… Read the rest

Jul 12

Importance of Creativity and Innovation in Entrepreneurship

Business, innovation and creativity are interlinked terms. Business, any business, cannot exist without creativity. The very notion of starting up your own business, take calculated risks and give your best to succeed, is the definition for entrepreneurial creativity. Innovation is what makes the difference, what gives a company a competitive edge, what turns a small “garage” business to a multinational with offices around the world and with billions of pounds in its corporate accounts. Creativity, realized through innovation is what drives our economy, is what capitalism is built on, is what creates companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Dyson and Goldman-Sacks.

Important Role of Creativity and Innovation in the Entrepreneurial Process

Every sector of business and every sector of life is subject to creativity and innovation. If is strange that when the word creativity is mentioned most people think of painters or sculptors or even photographers and when the word innovation is used they think of technological advances, like 3D TVs, and companies like Apple and Siemens. If for example the banking industry is used as an example of innovation in a lecture, the majority of people from the audience will most like wonder about the appropriate of the use of the word, when it comes to financial institutions such as Goldman-Sacks, J. P. Morgan and even the Royal Bank of Scotland. However, the financial institutions that compose our economic system are the epitome of innovation. Their continuous innovation in creating new financial products and finding ways to generate wealth is what led to the technological, commercial, entrepreneurial and consumption “boom” that started after the end of the 2nd world war and is still going strong now, even after many financial crisis that this same system produced, with the most serious being that of 2008 with many countries and millions of people still experiencing its effects.… Read the rest

Jul 05

Country of Origin Effect in International Marketing

The Country of Origin Effect is the influence that the manufacturer country has on the positive or negative consumer judgment. Studies have shown that when a customer becomes aware of the country of origin of a product his/her image about the product is influenced either positively or negatively according to his perceptions. Consumers tend to have a stereotype about product and countries that have been formed by experience, hearsay, myth. These stereotypes are generally broad and vague according to which they judge a specific country or a specific product to be the best: French Perfumes, Italian Leather, Chinese Silk and Japanese Technology are all examples of such stereotypes. Therefore the country, the type of product, and the image of the company all its brand play a crucial rule in deciding whether the country of origin will engender a positive or a negative reaction.

Country Image: Precursors to Country of Origin Effect

Country image can be defined as the sum of information in the consumers’ mind about a nation/country. It has been a long known fact that “Made In” label is just as powerful and just as valuable as a “Made By” label. German engineering, Japanese miniaturization, Italian flair, Swedish design, British class, Swiss precision – those are brand values which rub off onto all the products that come from those countries

Country Image is the reason why, in the early 1990s, Americans bought Toyota Corollas (which were quite expensive) rather than Geo Prizms (which were quite cheap), even though they were exactly the same car, made in the same factory.… Read the rest

Jul 05

Talent Retention Best Practices

Talent retention is not a new problem, but it seems to be ever more critical. The question of attracting the brightest and best talents is a key issue for successful companies. Today with large signing bonuses and very attractive salaries and benefits, the more perplexing question is how to best build the loyalty of the talented people. The more talents organizations retain, the more talents they’ll attract.

Organizations should focus on designing a sustainable career package that supports a graduate’s continuous professional and personal development. It is important that an organization keeps track of each individual’s changing needs and priorities. This will be down to the job of a coach or a mentor who should carry the long-term and important responsibility of coaching and mentoring the graduates. Being new to the organization, graduates require continuous feedback and coaching to help them to assimilate well and be successful in their role.

Companies are placing high emphasis on employer branding on tertiary education campuses by engaging students through campus activities. Besides workshops and recruitment talks, the organization also offers business games. They also place emphasis on its employer branding to attract graduate talent. It’s about continuous on-going engagement, delivering consistent messages, following a segmented approach, and diversifying the media they use to communicate with the graduate community. Aside from conducting campus talks and attending career fairs, it has a digital media strategy using Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook to improve the awareness of company.

Organizations offer graduates a number of ways to develop their skills.… Read the rest

Jul 02

Case Study of FedEx: Leveraging Information Technology to Grow Business

Federal Express is a global express transportation and logistics company that offers customers a single source for global shipping, logistics, and supply chain solutions. It was founded in 1973 by Frederick W. Smith. Since its inception FedEx pioneered the express delivery industry. The company focused on the core business of express delivery and provided overnight delivery services to the customers globally. However, the transformation of businesses and customers from old economy to the new economy forced FedEx to reposition itself from ‘overnight delivery service’ to a ‘one-stop-shop’ for the entire logistics requirement of the business. The company became the logistics service provider of leading organizations, like, General Motors.

Background of FedEx

During the late 1960s, Frederick Smith (Smith) chanced upon an idea to start an airline courier company. During this period, it was common practice to send packages as cargo on commercial carriers like American, United or Delta Airlines. This practice had a number of drawbacks because passenger airlines usually operated during the daytime and were grounded at night. In addition, freight forwarders (the company responsible for carrying the packages from the airport to the destination address) usually did not offer home delivery. Smith felt the need to start an airline courier company that would address all these problems. During his college years, he recognized that the United States was becoming a service-oriented economy and needed a reliable, overnight delivery service company designed to solely transport packages and documents. He wrote a Yale term paper on this idea, and received ‘C’ grade.… Read the rest

Jun 30

Data Warehousing – Meaning, Benefits and Implications

What is Data Warehousing?

The term data warehouse or data warehousing was first coined by Bill Inmon in the year 1990 which was defined as a “warehouse which is subject-oriented, integrated, time variant and non-volatile collection of data in support of management’s decision making process”. When referring to data warehousing as subject oriented, it simply means that the process is giving information about a particular subject rather than the details regarding the on-going operations of the company. Moreover, when data warehousing was referred to as integrated it means that the data or information which are gathered from a number of sources are then all gathered to synthesize a coherent whole. On the other hand, data warehousing being time variant simply means that the data available were identified on a particular period. Lastly, data warehousing as being non-volatile means that the data is stable and when a new data is added to the system, the old data are never removed, instead they just remain there and this enables the organization to be able to give the management consistency in their business.

In the existence of modern times with the advent of technological advancements inevitably affecting the businesses in major ways, there has also been a development and emergence of new measures, practices, and techniques which used technology to be able to provide an unwavering solution to the problems in the organization with regards to the level and kind of information that the organization needs to be able to survive and prosper amidst the increasing competition in the market.… Read the rest