Distribution Center Decisions

When deciding upon locational decision a manager basically decides upon suppliers, plants, ware houses and markets. There may also be other facilities such as super stockists, consolidation centers or transit points. Besides locating the facilities a manager must also decide how market may be allocated to ware houses and how ware houses will be allocated to plants. The allocation decision can be altered on a regular basis as different costs change and markets evolve. When designing the network, both location and allocation decisions are made jointly. In some cases, companies want to design supply chain networks, in which a market is supplied from only one factory. This is commonly known as the capacitated plant location model with single sources. Companies may impose this constraint because it lower the complexity of coordinating the network and requires less flexibility from each Facility. A much more general form of the plant location model Continue reading

Multinational Corporations and Home Country Relations

Public attitudes toward Multinational Corporations (MNCs) are biased by a nation’s position as a home or  host country. Historically, home countries have perceived MNC activities as  desirable extensions of their domestic business systems. Conversely host  countries have viewed MNCs as agents of foreign influenced and exploitation.  This historic dichotomy is now shot through with conflicting perceptions of the  MNCs. Different segments of society, such as labor, investors, consumers,  traders, and farmers, see their interests affected in different ways. As a result, a  multi-sided controversy about the societal merits and demerits of MNCs has  grown in both host and home countries. The most aggressive challenge to the traditionally supportive home country  policies towards MNCs has come from organized labor. Labor Conflict Multi-nationalization has created for management new mobility and flexibility  that have greatly enhanced its bargaining power vis-à-vis labor. Since the  sourcing base of the multinational firm knows no national boundaries Continue reading

Case Study: Human Resource Management at BMW

BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke  in German, or  Bavarian Motor Works  in English) is basically a German company with vast experience in the field of cars and was introduced in 1916. This company spends more money on its human inputs to add value and also its complex contribution of human resources creates its competitive advantage. BMW’s specialized staff which are able to offer superior quality of product and services in the market with the customer experience. Human resources plays important role in the BMW even in the time of recession as they have invest on the human inputs. But this depends on the financial condition and capabilities of the market as they had invested in training development and recruitment of the new management teams in their organisation. Earlier BMW was not giving importance to its customer services and its staff only focusing on its products and places for its expansion but Continue reading

3 Important Roles of Organizational Hierarchy

Hierarchy refers to a system of organization that respects the chain of command whereby each agency is under supervision of a higher office. In many organizations, a group of managers is always above other employees in terms of knowledge and experience and is placed at the top while others follow based on their experience and the understanding of the organizational functions. Hierarchy is mostly present in government and other governmental institutions whereby each unit has its own powers, authority, and levels of management. Based on the chain of command, an individual communicates or reports to the immediate supervisor or the authority above him. Hierarchy was adopted mainly because it allows information flow given the fact that a junior officer cannot surpass the authority above him or her to report to the senior manager, unless it is necessary. Hierarchy plays an important role in any organization because it benefits the company Continue reading

Bank Decisions on Investment Borrowings

Assessment of the liquidity gap based on the forecasts is essentially one aspect of the liquidity management. The other major task of liquidity management is to manage this liquidity gap by adjusting the residual surplus/deficit balances. Considering the high costs associated with cash forecasting, it is essential that the benefits drawn by the bank from such forecasting should be substantially large to give some residual gains after meeting the forecasting costs. This objective can, however, be attained only if the bank makes prudent investment/borrowing decisions to manage the surplus/deficit. There are, however, a few factors which must be considered before deciding on the deployment of excess funds/borrowings for meeting the deficit which are given below: Deposit Withdrawals Credit Accommodation Profit fluctuation The liquidity level to be maintained by a bank should firstly, provide for deposits withdrawals and secondly to accommodate the increase in credit demands. While deposit withdrawals must be Continue reading

Futures Trading in Commodity Markets

The process of trading commodities is also known as futures trading. Futures Contracting is an important activity for any economy to meet raw material requirements, to facilitate storage as a profitable economic activity and also to manage supply and demand risk, forward contracts gives rise to price risk, so to the need of price risk management, unlike other kinds of investments, such as stocks and bonds, when investor trade futures, he/she do not actually buy anything or own anything. He/she are speculating on the future direction of the price in the commodity in which they are trading. This is like a bet on future price direction. The terms “buy” and “sell” merely indicate the direction you expect future prices will take. In other word Forward/Future trading is an activity in which a trader takes a position in an equity in advance of an action which he/she knows his/her brokerage will Continue reading