External analysis soffee culture Essay

1.0 Introduction: – For an organization to survive and grow, they must have strong build strategy. Strategy is defined as a tool to assist organizations to achieve its long-term goals Hubbard, Rice & Beamish (2010). These goals are the prime reason for an organization to exist and strategies are developed to achieve these goals. Fig. 1.1- ESC model for strategy development Hubbard, Pocknee and Taylor’s (1996), explains the strategy making process via ESC model. Fig 1.1 shows the ESC (Environment, Strategy & Capabilities) model to describe the strategy making process for an organization. Strategies are made keeping a number of factors in consideration. Environment stands for Macro and industry based environment and factors that effect the operation of an organization. Environment is discussed more in detail in later part of this report. Business strategies are made considering the interest of stakeholders, company’s mission and value statement and values of the organizations. Capabilities for an organization are their resources, staff, economy of working and systems available for an organization to work in. This section is also discussed in details in this report. Also, to make effective strategies companies need to generate and gather information, analyze that information, process and implement those chosen strategies. Hubbard, Rice & Beamish (2010) explains that final part of strategy implementation is to review and monitor the strategies to find the gaps in results and fill those gaps accordingly to improve company performance. 2.0. Macro Environment Analysis Hubbard, Rice, Beamish (2010), explains that all the factors outside the organization that effect the business are studied under external environment analysis. These factors effect the strategy formulations, vision and mission planning and future organizational business. Environment analysis comprises of two major elements i.e. Macro environment analysis and Industry environment. Macro environment includes all the broad forces that surround and effect the organization and are as follows:- 2.1 Economic Dimension:- Economic dimension of an organization is the overall financial condition of the economy where organization is operating. Most important economic factors for an organization is GDP, inflation rates, exchange rates, taxation rates and wages rates. These factors define the economic dimension of an organization. Example: – Starbucks business in US during Global Financial Crisis During GFC, Starbucks was forced to pay more for its resources and to cover these additional expenses; company was forced to increase its product prices. But with the rise in interest rates and less borrowing/spending power of customers in the market, Starbucks had no option other than bearing the costs itself without increasing the prices. This additional burden forced Starbucks to close 600 stores in July 2008 (page 151, Howard Schultz, 2011). This example clearly explains the effect of Economic conditions on an organization when low purchasing power of customers lead to less demand and its effect on an organization. 2.2 Political/Legal Dimension: – This refers to the government regulations of business and its general effect, relationship with it. Its important for an organization as it defines what the organization can do and what they cannot. Customs, policies, regulations of a particular country affects the business of a international organization. 2.3 Technological Dimension: – This factor defines the resources available to operate its business in a country. It defined how an organization can convert its resources into products and services. Technology is applied with the discretion of the organization but its availability and form depends on the general environment. 2.4 Socio cultural: – Socio cultural dimensions include the culture, social effect and trends, customs, values and demographic patterns and trends in a particular demographic area. This includes the patterns people are used to and defined the future for the company with respect to its products. Example: – Starbucks in planning to expand its business in Asian countries and is planning to change 5000 year old tea-drinking culture into coffee culture (Ed Liston, 2011). Asian countries have a strong culture of consuming tea and have significant medicinal beliefs as well. Starbucks is planning to expand its business in these countries directly challenging the socio cultural dimension (page 296-305, Howard Schultz, 2011). This strategy can have mixed effects on the business. It’s a direct competition between old traditional beliefs and habits v/s young coffee drinking generation. There are no significant results available on the topic, but will be an interesting topic to work. This strategy can affect Starbucks business dramatically. 2.5 Sustainability: – It’s a new trend mostly visible in developed countries to develop sustainable business practices to address environmental issues. Companies are expected to follow guidelines, to develop their sustainable image. This includes fair work practices, focus towards general environmental damages, deforestation, ecological concerns etc. Example: – Starbucks fostering Sustainability Starbucks tag their stores as green and try to design the stores with recyclable products, reused cabinets, natural colors, and efficient lights. Company’s agricultural methods are organic, using no petrochemical based fertilizers and insecticides, and they are beneficial to the environment and water (page 317-321, Howard Schultz, 2011). Starbucks also offers 10% discount if customers bring their own coffee mugs (page 161-165, Howard Schultz, 2011). Starbucks has been busy promoting their environment involvement by developing new environmental strategies and by minimizing their carbon footprint (Starbucks Website). 3.0 Industry Analysis/ Porter’s five forces Analysis: – Fig. 1.3 – Porter’s Five Forces Model Industry analysis is used to determine the factors that influence the profitability of an organization. As shown in fig 1.3, industry analysis consists of five main forces. Porter (2008) describes these forces as the main drivers of profitability for an organization Fig 1.3. 3.1 Competitors/ Threat of new entrants: – For an organization, competitors are those individuals or groups that can reduce the revenue or can share the revenue. New or existing organizations that compete for their business, survival and growth are termed as competitors. It can be from existing market players or new entrants to the market. Mostly organizations compete for customers, revenue but competition can also be for the resources as labor/staff, new technology or patents to ensure future revenue growth. 3.2 Suppliers: – In a producing industry, suppliers play an important role by providing resources to an industry to offer services/products to the customers. This depends on the industry-supplier relationship. If suppliers are strong, they can offer resources at a higher price to get the profit share in the organization and vice versa. Thus, in a industry its very important to have consistent and reliable suppliers. Example: – Starbucks coffee bean suppliers Starbuck buys its coffee from East Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Starbucks has its approved suppliers list and to be part of that list, suppliers have to undergo a series of tests and pass some checklists. Once Starbucks approves their supplier, the company helps the suppliers to grow coffee sustainably (page 317-318, Howard Schultz, 2011). Starbucks helps their suppliers by providing knowledge, help, funds and trainings. This helps to develop the strong relationship with the suppliers and also ensures the quality of the harvest. Thus in this case both suppliers and the industry are in win-win situation. 3.3 Bargaining power of buyers: – Porter (2008) explains that if the buying power of buyer is strong, that implies that the buyer has more options to choose from and the industry has more competition. 3.4 Substitutes: – Porter (2008) explains that if the products/services of different business or company can satisfy the needs of the customers, depicts that there is a substitute available to the customers. It leads to the competition in terms of price, quality and added values to the products. 3.5 Industry Rivalry: – In a traditional economic model, if there is rivalry among the organizations in the industry, then it drives profits to zero. But there is not perfect competition and in this case companies thrive to take competitive edge over other companies. A firm can switch costs, reduce product cost, increase add on values, offer better customers service to gain the competitive edge. Example: – Starbucks competitive edge Starbucks markets their sustainable and green approach towards environment (page 147-148 & 317-318, Howard Schultz, 2011). In this modern era, with more educated groups emerging, Starbucks is attracting more educated customers. With its initiative towards green earth and working for environmental issues, customers are supporting the brand and thus Starbucks is earning reputation and revenues. The above-mentioned example is in relation with Philip Kotler’s (2001), strategy of Marketing and is proving worth full for Starbucks. 4.0 Resources, Capabilities and Creation Of Values Fig. 1.4- Resource, Capabilities and Creation of Value According to resource-based view to develop the competitive advantage over other companies, organization must have resources and capabilities that are the best in the market. In fig. 1.4, Hubbard, Rice & Beamish (2010), explains that for an organizations there are four necessary conditions to pioneer the market. These conditions are outlined as below: – 4.1 Resources: – Resources are the main factor that decides the organization’s future. Hubbard, Rice & Beamish (2010), have used VRIO/VRINE model to describe these resources better and resources must be: – Valuable: – Organization should monitor the market and its customers carefully and must have the resources to deliver the value to the customer. Customer needs are volatile in nature and keep changing, thus organizations must enhance and upgrade their resources according to the demand. Rare: – Resources of an organization should be rare and hard to imitate by the competitors. These rare resources provide a competitive edge to the organization and must be scarce to some degree of demand in the market. Inimitable: – Resources should not be easily inimitable, and should be sophisticated to imitate. It’s hard to keep inimitable resources in technological sector as long as the technology is a patent. Non-Substitutable: – Resources should be non substitutable, i.e. there cannot be any substitute to the particular resource. Organized: – Resources of an organization should be arranged and organized according to their requirement. They should be readily available when and where required and should be properly deployed as per requirement to deliver the best quality to the customers. Exploitable: – Resources should be readily accessible and available to different sectors across the organization to transform them to add value to the customers. Capabilities: – Capabilities stand for the organization’s ability to convert the available resources to customer value. It’s the ability of an organization to utilize its resources in an efficient manner. Organizations should have dynamic capabilities so that they can manage their knowledge, learn from them and also brings out new innovations as per requirement. Example: – Starbucks Logistics Chain: – As mentioned above Starbucks gets its coffee beans from East Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Southeast Asia and Latin America. Different regions specialize in different blend of coffee. A perfect coffee is not just a single origin, but is a mix of different beans. Starbucks has the capability to gather beans from different regions and make a perfect blend to deliver across all its stores worldwide. Its not easy to document this capability and thus not easily imitable. This is a competitive edge that Starbuck has over its competitors to pick, mix and deliver the beans faster than any other competitor in the market. Organizations should monitor and review their operations to check the purpose of the operation. Capabilities should be valuable to the customers, they should be rare, and difficult to imitate by competitors, specific to the organization and should be better than the competitors in the market. In order to manage the capabilities organizations should exercise their capabilities across their business. These above discussed conditions should work in closely coordinated manner to develop a competitive edge over its customers and should bring better value for the customers. For example Starbucks have strong inbound logistics that in relation to Porter’s value creating activity is a competitive edge to create customer value. 5.0 Bibliography: – Hubbard, Pocknee and Taylor’s (1996), â€Å"Practical Australian Strategy†, Ch. 5, Prentice Hall Australia, Sydney. Hubbard, G. & Beamish, P. (2011). â€Å"Strategic management: Thinking, analysis and action†, 4th ed., Pearson Education: Australia. Hubbard, Rice, & Beamish, (2011), â€Å" Strategic Management: Thinking, Analysis and Action†, 4th ed., Pearson Education, Australia. Michael E. Porter (2008), â€Å"The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy†, Harvard Business Review, p.86-104, Harvard Business Publication, Boston, USA. Ed Liston (2011), â€Å" What is more popular: Coffee or Tea†, Blog on www. Stockriters. Com, Viewed on 05th Jan’12. Kotler Philip (2001),† A Framework for Marketing Management†, Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1997, Pearson Education Company, New Jersey, USA. Starbucks website viewed on 4th Jan’12, http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/business/news-starbucks-contribution-sustainability. Howard Schultz & Joanne Gordon (2011), â€Å"Onwards: How Starbucks Fought for its life without losing its soul†, John Willey & Sons, United Kingdom.

Policies to Enhance the Safety Measures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Policies to Enhance the Safety Measures - Essay Example The health and social care organisations are often exposed to major health related risks. It is obvious that a workplace should possess its own set of schedules and norms to maintain standard health and safety practices for the service providers. Since, the health and the social workers work in a dynamic and hazardous environment, which is exposed to severe risk, the requirement for safety is at the maximum for these workers (Health and Social Care Board, 2011). Health & Safety measures adopted in health and social care workplace represents that the people working in hazardous situations are protected with negative or adverse consequences. The practitioners providing services are most exposed to the risks rising at the social as well as healthcare centres. It is worth mentioning that effective communication of information about such policies is one of the important practices, which has the potentiality to ensure greater health along with safety of the individuals working in a particu lar workplace. Again, in order to maintain safety at workplace, it should be mandatory for all the employees to follow the legislative regulations laid down by their respective companies to form as well as develop a secured environment (Health and Social Care Board, 2011).. In order to develop the health and safety measures in the healthcare organisations, the Director of such organisations must pass a mandate with written norms of health and safety measures, which need to be followed for enhancing safety at workplace. To maintain greater health and safety at the workplace, the Director should follow the systems and the procedures that entail implementing policies within his directorate, disseminating those within the staff by explaining the area of responsibility and including new staff as a part of induction plan. In order to enhance the overall performance, the policies would also incorporate the measures like providing leadership.

Contemporary Chinese Law in Context Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Contemporary Chinese Law in Context - Essay Example 4). Traditional Chinese Laws were practiced in China even during the latter half of twentieth century. The traditional laws were highly influenced by philosophical and political doctrines propagated by Confucius. Thus, the traditional Chinese laws, government regulations and penal code had Philosophical influence (The Spirit of Traditional Chinese Law n.d., p. 2-3). This paper deals with some of the Chinese laws which were revised and those which have kept pace with the changes brought about by economic globalisation. While some of the existing laws were amended like the Competition law, social law, Property laws, some new laws like Food and Beverages Law, Antimonopoly Law, etc were introduced. This paper reviews some of those laws by focusing on the circumstances which required introduction of new laws, components of new laws, their implementations and effectiveness in the Chinese Society. At the same time, this paper also examines categorization of laws basing upon their formation as well as their limitations or drawbacks. Chinese laws after 1976 to 2013: Contemporary laws: westernization Chinese legal system got modernized only after the country earned its Republic status, and especially after the reign of Qing dynasty. The effects of Cultural Revolution necessitated the requirement for formulation of some new laws and reformation of some. It has been observed that, during the last thirty years China has put most efforts in implementing legal provisions. Not only this, China has also achieved significant amount of success in redefining its legal norms, development and innovations in institutions and systems pertaining to laws and regulations. Modern day Chinese laws are meant for serving long term goals. Some of these include modifying public behavior, family planning policies, proper functioning of social systems, and above all making up for flaws that were committed by Chinese legal systems before modernization (Dingjian 2010, p. 40). Over time, the legal reforms in China have been results of direct influence of legal systems of developed Western countries. However, China has blended them with their specific problems and has customized the laws to create a system which would best serve its purpose. In order to introduce a new behavioral model, China had to introduce new legal standards. Thus, modern Chinese legal concepts are aiming at shaping up a large- scale, proper and consistent legal- structure for China (Dingjian 2010, p. 41- 42). The Chinese legal system can also be divided into two broad categories- the state made laws and the non- state made laws. State made Law All the formal acts and regulations that are formulated and implemented in recent times are classified under this category. The state laws consist of standard legal provisions and procedures and in every aspect are held superior to non- state laws. Chinese laws are regulated by multiple authorities, and the division of power is centralized. Thus, China has a well de fined law and regulations for its citizens, thereby promoting equality and peace (China's Current Legislation Structure). Non- State made law The non- state laws refers to those codified and un-codified laws and regulations that are practiced in a nation without maintaining any international convention. Numerous such laws could