...Objective The objective of this report is to focus on the concept Training and Development in HRM” and examines in more detail some of the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of Training and Development strategies in HRM followed by a critical review on the evidence based around what impact it has had in practice in terms of promoting and enhancing business performance. While we cannot ignore the importance of HRM theories in today’s management context, this paper explores whether these theories work well in practice. Introduction The key purpose of HRM is to enable management to enhance the individual and collective contributions of people to the short and long term success of the enterprise. (Personnel Management Lead Body, 1993) The workplace is in a constant state of change resulting from ongoing developments in technology and innovation and increasing economic, social and political pressures. This poses new and complex challenges for the human resources function within organisations. (Hathorn, 2012: 3). In today’s competitive global business climate, companies looking to improve their gross margins and increase productivity are increasingly looking for ways to boost employee performance and effectiveness. People in an organization are considered to be one of the most valuable resources of today’s firms. Other resources such as brands, products, processes, technological advancement, economies of scale can still provide a competitive advantage but an organisation’s...
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...Characteristics of the Market where Marks & Spencer Operate Their Business Marks & Spencer is a retail organization and their main business is to sell necessary commodities to customers through their super shops in home and abroad. Retail organizations are emerging with new product and facilities day by day. It becomes a competitive business sectors in UK. Retail business are seem to be profitable than other business as a result many people are found to be interested to invest in the retail business. To establish in this competitive business retail organizations need to provide quality products below reasonable price. This thing is a major thread for marks and Spencer. Simultaneously there are many competitors of Marks & Spencer such as Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda etc which are trying to beat it with their service. In the porters five forces of competitive advantage threat of new entrants is a significant thing what is being faced by Marks & Spencer. Porter’s second factor of competitive advantage is substitution of product. This factor is one of the important characteristics of the market where Marks & Spencer operate their business. Substitution is an effective strategy to survive in this competitive market and customers are also willing to buy substituted product. Relative price and quality of substitute product attract consumers. In retail business organizations hardly goes for production but they need to buy finished product what is considered as their raw...
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...Instructor’s Manual CASE TEACHING NOTES Marks & Spencer Nardine Collier and Gerry Johnson 1. Introduction This case study is about why one of the world’s most famous retails, Marks & Spencer, ran into trouble at the end of the 1990s and how it attempted to manage a programme of change to overcome those problems. It is therefore useful to explore issues concerned with organisational culture, strategic drift, strategic choice and the management of change. The case covers both the history of Marks & Spencer throughout the last century and, in more detail, from 1998 to 2004, the period when it moved from a position of market dominance to one in which it was deemed to be a take-over target. The case charts the attempts by its different chief executives to address the problems during this time and, therefore, the various change initiatives that were mounted. 2. Position of the case The case study relates, in particular, to the problems and means of managing strategic change in Marks & Spencer. So it is particularly related to the coverage of strategic inertia and strategic drift in chapter 1 and programmatic design and change in chapter 10. With this in mind it might be taught at the end of the strategy course. However, it could also be used as a case to require students to analyse the reasons for the problems of Marks & Spencer, not only in terms of organisational culture, but also in terms of the market and competitive position of the firm. In this sense it could be...
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...Dr. Andreea AVADANEI Marks&Spencer Report 2011 With a 21 million customers visiting weekly its stores and group revenue of £9.7bn in 2011, Marks&Spencer (M&S) is one of the most important UK retailers. Expanded all across Europe, Asia and Middle East, M&S has a store network of 152 wholly-owned and partlyowned locations and 209 franchises (2011), transforming more and more into a strong international business presence that offers great value clothing, extremely high quality food and a variety of home products. M&S strategy is to become a global multi-channel retailer (Bolland, 2011) in order to reduce its dependency on the UK market conditions and economic climate and to create a powerful brand serving a worldwide customer base. With an extraordinary understanding of customers selective needs based on a complex combination of market analyses and research feedback to identify trends and factors influencing their choices and decisions, M&S provides quality, value and innovation, positioning customers at the heart of the entire business. This report presents an overview of M&S activity and perspectives using a) a comprehensive PESTEL analysis to point out the trends and the environmental influences affecting the business, b) Porter’s five forces framework to explore and evaluate M&S attractiveness, c) a detailed SWOT analysis to highlight the company’ main advantages and hot spots and to identify any opportunity it can capitalize on and challenges that may endanger its future...
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...BRUNEL BUSINESS SCHOOL COVERSHEET FOR ONLINE COURSEWORK SUBMISSIONS |Module Code |MG2138 | |Module Title |Marketing Channels and Logistics (A 2012/3 YEAR) | |Module leader |Michael Bourlakis | |Student ID number |1138368 | |Student name | | |Degree Programme (e.g. Business and Management (General)) |Business and Management (Marketing) | |I understand that the School does not tolerate plagiarism. Plagiarism is the knowing or reckless presentation of another | |person’s thoughts, writings, inventions, as one’s own. It includes the incorporation of another person’s work from published | |or unpublished sources, without indicating that the material is derived from those sources. It includes the use of material | |obtained from the internet. (Senate Regulations 6.46) | | ...
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...Clothing Market of M&S 3 2.3 The Rationale: Why does HRM Contribute to Increasing Competitiveness? 4 3 Analysis of Current Situation 5 4. Respond to the HRM Weakness 9 5. Evaluation on HRM Approach Implemented by M&S 10 6. Conclusion 11 References 12 1.Introduction In recent business environment, competition has become a core issue due to its crucial impacts on company development in terms of market and profits. This dissertation will introduce proper and effective strategies to overcome the problems so that the company would be turned into higher competitive stance. Additionally, this article aims to analyze the competitive environment from both internal and external of Marks and Spencer plc (M&S), to evaluate the reasons why it has gone wrong ever since 1997 and to identify how the changes of human resources management could help M&S sharpen its competitive edge. This paper is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on the background M&S has been facing ever since 1997 that the company is suffering from a great crisis. The current situation is analyzed in the second part by using the SWOT model to examine the positions and environment of M&S. The third part emphasizes on discussing the human resources management policies that M&S used to respond the weakness discussion during the SWOT analysis. The final part aims to evaluate the HRM responds policy and illustrate the good effects and drawbacks the changes...
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...sustainability requirements. The key departure from the standard way of analyzing stakeholder engagement in prior research consists in viewing the role of stakeholders as primary facilitators of internal change processes aimed at sustainability, rather than solely as counterparts of externally oriented social development initiatives. At the finer level of detail, GOLDEN intent to tackle the problem of identifying the most effective ways to enact specific change initiatives, given contextual, organizational and individual/group level conditions The case conversation in this issue consists of eight cases that there are some different approaches to sustainability integrity. Ma’ria and Devuyst examine the challenges of prioritizing stakeholder interests in SGM, a mining company In Congo. The context in which the company operates is fraught with strong social tensions, which cause corporations to be often strongly delegitimized by citizens. The case clarifies also the future steps required to complete the process, and in particular the need to develop new forms of dialogue among a variety of stakeholders. Hunter and Van Wassenhove present the...
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...job both challenging and enjoyable. All employees have a contract detailing terms and conditions relating to their own particular role. This handbook has been designed to give additional important and useful information about employment with us; our expectations of you and your colleagues and the benefits we provide. It is divided into two main sections: • • Section 1 – contains contractual entitlements which form part of your contract of employment. Section 2 – contains important information on the discretionary benefits available to employees and general information about your employment with Marks & Spencer. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the express written permission of Marks & Spencer p.l.c. Employee Handbook Contents Our People Principles 5-6 Reporting Accidents Personal Accident 7 7 7-8 9 10 11 11-12 12 13-14 14-15 16-18 19-20 20 Personal Life Assurance First Aid Regulations Handling Merchandise, Money & Equipment Personal Property Computer Security Whistle-blowing: Public Interest Disclosure Discrimination, Harassment, Bullying & Victimisation Standards of Conduct Misconduct Gross Misconduct Disciplinary Policy Leaving the Company And Finally Maternity/Adoption Maternity/Adoption Leave Maternity/Adoption Pay Paternity Leave Parental Leave 20 21 21 22 22 29 29 29 29...
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...Abstract Social Darwinism is a political theory that emphasizes struggle and competition, and claims that human racial stock improves by allowing ruthless and unrestrained competition in the economic realm. Social Darwinism apples the concepts of biological evolution to social and moral development by stating that it is social evolution through the "survival of the fittest" in a struggle for an existence in which the strong prevail and the weak are defeated. Currently, we use the terms of Darwinism, natural selection, and evolution interchangeably and use them to describe a process which uses random variations, and mutations are preserved through a process of natural competition that favors beneficial changes. A History and Understanding of Social Darwinism The term Darwinism may cause confusion in some people because they confuse Darwinism, the scientific theory, with Social Darwinism, the ethical theory. In truth, except for the name and a few basic principles, the two ideas do not have much in common and has very little to do with Charles Darwin, the English naturalist who famously suggested the scientific theory which states that a branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection. Social Darwinism is a term that started near the end of the nineteenth century and describes a set of social policies and theories designed to reduce the power of government with theories that attempt to explain the biological cause of human behavior. For the...
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...Behaving entrepreneurially in today’s turbulent competitive business world is becoming increasingly importance for larger businesses. Drawing on relevant theories and at least one case study presented in the lectures in this module, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this argument. The Importance of Behaving Entrepreneurially The strengths in number far outweigh the weaknesses for this argument; however this essay will explore the impact these factors have on companies. Smaller, more entrepreneurial businesses are rising through the ranks, and if the larger firms are to keep up and retain their market position, they need to follow suit, by behaving entrepreneurially. My key arguments here is organisations do need to behave more entrepreneurially due to globalisation, hyper competition, economic turbulence, technological change, industries merging, ever-changing customer needs and markets becoming saturated. This essay will mainly focus on the analysis of three large companies; IBM (International Business Machines), Marks & Spencer and Continental Tyres. I will analyse where the companies were going right or wrong, and where they could have become more entrepreneurial. I will touch upon relevant theories that firms have used and will mention other companies that aid my analysis on behaving entrepreneurially in larger businesses. Entrpreneurial Culture- What is it? There are two main cultures that concern this argument; the Traditional Culture and the Entrepreneurial...
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...Paper Title: An Exploratory Study into Failure in Successful Organizations: The case of Marks & Spencer Author: K. Mellahi, P. Jackson and L. Sparks Journal : British Journal of Management, vol 13, 15-29 (2002) Web access: This journal can be accessed through the Polyu library: web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=8&sid=91e8f38e-e681-45f7-af1a-ac2cacb7d0f2%40sessionmgr12 Question: 1. Discuss the reasons of failure for M & S. Internal: 1 Top managers tended to underestimate the effect of external changes in the industry landscape and, at times, disbelieve external reports and studies. 2 M&S lost contact with its customers’ needs and wants. 3 Powerful managers focus on their own benefits in a large part, ignoring give some solutions to the development of company. 4 Some conceptions of management and old policy have become a block to develop in an entirely new circumstance. At the same time the leaders always avoid to answer some underlying problems and find some excuses. 5 a. Rather than continuously looking for new ways of managing the company under changing circumstances, it continued to preserve and do what was previously successful. Be cause of its long and continuous success. b. M&S not only stuck to its previous routine procedures, but when change was under- taken, the company initially exhibited modification routines by using similar change and modifica-tions made to the management and operation systems throughout...
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...CONTENTS Task 1.1 …….………………………………………………….………………………………………………….…..Pg 4 Task 1.2 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...…Pg 7 Task 1.3…………………………………………………………………………….…………………………….……..Pg 14 Task 2.2…………………………………………………………………………….…………………………….……..Pg 15 Task 2.2…………………………………………………………………………….…………………………….……..Pg 18 Conclusion..…………………………………………………………….……………………………………….…...Pg 23 References.…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Pg 23 INTRODUCTION In our course of life, the relationships we build with others play a huge part in our daily activities. Inter human relationships should usually impact our way of life for the better. Should it begin to deteriorate, our physical and emotional state of beings suffers and experiences poor health. Relationships in the work environment are no different. As we spend more than half of our waking hour at work, it is of utmost importance that good work relationships are cultivated amongst colleagues and superiors alike and that we are comfortable doing what we are expected of at work. This report explores the various kinds of organizational structures there are in practice in the work environment and how leaders inculcate work cultures in their organizations and to what extent these structures and cultures work. We will also be investigating two different organizations and how best they operate to achieve their company visions and goals in place. 1.1 PRINCIPALS OF AN ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE Most organisations have a structure...
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...hospitality industries are hereby critically looked into; with pros and cons of the sources. 1.1 Sources of Funding available to Hospitality Industries: There are two main sources of funding which are generally available to hospitality industries especially chains of restaurants and hotels. These are the internal and external sources. The internal sources are those that can be sources through the business owner, borrowing from relatives and the retained earnings. Before embark in a business, there could be a saving by the owner to start and run the business with little or no risk. There is tendency to borrow fund from family and friends under mutual understanding whose repayment may not attract interests and with low risks. However, in case the business fails, it may tarnish the cordial relationship. It can as well leads to unnecessary interference with efforts to control the business. To put things right, an agreement can be entered into. Enhanced earning is the ploughing of the profit into the business after running it for a year. The enhanced earning should be after the payment of every deduction and tax. Its advantages lie on its readily availability, cheaper than external equity, no ownership dilution and its positive...
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...has enabled us to offer fully-integrated world class solutions to our clientele. Our alliances are based on mutual understanding and trust, sharing the same principles in business ethics with our partners, an attribute that has proven to be a strong competitive advantage for MAS over the years. Our joint venture partners include: | MAST Industries, Inc., USA | | Triumph International Overseas Limited, HK | | Speedo International Limited, UK | | Stretchline (UK) Limited, UK | | Ets Lucien Noyon Et Cie, France | | Prym Intimates Group Ltd, HK | | Brandot International Limited, USA | | Labyrinth Solutions Holdings, USA | | Tradecard, Inc., USA | | NSL Infratech (Private) Limited, India | MAS Intimates Offering customers highly differentiated intimate wear, flawless designs blended with exquisite quality, this is where perfection is revealed in every intricate detail. Drawing from 25 years of experience in lingerie manufacturing, MAS Intimates offer niche market intimate wear of unparalleled quality. With 12 world class manufacturing facilities in operation across Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh & Indonesia, together with design offices situated in New York, Hong Kong, UK and Colombo, we service some of the most renowned global intimate brands. Sharing a long standing strategic partnership with Victoria’s Secret, the company currently manufactures for Victoria’s Secret, Marks & Spencer, La Senza, GAP, Soma, DBA, H&M, Lululemon, Oysho...
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...Case Analysis Toyota Case Analysis I. Viewpoint For further analysis of this case, Ms. Rivera as a Marketing Manager is responsible to solve the dealing problem. II. Time Context In the year 1990’s different problem occurred. Toyota reduced part defects by 84%. It also reduced the ratio of inventories to sales by 35% versus 6%. III. Objectives a. To be able to implement the marketing strategy used in the said case. b. To be able to have a good relation in dealing with consumers needs and wants. c. To be able to maximize operating performance and financial returns to ensure growth for the company’s future. d. To be able to classify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that the company have. e. To be able to explain the solutions in the major problem of Toyota. IV. Statement of the problem Major: Competition will arise. Toyota’s has a closest competitor regarding on its consumers – Ford motor vehicles and Mercedes. It is a problem on how they can implement their marketing strategy to stay on top amidst of the consumers demands. Minor: 1. A reduction on ratio of inventories to sales by 35 percent versus 6 percent. 2. Toyota relied on identical suppliers as of Ford motor vehicles and Mercedes. 3. Easy access on the internet that may cause imitation on each competitor’s latest idea. V. Areas of Consideration | |Production & operation |Marketing...
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