Tag: Management

Why is competitive rivalry considered perhaps the strongest of the Five Forces?
What factors make for strong rivalry?
How should a company respond from a strategic perspective when faced with intense rivalry?Tip: Leverage your readings from the Strategy textbook, and challenge the response of your classmates on their position – you may not all agree!
Please number your responses for readability.

Submit your original response (part 1) by Monday at 6pm (This is your original posting during the first week of the discussion)
Reply to at least two of your classmates responses and two replies you have received by the following Monday 6pm. If you don’t receive two replies, see the Syllabus for further instructions on how to proceed.(That is four total replies during the second week to earn full credit).

done
Seen

Oct 31st, 2022

Planning for the Surge:How Do Amazon, UPS, and FedEx Manage Peak Seasons?
(adapted from Principles of Management, Rice University, OpenStax)Typically, the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season in the United States. Holiday sales, typically defined as sales occurring in November and December, account for roughly 30 percent of annual sales for U.S. retailers (Holiday Forecasts and Historical Sales, 2015). For 2016, total online sales from November 10 to December 31 amounted to 91.7 billion dollars. And the top retailers for this period were eBay, Amazon, Walmart, and Target (Tasker, 2016). The growth in online sales appears inevitable, but how do the top shippers, UPS and FedEx, manage the sudden upsurge?
Not always so well. In 2013, both FedEx and UPS underestimated holiday demand, and with bad weather conditions as well, struggled to deliver packages as promised. Since then, both carriers have worked hard to keep adequate resources available to handle the end-of-year upsurge. But in 2014, UPS overcompensated and had too much capacity, once again damaging profitability (Livengood, 2017).Matching retailer expectations to reality is a challenge, and not just for the shipping companies. Although retailers would prefer to know how much to expect in sales, forecasts will be inaccurate, sometimes wildly so. In preparing its forecast for the 2017 peak season, Logistics Management examined economic factors, such as GDP, job growth, retail sales, and inventory levels. It also looked at imports. An informal survey of logistical professionals found that 93.5 percent expect the 2017 season to be the same as 2016 (35.5 percent) or more active (58 percent) (Berman 2017).
In June 2017, UPS announced that it would be adding a surcharge to some peak season rates. According to the UPS website, “During the 2016 holiday season, the company’s average daily volume exceeded 30 million packages on more than half of the available shipping days. In contrast, on an average non¬peak day, the company ships more than 19 million packages” (UPS Establishes New Peak Shipping Charge, 2017). The rate for the 2017 peak season would apply to select services and to oversize shipments, primarily (UPS Establishes New Peak Shipping Charge 2017). Analysts see the surcharge as a signal that UPS is the rate setter in parcel delivery. Such an assessment is not surprising given that the increase in parcel delivery as an outcome of increased e-commerce is seen as a core driver of earnings for UPS (Franck, 2017).
Second-ranked FedEx, in contrast, announced that it would not follow suit but instead would “forgo most holiday surcharges on home deliveries this year” (Schlangenstein, 2017). The surcharges levied by UPS are aimed primarily at small shippers, not the larger contract shippers. By not adding a seasonal surcharge, FedEx might hope to capture sales from individuals and small businesses that are deterred by the UPS surcharge (Schlangenstein, 2017).
Kevin Sterling, a Seaport Global Holdings analyst, believes that FedEx has the existing capacity to absorb additional ground shipments. “[FedEx is] going to let UPS be Scrooge at Christmas” (Schlangenstein, 2017). UPS already has a contract with Amazon, the de facto behemoth of online shopping, for normal shipping, leaving room for FedEx to pick up the slack during the holiday rush (Schlangenstein, 2017).
In contrast, UPS reports that the additional charge is needed to offset the costs of additional resources necessary to achieve expected upsurges in capacity. UPS spokesperson Glenn Zaccara commented, “UPS’s peak season pricing positions the company to be appropriately compensated for the high value we provide at a time when the company must double daily delivery volume for six to seven consecutive weeks to meet customer demands” (Schlangenstein, 2017).
With or without surcharges, price structures at both companies strive to discourage shipment of heavy, odd-sized, or oversized packages because such packages won’t flow through either company’s sorting systems and require special handling. All the same, FedEx has seen a 240 percent increase in such shipments over the last 10 years, which make up roughly 10 percent of all packages shipped using its ground services. And although FedEx is not adding a holiday surcharge, per se, it has added charges for packages that require extra handling, particularly shipments between November 20 through December 24 (Schlangenstein, 2017).
And the global pandemic of 2020 didn’t help the situation. “Salesforce … says global digital orders continued to grow after Cyber Monday (Nov. 30), peaking to 71% growth year over year on Dec. 5 before slowing down on Dec. 7” (Evans, 2020). One logistics-saving innovation continued expansion during 2020 to help save valuable last-mile transportation resources: curb-side pickup. This ecommerce tool leverages on-line ordering with safe, social-distancing customer pickup. “Retailers with curbside pickup particularly benefitted, Salesforce adds. Digital sales Dec. 1–Dec. 14 grew 52% year over year for U.S. retailers that offered curbside, drive-thru and in-store pickup options” (Evans, 2020).
Increased customer demand for holiday shipping created the perfect-storm, with the pandemic drastically hitting transportation supply at the same time. “Nearly 19,000 of the [United States Postal Service’s] 644,000 workers are under quarantine after testing positive for the virus or after a close exposure, according to the American Postal Workers Union” (Bogage

Directions: Read the Case IKEA Finally Opens in India Minus the Meatballs
Respond to the following questions and be prepared to discuss in class:
Case Questions1. The IKEA company has waited a long time to get into India. Trace the events and challenges that have led up to this point.2. What are the core values and strategy that IKEA wanted to implement in India?3. How has IKEA been able to localize its strategic implementation in India?

read the attached chapter and answer the questions at the being of the chapter. You answer must come from the chapter; therefore, you Must submit the page number where you obtained your answer for each question. You answer must be in line with the information in the chapter. Failure to comply with these instructions will result in deduction of points from the assignment.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/02/01/creating-real-value-for-your-customers/?sh=6ce6865738b2 (Creating Real Value For Your Customers article) and https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/charts-supply-chains-q1-2021-inventory-e-commerce-warehouse/598005/ (9 charts show the highs and lows of supply chain in Q1)
Answer the following questions:
What is supply chain management?
What observations do you have on supply chain management and its relationship to different businesses?Refer to the article 9 Charts Show the Highs and Lows of Supply Chains in Q1

How does your organization or one you are familiar with define and create value?
Why is it important to focus on value creation versus simply solutions and service?For these two questions, refer to the article Creating Real Value for Your Customers.

Planet Clothing: Ethics and Social Responsibility
Assignment Details
The following Course Outcomes are assessed in this assignment:
MT106-4: Demonstrate awareness of social responsibility and ethical decision-making in diverse and global environments.
GEL-1.02: Demonstrate college-level communication through the composition of original materials in Standard English.
Introduction: The benefit corporation is distinct from the certified B Corp. The benefit corporation has social responsibility built into its legal structure. All benefit corporations’ board members are required to ensure that the company not only considers profits in its decisions, but they must consider to impact/benefit for the social good.
Scenario (fictitious): The five board of directors have gathered to consider a proposal submitted by some of the shareholders. These shareholders want to forgo investing in recyclable fabrics in this global public benefit corporation, Planet Clothing, to put money into more profitable forms of new products. Lately, prices of these eco-fabrics have jumped in cost. This, in turn, has kept most of their customers from lesser developed countries from purchasing their clothing anymore, as they have had to raise their prices, which in turn has reduced company profits. This has especially disadvantaged customers from Latin America.
Fact: As a legal entity, the public benefit corporation must provide a social benefit besides making a profit.
Checklist: Write a business memo as one of the five directors to the other directors stating your proposed solution to the problem.
Using four of the letters of the DESPAE acronym from your reading area and your ethical approaches learning activity, you will resolve the problem by addressing Planet Clothing’s social responsibilities.
Define the problem or challenge and risk at this public benefit corporation using the 5 Ws. Who has the problem, who does it affect, what problem, where, and why?
Explore which of the ethical approaches (see your learning activity) you would use to resolve the problem and include at least three reasons.
Select a possible solution to the problem that preserves the company’s social responsibility and include at least three supporting details.
Action — Take action. Explain your solution for action by the company with at least three supporting details.
Show how your possible solution would address the company’s social responsibility as a public benefit corporation.
Make sure your memo:
Is written in Standard English with correct grammar, style, and mechanics.
Has a purpose clearly stated in your introduction statement.
Demonstrates logical and appropriate transitions from one idea to another.
Is highly organized, logical, and focused.
Includes an additional title page.
Preview the Unit 6 Assignment grading rubric.
Download the memo template example.
Respond in a 400- to 500-word memo. Use the example memo template with an additional title page. Check your spelling and grammar before submitting your assignment to the Unit 6 Dropbox.

Week 10: Interactive activity10.1 Learning Outcomes:Chapter- 13 (13-03;13-04)10.2 Action Required: (Knowledge Application)This activity is important because managers should understand the importance of power, influence and politics in organizations. Power and influence positively affect job performance and organizational commitment. Influence is an important tool to navigate organizational politics, if used appropriately.
The goal of this activity is to demonstrate your understanding of power, influence, and politics by reading a case and answering questions that follow.
Case Analysis (Organizational Politics at Google)
Google only wants “civil” behavior at work. Talk about work at work, talk about politics elsewhere. The multinational technology company announced to its over 100,000 employees in August 2019 that nonwork topics were causing disruption. Specifically, political arguments have taken a large role in the company’s online forums.
This is an interesting turn of events, given that the company has long been an example of a relaxed and creative culture. In the prior months, the company was accused of suppressing conservative political views in searches. A leaked video after the 2016 presidential election showed the displeasure of the Google executives with the election results. Over the next months, the online internal platforms for employee discussion became increasingly argumentative and, in some cases, worse.
Organizational politics are, of course, not the same as government politics. But this situation at Google could easily lead to organizational political behavior. Any strong expression of opinions by executives exerts influence on employees. At Google, the video of executives expressing negative opinions about the election immediately takes advantage of their power to influence subordinates. Those who are not of the same political opinions as the executives are now excluded from a circle of those who do agree. This can easily lead to those people either receding from involvement and hiding their views or taking an aggressive stance that further causes work problems.
Excluding employees can often be unintended. But when you are pushed out of the important discussions and decisions, especially by superiors, you are then on the “outs.” This can lead to low performance and commitment, and even leaving the organization in more serious cases. Political behavior on the part of those who are in agreement with executives can then bond further, whether intentionally or not. Based on this, Google’s direction with their new policies about topics allowed in internal communication are, therefore, not as shocking as they might appear.
10.3 Test your knowledge:(Questions)1. Your boss asks you to attend a meeting to participate in a serious discussion of corporate policies that you disagree with. After the meeting, you are convinced and agree completely with the policies, showing you experienced what reaction to the meeting’s influence?
2. People who share opinions with executives may try to use that to enter into more social circles and meet powerful people who also agree, expressing what type of political skill?
10.4 Instructions:
Read the following case about politics at work and answer the questions that follow. Post your answer in the discussion board using the discussion link below

Pick one of the teams, and make 4 recommendations for their next move (e.g., “change positioning for product X to be ____ in size, and _____ in performance in order to ________________”; “introduce new product in __________ segment with size ______ and performance _________ in order to achieve _____________”). Be sure to cite the reason for your recommendation (be specific) and what you think the outcome will be in the next round from each of the actions.
As a good consultant, please address a variety of areas (i.e., don’t fixate on 1 area for your 4 recommendations). For example, resist the temptation to say “Recommendation A is to change the price of product 1 to ___, Recommendation B is to change the price of product 2 to ___, Recommendation C is to change the price of product 3 to ___, Recommendation D is to change the price of product 4 to ___.”
The goal for these recommendations is to have maximum impact by adhering to the strategy chosen by the team you are advising. Here are the respective team strategies for these teams in Courier:
Andrews: Broad differentiator
Baldwin: Focused differentiator
Chester: Broad cost leader
Digby: Broad differentiator
Erie: Focused cost leader
Ferris: Focused differentiator
Reminder: You can adjust position (with age

Pick one of the teams, and make 4 recommendations for their next move (e.g., “change positioning for product X to be ____ in size, and _____ in performance in order to ________________”; “introduce new product in __________ segment with size ______ and performance _________ in order to achieve _____________”). Be sure to cite the reason for your recommendation (be specific) and what you think the outcome will be in the next round from each of the actions.
As a good consultant, please address a variety of areas (i.e., don’t fixate on 1 area for your 4 recommendations). For example, resist the temptation to say “Recommendation A is to change the price of product 1 to ___, Recommendation B is to change the price of product 2 to ___, Recommendation C is to change the price of product 3 to ___, Recommendation D is to change the price of product 4 to ___.”
The goal for these recommendations is to have maximum impact by adhering to the strategy chosen by the team you are advising. Here are the respective team strategies for these teams in Courier:
Andrews: Broad differentiator
Baldwin: Focused differentiator
Chester: Broad cost leader
Digby: Broad differentiator
Erie: Focused cost leader
Ferris: Focused differentiator
Reminder: You can adjust position (with age

Why USC and why the MS GSCM ( master of science in global supply chain management) program? Be specific. We want to know what resources at USC you specifically want to get involved with (ex: clubs, departments, offices, research opportunites) and what you will bring to the specific groups.