How Innovation Contributes to Competitive Advantage?

From competitive environment, products within the same marketing from each provider are quite similar and difficult for customers to realize the difference. Innovation capability is the key productivity that creates competitive advantage by perceiving or discovering the new or better way to compete in an industry and launch them into the market. One of success factor depends on innovation’s relative advantage. Innovation has become the most important asset that creates competitive advantage for company, and the first mover advantage when getting magnitude of market acceptance. In the long run, maintaining product innovation is the way to sustain competitive advantage and drive the growth of productivity for further competitiveness of the company. However, product innovation always comes along with new process technology. Around half of the Fortune 500 in 1980s was disappeared from the list in 1990s because of three fundamental forces; wealth, fashion and invention. From this information, it showed Continue reading

Stages in Budgeting Process

In preparation of a budgeting process, the procedures in creating the budget differs from one organization to another and should be presented to the budget committee before it is finally agreed. The budget committee consists of high level executives in charge of various functions (i.e. sales, production and purchasing). In financial procedure the functional head obtain an approval by presenting their budget to the committee, if the level of budget doesn’t contain a reasonable performance, the functional head will required further changes in order to obtain an approval. The budget committee appoints a budget officer known as the accountant, whose take actions and coordinates the individual budgets of a company. Some important stages in the budgeting process are as follows: Communicating details of budget policy and guidelines: A long term planning process is the starting point in the preparation of a company’s annual budget, the manager are responsible for preparing Continue reading

Best Practices in Recruitment and Selection

A company with the right people with the right skills at the helm can achieve wonders. Conversely, poor or uniformed hiring and recruitment decisions at the top most level can cost a company not only financially, but will have a negative bearing on the organization’s reputation with the stakeholders. Keeping this in mind, the likelihood of future problems can be eliminated if best practices are followed for recruitment and selection activities. Successful businesses are only built by establishing a robust recruitment process as hiring mistakes can be extremely costly and time consuming. The use of best practices in   recruitment and selection helps furnish an organization with highly skilled, flexible and motivated employees. The best practices in recruitment and selection processes bring forth systems that are modern, proficient, professional and effective, and ensure that individuals who are recruited demonstrate commitment, ethics, and motivation, eagerness to grow and develop and most Continue reading

Organization Design

Designing organizations is a complex exercise. Organization Design involves making choices about how to group individuals and structure their tasks. According to Harvard Business School professor Robert Simons, in his article  “How Risky is your Company?”, organization design must take into account the company’s strategy, competitive environment, stage of the life-cycle and various other factors. In short, it is a fine balancing act. In the early days of an organization, organization design receives little attention. But over time, problems emerge as the charisma of the founders becomes insufficient to manage a larger enterprise. Systems and processes become important. This is when a functional structure is typically chosen. After some time, the functional structure becomes inadequate to respond to the needs of the market place because of centralized decision making. At that point, a divisional structure becomes necessary. But with time, a divisional structure leads to fiefdoms. Coordination becomes difficult, resources Continue reading

Stock – Meaning and Definition

Stock is the share in the ownership of the company. Stock represents the claim on the company’s assets and earnings. In other words, it means, the more the stock, the ownership stake in the company becomes greater. The stock is represented by a stock certificate which is a document that proves the ownership in the company. Few years ago when the person wanted to buy or sell shares, he/she physically took the certificates to the brokerage firm. But now information technology has increased, because of which this stock document is stored electronically. Now trading with a click of mouse or a phone call has made transacting easier. The stock certificate is considered worthless if there is no claim on the ownership of the company’s assets and earnings. Another important feature of stock is its limited liability. It means as the owner of the stock, he/she is not responsible for the Continue reading

Case Study: How IBM Championing Social Media Adoption in Business?

International Business Machines Corporation, or the IBM, is basically a multinational computer technology and has got hold over IT consulting services. The company has established itself as one of the selected information technology companies since 19th century. With its growth in the manufacturing as well as marketing domains of computer hardware and software, it has gained the nickname of “Big Blue”. IBM had encouraged its employees to use internet since 1997 when most of the companies were not allowing their employees use of internet. In 2003, the company made a strategic decision to encourage IBMers to participate in blogs and embrace the blogosphere. Social Business @ IBM is an internal site that has interactive, educational and social programs which explain   IBM’s social business transformation and   educates and enables IBMers in external social media participation. Employees take personal responsibility for their social media activities and the company has set Continue reading