Lean Thinking – Concept and Principles

Concept of  Lean Thinking Lean Thinking originated from manufacturing methods used by Japanese automotive manufacturers, especially from Toyota.  Lean thinking is basically about getting the right things, to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity while minimizing waste and waiting time and being flexible and open to change. A term coined by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones in their book “Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation”  to describe an exceptionally focused, efficient, agile and  successful organisation. Lean thinking provides a way to specify value, sequence value-creating actions in the best way, conduct these activities without interruption whenever someone requests them, and perform them more and more effectively.   Lean thinking means doing more and more with less and less resources while providing customers with exactly what they want. “Becoming ‘lean’ is a process of eliminating waste with the goal of Continue reading

Ethical Hackers and Ethical Hacking

An ethical hacker is a security professional who helps organization to take defensive measures against malicious attacks and usually the process he doing to find those vulnerable point is called Ethical Hacking. Sometimes this is also known as Penetration Testing or Intuition Testing. In this case, the ethical hackers are getting into the minds of computer criminals; think like them to find about innovative ways the hackers may use to get into the systems. Then organizations can take required actions to avoid those vulnerabilities. It has identified that the almost all computer systems have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a hacker to come to do damages. This can be due to an unpatched application, a misconfigured router or a rough network device and it will be not able to detect unless penetrate the networks and assess the security posture for vulnerabilities and exposures regular basis. As the hacking is Continue reading

Case Study: Why Woolworths Failed as a Business?

The British Company, Woolworths is normally categorized as a variety store dealing in retailing of a range of varying products. Historically it was established as a subsidiary of an American Company F.W. Woolworth &Co, in 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth It was incorporated in England on 23rd July, 1909 as private limited company with initial capital of 50,250 pound sterling. It, first time floated a new idea of selling all the products at a cost not more than five cents. This idea gained popularity amongst the customers resulting in fast growth of the subsidiary. Its first shop at Liverpool attracted about 60,000 people in first two days because of attractive one penny, three penny and six penny products put at sale. It continued to open new shops at various cities that attracted heavy rush of customers and visitors. It was company’s policy to purchase the products directly from manufacturers, who Continue reading

Case Study on Information Technology Management: Frito-Lay’s Long-Term IT Plan

Because the rate of technological change is so rapid, most people see IT through the narrow lens of short-term, silver-bullet solutions. IT vendors want you to believe that their important new technologies will blow away what has come before. You can’t blame a salesperson for trying to sell, or CIOs for having a queasy buy-or-lose feeling, but this attitude is precisely the opposite of the one companies should be taking. We would argue that because the winds of change affect IT more than any other area of the organization, IT benefits most from a long-term, disciplined, strategic view, and a square focus on achieving the company’s most fundamental goals. For example, Frito Lay’s strategic goal has always been to make, move, and sell tasty, fresh snack food as rapidly and efficiently as possible. That goal hasn’t changed since 1930s, when founder Herman Lay ran his business from his Atlanta kitchen Continue reading

The Effects of Financial Liberalization

Financial Liberalization refers to deregulation of domestic financial market and liberalization of the capital account that implies removing the ceiling on interest rates. When it is in a liberalized system the competition between the different lending institutions for the deposits will increase interest rates on deposits which will increase the deposits. The availability of credit will increase and this will cause an increase in investment growth. The stages of growth increases activity in the financial markets that makes the introduction and the development of financial institutions. It is argued that financial institutions, by gathering and evaluating information from borrowers, allow the allocation of funds for investment plans to become more efficient and therefore encourage growth and investment. Banks have a role in the process of development. These banks gives the chance for individuals to hold their savings in the form of deposits, so lowing the need to hold them in Continue reading

Characteristics of an Effective Strategic Control System

Recommended reading: Strategic Control and Operational Control Effective strategic control systems tend to have certain qualities in common.   These characteristics/qualities can be stated thus: Suitable: The control system must be suitable to the needs of an organization.   It must conform to the nature and needs of the job and the area to be controlled.   For example, the control system used in production department will be different from that used in sales department. Simple: The control system should be easy to understand and operate.   A complicated control system will cause unnecessary mistakes, confusion and frustration among employees.   When the control system is understood properly, employees can interpret the same in a right way and ensure its implementation. Selective: To be useful, the control system must focus attention on key, strategic and important factors which are critical to performance.   Insignificant deviations need not be looked into. Continue reading